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

[KatFUTUREnurse]

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?

[NICUmiiki, DNP, NP]

Assaulted by patients? Yes. In the ER, dealing with confused patients experiencing a full on psych crisis tends to put you in the way of harm. No matter how much therapeutic communication I learned in school, the only thing that makes you safer is experience, security, and clear policies on holding psych patients.

Contact with bodily fluids? Yes. Usually not related to psych patients. A confused (medically related) man pulled his foley out and managed to splash his urine in my face... Mmmmm urine..... Then, one time I was helping hold a kid for an I&D. As soon as the NP tried to inject lidocaine, the thing burst and squirted with alarming precision directly into my eye. Yep.... Abscess juice in my eye. Another time, while helping remove a bedpan from under a morbidly obese woman, I noticed than the pan was dry. I pulled a little more and about 2 gallons of liquid poo that missed the bedpan but was trapped between her skin and the stretcher mattress came pouring all over the floor... And my legs. I cavi wiped my legs.

Sigh....

[Tinkk]

I'm not a nurse yet, but I worked as a nursing assistant for a year...I've had many incidents of residents trying to choke me, bite me, hit me, cuss my eardrums out, making sexual remarks and gestures at me, and coming in contact with bodily fluid is inevitable...obviously wear gloves, but stuff happens. I remember one time I was feeding a resident with dementia but they had been pocketing which I didn't realize and then they sneezed and spit and food flew everywhere. Sometimes it's just inevitable, lol.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

Grossest thing to date: Putting an NG down a young lady with a bowel obstruction due to her Crohn's. Young lady projectile vomits a few liters of fecal matter vomit all down the front of me, neck to shoes. I managed to finish putting the tube in, secured it, tossed towels on the floor and went into her bathroom, pulled the assist button and proceeded to vomit myself.

The charge nurse got scrubs for me, we cut my uniform off (no WAY was I dragging it over my head), put on surgical booties, ditched my shoes and went to a residents sleep room with a bottle of Hibicleanse with which I totally poured over my body and scrubbed until I thought I would bleed.

I smelled that smell for a week. I figured if I survived that, I could survive anything.

You know you are a nurse when you can read this while eating lunch and continue eating without a problem.

[NicuGal, MSN, RN]

Absolutely lol

[Horseshoe, BSN, RN]

I worked ICU for 10 years. Now I work PRN endo and PRN OR for an elective plastic surgery center.

I have never been kicked, hit, spit on, or choked. Although ICU patients can be disoriented, I just have never been the victim of violence. My endo patients do not have dementia. They receive propofol and sometimes fentanyl during their procedures and are not incredibly disoriented when they wake up. The surgery patients mainly get propofol and versed, so they do not wake up combative or very confused either.

I have been exposed to all manner of body fluids. I have had one needle stick, but that was my fault.

[Tex.]

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...

THIS. I really should wear my glasses, but I don't, so I always miss these snot-shows. Today, I happened to be at the foot of the bed, and the blinds were open, sun shining brightly, and my patient coughed...HARD.... And a lugie came flying RIGHT AT MY HEAD, - good 10 feet from where he was. It was like life in slow motion, and I actually SAW it. Makes me want to wear my glasses tomorrow. And wear a mask at all times. Eww.

[emmy27]

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.

I don't think it's "part of being a nurse" in the sense that it's something we should be okay with, but I do think it's "part of being a nurse" in the sense that assault by patients with little or no employer backup or followup is part of the current reality of nursing (something you're tragically well acquainted with) and we should not downplay that fact to outsiders or prospective nursing students.

[Horseshoe, BSN, RN]

I don't think it's "part of being a nurse" in the sense that it's something we should be okay with, but I do think it's "part of being a nurse" in the sense that assault by patients with little or no employer backup or followup is part of the current reality of nursing (something you're tragically well acquainted with) and we should not downplay that fact to outsiders or prospective nursing students.

True, but it's far more common in certain areas compared to others. I work endo and elective plastic surgery. The chances of being assaulted in these areas is miniscule. Working ER or psych or with a demented, combative population is going to significantly up the odds.