Tragedy in Melbourne

The unit that this patient was housed seems to be a mirror image of my
current work place.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/pa...1105-i086.html

I'm sure many of you heard about what happened at Thomas Embling
Hospital, Victoria.

As confident as I am with my restraint techniques, I think in such a
situation as being confronted by a patient with a knife (or anyone) restraint goes
out the door and survival come to mind.

The only incident that comes to mind is attending an alarm on a
general mental health unit 10 years ago. When I arrived a patient was
holding the OT hostage with a pair of scissors.

Everything I was taught (re: hostage situations) went out the window
and I just grabbed her arm and forced her to drop the scissors. In
hindsight probably the wrong thing to do.

IMO there is very little we can do to prepare ourselves for such
situations. The situations I refer to are the once or twice a career
major situations. Instinct takes over and we deal with it "at the
moment".

Anyone else have a similar situation they would like to share with the
group that classroom/textbook teaching took 2nd place and your
survival instincts kicked in to defuse a incident.

cheers