Gagging a Drunk

[Jerry 75]

While working in the ER I saw allot of illegal and dangerous behavior by many staff when it comes to management of agressive loud mouth drunks. At one hospital the staff was sick of the guys mouth so they restrained him and locked him out of sight and sound in the coffee room. Everything was fine untill he kicked over the large aluminum coffee container and it smashed against the floor then the security guards ran in and worked him over and the female nurse got a few wacks in to.

Another time I was attending to a pt. when my 2 male Nurse partners wheel in a male drunk restrained to the gurny with a pillow case balled up and taped into his mouth as a gag. And the Nurse was holding him down by his hair. The Pt. I ws taking care of asked me why that pt. was gaged. I mentioned to my partner to get the gag out of his mouth he might puke and aspirate his response to me mind your **&%^$## business!

I went to my Charge Nurse and mentioned it to her "I didn't see anything" she was hiding out in the Radio room to avoid involvement. Why people do stupid things like this I will never know? They risk injuring the pt. or killing the patient and also put anyone else who witnessed it at risk for not reporting it! they coulda just put a mask over his mouth and let him yell.

[Gr8Dane]

Perhaps the ER is not for you

[Jerry 75]

I worked the Er for like 14 years. No problem with that just didn't enjoy having co-workers do stupid things that pout the Patient at risk as well as put legal liability on the hospital.

[LovebugLPN]

Why didn't you report this stuff? You are just as guilty by watching and doing nothing. If reporting it did nothing you should have gone farther up the chain of command.

[tewdles, RN]

My mouth was literally hanging open as I read the original post. Unbelievable behavior on the part of the ER staff, IMHO.

[FlyingScot, RN]

Where the **** did you work? Medics rolling bums in the street then dropping them off in the ER just to **** off the staff, patient beatings, gagging drunks. I'm not calling ******** yet but your stories are so outrageous they sound more like Hollywood fiction than real incidents in the ER. I work in a large city with a high violent crime rate and our share of obnoxious patients but come on. NOBODY I know has ever pulled the stunts you have desribed here and on other posts. Okay, I've seen hair held to keep a person from actively biting but it was certainly not pulled and it was only for a second until a staff member could get a better grip before a crack head bit some fingers off. If you still work there do the public a favor and report this crap before someone gets hurt. That place sounds like it's staffed with animals not humans.

[Anisettes, BSN, RN]

Unfortunately, I saw this once. There was guy was in 4-pt restraints with a sheet around his chest to keep him from sitting up on the stretcher, but he was still straining and spitting at his nurse and a tech. I saw him through the divide of our med room where I was signing out Demerol for my patient.

When I came back through to grab an AntiBx, I saw that in addition to the above, now the guys head was taped to the stretcher and he had a roll of kerlix sticking out of his mouth. When I said to his nurse "What are you doing, he's going to choke." He said, "I hope so, he spit on me for the last time."

The patient WAS completely out of control, but that really bothered me. When he didn't take it out, I went to the charge nurse and she was completely non-plussed. She told me that 'Joey' knew what he was doing and to take care of my own patients. I was a fairly new nurse at the time (and fairly timid) but wished I had taken it further. Now, I laugh that I was EVER timid and if I saw such a thing now, I'd take the damn kerlix out myself and dare that nurse to put it back in.

Some things never change

[webmansx, ASN, RN]

I may be switching specialties to er next year march (if things work out) now i'm not so sure ER sounds scary!!!

[Vito Andolini]

Nurses deserve to be safe and we are responsible for patients' safety, too.

Any restraint of patients must be done humanely, respecting the patients' dignity and safety. It should be the least restrictive yet effective restraint, for the briefest necessary time. It may not be used punitively.

If a nurse is getting carried away, he or she needs to get help, re-assess, maybe remove him or herself from this patient's presence, and start reciting the

Serenity Prayer - while ducking projectiles.

Tough call sometimes but we can't take out our anger on patients, under the guise of protecting ourselves and them. I know, it's easy to say, hard to do.

God bless those on the front lines.

[Larry77, RN]

We have spit hoods but I have never seen anyone "gagged"...sounds crazy to me. I've had more problems with police in our dept than staff.

Now I have taken care of plenty of patients I would have loved to gag...

[tommytrauma59]

I agree with Vito! Do only as much as you need to do to keep both yourself, your co-workers and the patient safe from harm!

I also heard of an incident that happened at a "neighboring hospital" where the er physician was having difficulty suturing the face of a drunk patient and made a poor decision to suture both of his ears to the stretcher's mattress so that he would hold still. Pretty pathetic if you ask me!

[Larry77, RN]

I agree with Vito! Do only as much as you need to do to keep both yourself, your co-workers and the patient safe from harm!

I also heard of an incident that happened at a "neighboring hospital" where the er physician was having difficulty suturing the face of a drunk patient and made a poor decision to suture both of his ears to the stretcher's mattress so that he would hold still. Pretty pathetic if you ask me!

I've heard this story too...hmmm

I have seen a large suture placed in a tongue to give you something to hold onto when repairing a tongue lac.