phone calls no outsider would believe

rodggang · Oct 18, 2006

Great posting.......... :monkeydance:

We have lots of Nurse calls. The weirdest one I had was:

Caller: Can you get STD's from a sheep?

Nurse: Excuse me (OMG did I really hear this right)

Caller: Can you get STD's from a sheep? :barf01:

Nurse: I think that you should call the local vet!

I really wanted to ask - How many other partners has your sheep been with?

Caller: I think I got freon in sprayed in my face.

Nurse: How did you get freon sprayed in your face.

Caller: I was chipping the ice off of the freezer with an ice pick.......

Nurse: Duh....:smackingf Your welcome to come in and we will be happy to check you out.

Of course all of these people had the "redneck" accent.

What fun we have.

bethin · Oct 18, 2006

:roll I wouldn't believe this if I hadn't been working in the medical field.
I'm not in the emergancy department, and this wasn't a phone call, but it proves that people really can be that clueless. I work in neonatal intensive care, and the family of a newly admitted 25 weeker wanted to know do the nurses stay late when there's a "really sick one like this." You just want to say, yeah, we stay about 30 minutes later, then the babies are on their own for the night.

Reminds me of when my grandma asked me why I have to go to work on holidays and why I have to work nights. I told her that the hospital is open 24/7. She said "oh, I had no idea".

TazziRN, RN · Oct 18, 2006

The worst phone call did not come to the ER but to the public. One night I was triaging and a young woman came in sobbing, being held up by an older male. They said they were here because someone from the coroner's office had called the girl and told her that her brother was dead. I called every EMS agency in three counties and there were no fatal accidents anytime in the previous 24 hours. PLUS: people are never notified by phone that a loved one is dead. Someone from law enforcement or the coroner's office would show up at the door. Within a week or two there was a huge article in the paper that they had arrested the jerk who was doing this to people for laughs.

medsurgnurse, RN · Oct 18, 2006

Anytime you think you've seen the freaky of the freaky - someone always comes along that raises that freaky limit ----

You are so right.

BSNtobe2009 · Oct 18, 2006

I occasionally floated into a NICU several years ago. One of their babies had a very attentive dad; he was there every day.
Until he asked a nurse about that hormone they gave the baby to make him grow fast.
Excuse me?
Well, it turns out his girlfriend of about 4 months told him that the baby was his. Before it was born the doctors had given it a hormone to make it grow fast.
The nurse got a doctor to come and talk to "dad."
Needless to say he didn't visit the baby after that.

Can you imagine anyone being as to so stupid as to think that they could possibly father a baby when they have only been with someone for 4 months?

Good reasons why the sex education programs need to continue in high schools.

santhony44, MSN, RN, NP · Oct 18, 2006

Once when working pediatric telephone triage, I heard my co-worker in the next cubicle end a call and start laughing.

Mom had asked: "I'm going out to a party and taking my baby with me. Do I need to put a jacket on her?"

That wasn't covered in our protocols.

We had very good protocols, and they were computerized. We did our calls on the computer, so you could see the last time someone had called concerning that patient.

Sometimes we'd have a parent who had just called, call back and talk to a different nurse. Usually they were looking for different answers to their questions. (Like, "OMG yes 101 is a really high fever in a four year old with no other symptoms, take the kid to the ER right away!") The parents always seemed to be befuddled when they got the same advice from two different people!

We got a lot of people who wanted to take the kiddo in for a hangnail, but occasionally we got the opposite. I remember one call from the mom of an asthmatic five year old. Not only was he not getting better with his breathing treatment at home, he was not able to talk to mom! Our protocol said to have mom hang up and dial 911. We could upgrade a disposition but not downgrade. Mom was like, are you sure? Yes, ma'am, my protocol indicates that you need to call 911 for that degree of severity of breathing difficulty.

Twenty minutes later grandma calls to argue with me that the kid did not need 911! Not only had they not called, they had not put the kid in the car and driven in, either! They would've been in the ER by then if they had.

That's when you really wish you could reach through the phone line and get your hands around someone's neck. "This is what not being able to breathe feels like! You want everybody to worry about maybe having to pay for an ambulance while you are turning blue?!?"

StNeotser, ASN, RN · Oct 18, 2006

I don't work in ER so do not really receive many funny calls.

However, did once have a dying patient who had only a niece, nephew and cousin as relatives. They had all been told that she may die that night.

So at 10pm one of the relatives called up saying they would all very much like to be with patient at time of death and though they knew I wouldn't be able to say when she may die, could I give them a two hour window?

Fazed · Oct 18, 2006

Just wondering...I'm not an ER nurse - still a student but I cringe whenever I see the recent asthma medication commercial. It is the one where the mother says "I called the hospital and told them 'get ready, my son is having a severe asthma attack'". All I can think of is people calling the ER saying 'get ready my husband is having a severe hang nail' etc.

babes690 · Oct 18, 2006

i have recently qualified, i was working on the gynaecology ward (therefore it only had female patients!!!!) at our hospital as a student (it was my last one of four nights) and at 3am a young lady rung up and said: can i ask you how my mum is?

i had been at work for 6 hours and wanted to go to bed when this happened i managed to ask the woman who her mum was with out getting mad. it annoyed me that she thought we should know her voice over the phone and would give her information just on that basis.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Oct 18, 2006

i have the lovely job of answering the phones in the ec every night.
yeah, i just love the callers that want to know how long the wait is. larry, i like your response, i'm going to use it. and i've had people try to "call ahead", and i always want to say, "listen, this ain't outback steakhouse - we don't have call-ahead seating!" i've often thought maybe we should hand out those little things from restaurants (that buzz and light up when your table is ready) to our patients - then they could go grab a drink at our starbucks, or browse the gift shop while they're waiting to be seen.

actually, i was at the er last week, and they had those! they also had "family waiting rooms" which i thought was terrific because all those huge obnoxious families that take up all the chairs, complain loudly, bring dinner, order pizza, etc. were confined in the separate family waiting rooms, and i could lay on two of the chairs in the waiting room in peace and quiet, waiting to be seen for my dural tear.

MS._Jen_RN, ASN, RN · Oct 18, 2006

i have recently qualified, i was working on the gynaecology ward (therefore it only had female patients!!!!) at our hospital as a student (it was my last one of four nights) and at 3am a young lady rung up and said: can i ask you how my mum is?
I had been at work for 6 hours and wanted to go to bed when this happened i managed to ask the woman who her mum was with out getting mad. it annoyed me that she thought we should know her voice over the phone and would give her information just on that basis.

I'm not in the ER but, people do that to us all the time!

Me:" Hello . . .. ."

Caller:"I just wanted to see if my Mom's test results were back (or the like)?"

Me: And you Mom is. . . . . ?

I also got this call recently.

Me: "Hello. .. ."

Caller:"I've been try to call so/so's room and the phone is busy."

Me:"I just came out of her room and she was talking on the phone.

Caller:"Oh. . .Well, could you check on her and see if she's OK?"

Really-she's awake and talking on the phone. Wait your turn and you can talk to her too.

You also have to love the people who call in the middle of the night and ask why their loved one is not answering the phone. Maybe they're asleep. . . .they are sick and in the hospital. Maybe they're tired of talking to you.

~Jen

mom2Alina · Oct 18, 2006

We seem to get calls with patients asking if they can book a private room for after their delivery all the time. Firstly, our private rooms are first come, first service so we don't know if there will be any available until AFTER the delivery.

But the disturbing part of these phones calls is that they are usually around 4-6 in the morning!?! and the women isn't even due for a couple of weeks!!

Why would someone be worrying about a private room at 4am....

Another time I answered the phone and the lady on the other end told me she thought her water had just broke and she was 32 weeks. I told her to come in right away so that we could check her and monitor the baby. Then she proceeded to tell me " Well...the thing is my husband just hit my G-Spot, so I'm not sure if it's my water or something else, also he just 'finished' inside me, should I leave it there so you guys can check it?"

Ummm ok....how do you respond to something like that?