Do you get hit/spit on? Does body fluids splash on you?

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Does that ever happen to you as a nurse? I was told by an ICU nurse that she was punched/spit on by a patient before or sometimes when her fellow nurses try to insert some type of chest tube in, blood will potentially splash on you. Isn't that not safe if someone else's bodily fluids get on you though?

She didn't go into much detail because we we're on an elevator and I told her that my major is nursing and we just went our separate ways after we got off the elevator... But I want to know much more, so is that true?

Specializes in Pedi.

Yes. In nursing, you will encounter: feces, urine, vomit, snot, blood, sweat, tears, saliva, breast milk, period blood, and possibly lady partsl fluid and semen. Can't say I've ever dealt with the latter 2 in pediatrics though I guess it's not entirely unheard of since one time a colleague did walk in on our infant patient's teenage parents having sex in the shower.

I have been hit, kicked, bit, spat at, vomited on, peed on and probably more that I'm forgetting. Grossest thing was the time I gave meds via G-tube and as I was washing my hands at the sink a good ten feet away from the bed, the kid proceeded to projectile vomit them into my hair.

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Emergency, Trauma.

People haven't mentioned tracheal secretions...

Gotta love brain injured pts in sub-acute unit that love to hog luggies towards anyone and anybody-narrowly missed me while I was in my PN program during clinicals.

Guess it made me always vigilant on auctioning, even when I don't see that many trachs these days-the joys of being a trach/vent nurse... :p

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Specializes in Pedi.
People haven't mentioned tracheal secretions...

Gotta love brain injured pts in sub-acute unit that love to hog luggies towards anyone and anybody-narrowly missed me while I was in my PN program during clinicals.

Guess it made me always vigilant on auctioning, even when I don't see that many trachs these days-the joys of being a trach/vent nurse... :p

That's what I meant when I said snot. You haven't really been a pediatric nurse until a kid has shot a snot rocket at you from their trach.

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Specializes in ICU.
People haven't mentioned tracheal secretions...

I had a crazy trach patient at one job who had perfect aim. She could hit someone from all the way across the room. I watched her hit one of my coworkers in the eye from her bed while he was standing in the doorway. :barf02:

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Emergency, Trauma.
That's what I meant when I said snot. You haven't really been a pediatric nurse until a kid has shot a snot rocket at you from their trach.

So true...or undigested feed via vomiting... :eek:

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I'm very disappointed in the number of posters who think that patients assaulting nurses is "part of being a nurse". No it's not. I was assaulted by a patient, not a psych patient, not a demented old person but a nasty man whose daughter said he used to beat his wife. I required surgery and I have chronic pain. My workplace added to the trauma with the way they handled it, or rather didn't handle it. Having said that I have also been bitten and scratched by demented old things, kicked in the back by a labouring woman and threatened by the ******* family of a dying patient. Not on, any of it. That's why I don't work in patient contact any more. It sucks.

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Specializes in SICU, trauma, neuro.

Kungpoopanda, I'm so sorry that happened to you!! You're absolutely right, getting physically assaulted should not be an expected part of the job. It's no more acceptable to assault a nurse than it is to assault a LEO, or anyone for that matter.

I'm not talking about 90 y/o's with dementia. I'm talking about people who would have criminal charges pressed against--no question--had their victim been anyone other than their nurse.

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@kungpoopanda Your experience is very similar to mine in nursing, and seems to be an increasingly common experience by my colleagues. It is why I REFUSE to work in direct patient care anymore... even if I have to change careers, I won't wreck my body and destroy my quality of life so the hospital and CEO's can get rich. Client-centered care has destroyed nursing. Until better safety protocols and consequences are put into place to protect nurses from abuse by the hands of patients I won't be taking care of the public. I did not become educated to be treated like a whipping boy!

Nursing is a legally categorized as an "essential service" where I live. Thus, we cannot strike for our rights and unions aren't effective in protecting our safety. Even if it were legal for nurses to strike, I'd have a hard time ethically leaving the innocent and vulnerable without care... So, instead I will walk away. I wish we had some sort of recourse to improve the poor working conditions and degradation of the profession.

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Specializes in School Nursing, Hospice,Med-Surg.

I only did floor nursing (med/surge & oncology) for about 3 or so years and, in that time, was spit on multiple times & had many patients throw punches at me or grab me, pull me up close, and try to break my fingers or whatever body part they could grab hold of. One patient in DTs getting plasma unspiked his bag and the entire unit spilled all over the floor. I found him slipping and sliding in it. I took my 5'0" self in and slip and slided his 6'2" self back to the bed before getting the mess cleaned up. Later I had a blind, third stage syphilis patient with diarrhea who went all over the floor in his room. It took 3 of us with garbage bags rubber banded around our legs to clean him & his room up.

There were so many more that I'm sure I've forgotten or gratefully blocked out. Like others have said, when you work with people in their weakest, sickest moments we are the people there to care for them. When I am at my worst (not that I've ever been as bad as any of the above) I am terribly grateful for the nurses who come running toward me to help.

I thought I went to school nursing to get away from the worst of that but I will say I'm vomited on from time to time and do come in contact with plenty of pee and poop. The psych stuff is limited, thankfully. No kids have tried to harm me, yet. The worst days are when I'm vomited on and it goes inside my scrubs. Thank heavens for the extra pair I keep here at work.

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Specializes in Psychiatry, Forensics, Addictions.

Unfortunately, assaults are a daily reality where I work. But, we receive Hazardous Duty pay and are eligible for retirement after 20 years. Violence may be "unacceptable" to most nurses, but in forensic psychiatry, we have to deal with it.

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One of my very first actual patients in nursing school was a young man with late-stage brain CMV (demented, blind, and mostly incoherent at 20 years of age--incredibly sad), secondary to AIDS, who projectile-vomited all over me quite unexpectedly. I was, needless to say, slightly freaked out, especially since it got on in my eyes (nope, not wearing a mask with a shield--live and learn, right?) Thankfully, gastric juices aren't particularly hospitable to HIV, so no worries--but it did give me lots to think about!

Since that time, after working Peds, PICU, pedi and adult sub-acute, and psych, I've been sprinkled or splashed with every possible bodily fluid (except amniotic--I can't stand L&D, so I never got near the stuff)--I guess you just get used to the concept. No more freak-outs for me, I just roll my eyes and make a bee-line for the nearest sink.

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Unfortunately its an experience almost every nurse goes through, multiple times. It is a job hazard (which most jobs have). Being careful can minimize the number of times that it happens but rest assured it will happen. My first incident was when I was helping a co-worker with a patient on CBI (continuous bladder irrigation), she was emptying the drainage bag and somehow wound up spraying bloody urine (double whammy of nasty) all over both of us.

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