Embarrassing/Clumsy Moments!

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Well, I just had to laugh at myself for this graceful moment..

I was filling out an application at a LTC/SNF, sitting in their nice little seating area in the grand dining room during lunch time. After an hour of rewriting my resume for them onto the facility's application and filling out about 8 essay questions about myself, I get stand up to hand my application to the secretary... Immediately I realize that my foot had fallen asleep, but I was past the point of no return and my brain was telling me to 'put my foot down before you lose your balance!' However, when I put my weight on my totally numb foot, my ankle just caves in my cute little pumps and I nearly fall over. I hobble/fall as best I to the arm rest of the chair I was sitting in, but I have already caused quite a commotion (I think I frightened a few little old ladies). :grn: The secretary, a cna, and the director of human resources all rush over and ask if I'm ok, bless their hearts. I try to explain/laugh that my foot fell asleep and I didn't realize it until I stood up on it. Whoops! I'm at home 'rice'-ing it now, and just thought I'd share my clumsy moment with y'all! :bugeyes:

(and I've been a ballerina for 20 years! jeesh!)

Have any funny/embarrassing/clumsy moments to share? I'm sure we all need a good laugh..

i don't have a nursing story because i'm only in rn school, but there is a terrible memory i can't erase.

i used to sing in a church choir and we traveled to different cities to sing. this one time we had a long drive before the service we were to participate in. were sitting in front of the whole congregation, i was in the center.

i was a little nervous because this was not an english speaking church service we were also warned that walking out, especially if you're in the choir is a big don't do.

well, the piano player finished playing her song and was on her way down a couple of stairs where the congregation sat. she tripped on the microphone cord and fell, pulling down the microphones, the music stands and almost a keyboard that stood nearby. people helped her up and she went to sit in her seat.

the exhaustion must have caught up with me because i started to laugh so hard that i couldn't stop. a preacher got up to the pulpit and gave a rather long, touching sermon and i could see people crying in the congregation. the whole time i kept laughing like crazy, but trying to do it quietly and choke it down. other choir members started to poke me to stop shaking the bench. you can imagine me laughing harder.

by the time the preacher finished and it was time to sing, my body (and apparently mind) was on such an overload, that i started to cry hard! again i couldn't stop for the longest time.

you never know which direction stage fright will take you.

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Specializes in Geriatrics.

This occured when I was 13 yrs old and had landed my first job as a volunteer at a local hospital. I was asked to pass ice water in pitchers to all the patients on the unit, the pitchers were located next to the ice machine. I went to the ice machine and sure enough the pitchers were standing there on a shiny new cart. I dilligently filled each one with ice & water and proceeded to pass them out. As I was finishing my assignment, the Head Nurse came running out of one of the rooms, carrying a pitcher. She then asked if I had passed all the pitchers out like this one, I said yes. She then explained to me the difference between a water pitcher and a urinal!

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Trying to impress a cute resident I always joke around with a lot, I entered a pt's room doing my sexy walk, tripped, crashed into the bed-table, spilled ice water all over the pt's sheets, and fell down to the floor where a open, half-full urinal was placed, emptying the contents all over my scrub pants...

The resident threw himself to help me up, tripped over the SCD cord, and lost his glasses. Together we wandered on all fours across the room, looking for them,while the pt kept screaming "What in the hell is going on down there"?

The glasses turned out to be covered with pee. While the doc frantically tried to wash and dry them off, one of the lens fell out and smashed into pieces on the floor.

I hope the resident never visits this forum :D

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Specializes in Peds Urology,primary care, hem/onc.

I wear a long white lab coat each day. We have a computer in each exam room (we have an EMR) with a little stool. I normally choose this to sit on when I am seeing a patient so I can chart at the same time. I cannot tell you how many times the bottom of my lab coat manages to get snagged on the little doohickey that makes the chair go up and down. I am very tall and move fast (albeit clumsily) and it practically yanks me down from the waste. If it happens really fast, all of my pens fall out of my top pocket too! I cannot tell you how many of my patients/parents get startled when I do this! Yes I may not be able to get off a chair without drama but trust me...I KNOW what I am talking about!!!!

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I was recovering a patient who was a doctor and could not get the bed to go down straight. so I had to do the head down then feet down back and forth so it was incredibly embarrassing for me. After the patient was discharged, I tried to put the bed down and of course it goes down normally. :no: hopefully he won't remember me with all that Versed...

When I was working at the hospital, I remember a young male new grad was putting a catheter into another young guy and the nurse fainted!! I felt horrible for the guy, so embarrassing. But also too funny!

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I once had a nun in home health whom shall I say, got her moneys worth out of me doing extras. I would take out

her garbage, get her mail etc.. but one day she asked me to water her plants. One was hanging from a ceiling over her

makeshift Alter. There I was on a chair leaning way over to try to get to the plant, when you know it I lost my balance and fell.

Lordy Lordy I fell right on the Jesus statue! But didn't break it Thank God! Being Catholic I always laugh at the thought and

say there's no one as manipulative as a cute old nun.

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I was a book worm growing up. We had a spelling bee in middle school, and the winner of each class would then compete against each other to move on to compete against the winners from other classes for a school champion. For some reason a case of the giggles hit me that day and I laughed like a hyena at every single one of my classmates who spelled a word wrong. It got to the point that if I started laughing, they would just stop and look at the teacher for clarification. I didn't do it to be cruel; in fact, I know how horrible it looked but I couldn't stop! I ended up winning the spelling bee for my class and then moved on to the school-wide one. Spelled my first word wrong, was the very first person out :sniff: Guess that's what I get for laughing at my classmates, intentional or not!

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Specializes in Rehab, Med-surg, Neuroscience.

In nursing school, one student was bending over to do compressions during our CODE simulation and his pants slipt right down the crotch. It was one of those SimLabs where they videotape the whole thing and play it back for us after it's all over, so we all got to see it again lol. We never let him live it down.

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Awkward moment: saying postmortem care instead of postpartum care---- terrifying and so embarrassing

This is when I went from hospice clinicals to OB clinicals while in nursing school!

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This occured when I was 13 yrs old and had landed my first job as a volunteer at a local hospital. I was asked to pass ice water in pitchers to all the patients on the unit the pitchers were located next to the ice machine. I went to the ice machine and sure enough the pitchers were standing there on a shiny new cart. I dilligently filled each one with ice & water and proceeded to pass them out. As I was finishing my assignment, the Head Nurse came running out of one of the rooms, carrying a pitcher. She then asked if I had passed all the pitchers out like this one, I said yes. She then explained to me the difference between a water pitcher and a urinal![/quote']

How funny!! At least you passed the water lol!

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Specializes in Med-Surg, LTC, Psych, Addictions..

Oh My God! Almost peed myself.

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Specializes in Emergency.

I have a couple. In university I was in a large lecture theatre for anatomy class it was the second midterm. I wasn't feeling well so rushed through the test and was the first to finish. I stood up, vagaled myself, fainted and fell down he stairs. Everyone in this class full of future physicians and nurses laughed except the prof who was super concerned and made a huge deal of it which was almost worse. I managed to reassure the prof I didn't want a rewrite and get out to the hall before throwing up in a garbage can. I didn't go back to class for two weeks, but I actually did ok on the test.

I recently was checking a patient for orientation and told him he was wrong when he stated the correct date, in front if several co-workers.

I have not shared my most embarrassing nursing moment as it would make me automatically identifiable to anyone I work with, but it's a doozy;)

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