If You Think You Haven't Heard It All...

[pagandeva2000, LPN]

Okay, I know that we all have wild stories to share about hospitals...here is the latest in mine. My husband works for the hospital police stationed at my job as a lieutenant. He and I were snuggling asleep in bed, his cell phone rings and I overhear a strange one...a patient (not psych or under arrest) snuck out of the hospital with no only a gown in 35 degree windy weather, and the sergeant that relieved my husband decided to call NYPD. This sergeant must have told them a story and a half, because next thing you know, helicopters are flying low on the grounds and the canine team was combing through ALL of the patient's rooms in search for this patient. Patients are scared to death, some have allergies, nurses wondering what the heck was going on...it was a fiasco!! Never found the patient. Hope he's safe...

[Satori77, ADN]

Maybe it was a slow night??

[pagandeva2000, LPN]

Maybe it was a slow night??

Heck, if THAT is slow, they need to get my letter of resignation...

I work in the clinic, so, we have our own horror stories:bugeyes:.

[egglady, LPN]

slow night or a full moon!!!!

[twistedpupchaser]

When we have a Pt abscond there is a process we have to follow which includes a full search in some cases. Several years ago a decomposed body was found in bushland not far from the hospital, still wearing the hospital gown and ID band. If there is any doubt about the Pt's safety they need to do a search.

We don't use helicopters though....thats pretty cool!

[SuesquatchRN, BSN, RN]

*snort*

Not nursing, but when I lived near the Staten Island Ferry I wake up one morning to choppers all over. Noisy, right over the terminal.

Some woman coming to work (pre-9/11, when you could still drive cars onto the boat) feel asleep with the car idling. When she awakened at the dock she knocked it into drive and drove into the harbor!

She was fine - the car, not so good.

[CHATSDALE]

i have had patients run off in the middle of the night..one what found in orange, tx about 200 miles away

one was found dead, not on my watch but it affected the whole ltc facility

[caliotter3]

When I worked at a LTC facility right out of high school, I was riding in the back of the car with my parents one afternoon and spotted one of our residents walking along on the sidewalk. I got my Dad to turn the car around, and we picked up the resident and took him back to the facility and I walked in with him. When I told the charge nurse on duty she acted like "oh, well". Another time I was driving by my place of employment and saw a resident walking along. I continued on my journey and called the facility to tell them about it when I got to a phone. A third time I was working on night shift when one of our new residents, a nonEnglish speaker, took off. His nurse called the police like we usually did, and got told to go look for him herself. One of the CNAs had stopped at a convenience store on the way to work, saw the guy on a payphone, and called the facility. He spoke Spanish and talked to the man, who refused to come back, so the nurse did the AMA paperwork. We had another resident at this place who liked to take off to visit a bar and come back. He got told one time that he better stop this practice or he would be discharged.

[ohmeowzer RN, RN]

holey moley... gosh i hope he's allright .. have you heard anything about the pt ?

[robinbird]

This wasn't my patient but I laughed when I arrived for my shift and heard this story. A patient was due to be discharged late in the day. The nurse was doing rounds and she walked into the patient's room to find him gone. She searched the unit, alerted the other nurses, the charge nurse and the CNA's to look for him. She called security because by this time it was an hour that he had been missing. He left with his telemetry box ($$$$) and his INT still in his arm. The nurse tried calling his home number and his amily and there was no answer. An hour or so later she finally got a hold of his son. The son said his Dad told him to come to the hospital to pick him up because he was being discharged. When his son arrived the patient said, "Let's go." His son thought he was supposed to take his Dad home. The nurse asked politely if he would bring his Dad back so he can be properly discharged.

The patient came back to his room and sat down on the bed. The nurse asked him why he left. The patient said he went home to take a nap and he was going to come back after he got some rest.

[Pudnluv, ASN, RN]

One night I noticed a patient's telemetry monitor was off, so I walked to her room to put it back on. She wasn't in her bed, so I checked the bathroom but she wasn't in there. We checked the other rooms around hers and found her across the hall, in another patient's room. She was butt naked, gown lying on the floor, leaning over into the other patient's face. Imagine, waking up and seeing a pair of 80 year old boobs swinging inches from your nose! Anyways, we promptly steered her back to her room and back to bed with a bedcheck on.

[pagandeva2000, LPN]

holey moley... gosh i hope he's allright .. have you heard anything about the pt ?

No, not yet. Hope he isn't frostbitten somewhere. Seriously...it was cold!