Cocaine Binge

[NewERLPN]

i have been racking this situation through my head and needed some outside input. so, the other day a police officer presented to the er with a 30ish male. pd stated that he pulled over the pt for failure to stop at a stop sign. when he approached the vehicle the pt was shoving bags of cocaine in his mouth. since he had done such a good job and got it all the officer couldn't charge him with posession and brought him to the er as a voluntary pt. when he arrived his bp was about 210/110 and p 150. the pt was cooperating until pd left. he then decided that he wanted to sign out ama. i was not in charge of this pt but was helping with his care. the md in charge is historically non-agressive with pt treatment. instead of doing a 1013 (which we call it in ga, the form to make treatment mandatory), he allowed the pt to leave. his nurse and i did everything we could to convince him to stay for treatment. finally, the other nurse took off his bp cuff and said that she would see him later and allowed him to leave. of course, he came in 1 hour later as a code and didn't last long. i just don't understand why a 1013 wasn't imposed (if anything to cover the mds butt). i just needed to get it off my chest and see if you guys had any relateable experiences. i hope no hippaa violations

thanks

[NewERLPN]

Thanks for the feedback y'all. Generally if someone comes into the ED, well my ED at least, under the influence of any substance we can 1013 them for a preliminary screening at least. I know I can't fix everybody but darn if I don't try. The wierd thing is that he had done it 1 year prior. Idiot. Oh well.

[teeituptom, BSN, RN]

All good things come to he who waits

If he waited and got treatment he would still be alive so he could do it all over again