Embarrassing/Clumsy Moments!

cb_rn · Jun 2, 2010

I had a patient several times over the course of at least a couple of months that wasn't doing well after some major CT surgery. The patient and spouse were real sweethearts and requested me specifically to care for them any shift I worked. I was going through a stressful time and losing a great deal of weight but was too focused on life to bother buying new scrubs. Once, in the dead of night, I was checking chest tube output and talking about pain medicine. I stood up and...my scrubs just slid off my hips and fell right to my knees. Luckily the scrub top was also large and my granny panties weren't visible but it was still pretty embarassing. (I ended up making a belt out of IV tubing hahaha) I apologized profusely but neither of them were offended and later, when they were discharged, sent me a package on the unit a few weeks later a pair of smaller hospital scrubs with our medical center logo.

As a sidenote even though we tell patients we can't accept gifts other than food brought for the unit, many of us get occasional goodies sent from long term patients. I remember once one of the heart transplants sent every nurse that cared for them one of those jane seymour open heart necklaces.

CoffeemateCNA · Jun 2, 2010

When I got a new job, my preceptor and I were taking a lady off of a bedpan. It was totally full of urine, almost to the point of overflowing. We were both needed to keep the patient turned and cleaned up, so we didn't take the bedpan immediately to the bathroom. Instead, we set it on the floor at the bedside but pushed it out of the way.

Somehow during all of this the call light cord got wrapped around my foot. When we were finished I started to walk off, but ended up tripping and falling flat on my face as well as smacking my arms on the dresser and the wheelchair. All of this was in front of my new coworker, the 2 residents in the room, and the family on the other side of the room (the curtain had been pulled during cares).

My face missed the full bedpan by about 2 inches.

.....

I no longer keep bedpans on the floor. They go straight to the bathroom after use. :)

TDCHIM · Jun 2, 2010

This one isn't work-related, but just goes to show my general klutziness: I hold the dubious distinction of being the only person in the history of my high school to break an arm while running cross-country. The practice course we were running was near the stadium and there were several low chains slug between wood posts that served as gates during games. I had jumped a couple, but this was the end of my race, I was tired, and when I went to jump the last chain, I caught my foot in it and went down hard, putting my arm out to stop myself. Snap.

Now the funny part of this is the aftermath. I told my coach my arm was really hurting. He'd seen me fall but didn't realize that I'd seriously hurt myself (it was a closed fracture). So he told me to just keep going. I finished the practice course. Then I ran a mile warmdown with my arm throbbing. Then I cleaned up, went home, and tutored a friend of mine in algebra for a couple of hours. When my father, a former athletic trainer, arrived home, my arm had swollen to about twice its normal size and I could no longer move it. He took one look at me and dragged me to the hospital. I ended up missing all but one race of the season (which I ran with my arm still in a cast after I talked my doctor into it).

I am STILL teased about this incident by high school friends, my family, and my old coach (who felt awful about what had happened).

HmarieD · Jun 2, 2010

I once caught a scrub top that snapped up on a siderail and completely exposed myself to the pt and a respiratory therapist (the pt was totally out of it but not the RT unfortunately). Only pullovers for me after that.

EmmyBee · Jun 2, 2010

Of all my embarrassing moments, the one that made me cringe the most was when I was a student.

I did my LPN course in the military. During the first six weeks, the class was very big, consisting of about 200 students. (This is where my "moment" took place.) Once that phase of the course was completed, the students were then divided into about four classes, and subsequently sent off to their designated installation, to finish their schooling.

Since it was the military, we attended class in our Army uniforms, and each person carried their supplies/books in a ruck sack (large Army issued back pack). In class, we kept the ruck sacks on the backs of our chairs. So anyway, one day I was walking back to my seat from break. The majority of students had already come back, and were sitting in their seats talking. I had to pass about six students in my row, to get to my chair.

I was almost there, when all of a sudden, my large boots got completely tangled into the straps of some guy's ruck sack. This caused the chair to fall backwards, tripping me. I could feel myself falling and desperately tried to grab onto one of the tables around me, but to no avail. Needless to say, there was no where to go, but down. The ruck sack and chair were still connected to my feet, as I sat on the floor, trying to untangle myself.

By this time, everyone was back from break and the instructor was standing in front of the room. Everyone was quiet. I assume they were waiting to see if I was hurt. Then out of the blue, this guy who was already seated in my row, stood up and looked down at me. He yelled out to the class, "Help! She's fallen and she can't get up!" (For those of you who remember that commercial for the medic alert bracelet, with the little old lady. LOL) The entire room roared with laughter, as I sat there humiliated. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

TDCHIM · Jun 2, 2010

@Honey Bee: Lord, how awful! I used to hate guys like that.

That reminds me of the time when I was 16 and had an ancient stool collapse under me during the middle of choir practice. Seventy people stopped singing and stared at me as I picked myself up, beet red, off the floor. I was all of 115 lbs at the time, so it wasn't like I was a hippo. However, I still had a few guys making fun of me for being fat after that. It was so odd to hear the room go from full of sound to dead silent in the space of a second!

EmmyBee · Jun 2, 2010

@Honey Bee: Lord, how awful! I used to hate guys like that.
That reminds me of the time when I was 16 and had an ancient stool collapse under me during the middle of choir practice. Seventy people stopped singing and stared at me as I picked myself up, beet red, off the floor. I was all of 115 lbs at the time, so it wasn't like I was a hippo. However, I still had a few guys making fun of me for being fat after that. It was so odd to hear the room go from full of sound to dead silent in the space of a second!

Yeah, you know it's bad when everything in the entire room stops. Not a good sign, at all. :lol2:

MissSpectacular · Jun 2, 2010

lol @ all of these!

I was brand new at my LTC facility, and I saw a younger man in seil blue scrubs coming down the hall. Our physical therapists wear that particular blue scrub, so I assumed the man was a therapist. I started asking him a question about a particular patient, started to go into detail, and the man stopped me with a disgusted expression. "Do you know who I am?"

"Umm...a therapist?"

"I'M DOCTOR soandso!"

Anyone that has worked with doctors, particularly the ones with the inflated egos, will understand my embarrassment. :smackingf

mmt4 · Jun 2, 2010

. Immediately I realize that my foot had fallen asleep, but I was past the point of no return .

I had a fellow classmate have the same exact problem happen after a long exam in Growth and Development Across the Life Span. She managed to catch herself about halfway to the floor b/c the desks were set up in columns so she was in an aisle between two lines of desks.

JDZ344 · Jun 2, 2010

I was helping to do a transfer of a patient in the ER from the ambulance trolley to the bed. Leaned across too far, my trousers split from front to back. I didn't notice until someone was kind enough to point it out- an hour later!

Ruby Vee, BSN · Jun 2, 2010

while demonstrating to a group of nursing students the art of the im injection, i got too focused on the instruction and not enough focused on what i was doing -- put the im needle right through the web between my thumb and forefinger and impaled myself to the patient. ouch!

our sphygmomanometers used to be on wheels. night shift gets a little punchy. we were using the spygmos as skateboards (way before skateboards were invented.) since our hallways were far from level (very old building) you could get quite a bit of speed up going downhill. i was going full tilt down the hallway and really enjoying the ride when the nursing supervisor stepped out of the elevator just in front of me. i hit her, knocked her over, and smashed the sphygmo all to bits. fortunately the supervisor had a good sense of humor -- or she liked me. i never heard about that incident in an official manner, but sure took a lot of kidding over it!