Inpatient Psych - Ever call the police on a patient?

[imapsychrn]

I'm just curious if there has ever been a situation where you have had to call the police on a patient? Due to violence or destruction in the inpatient setting.

[SouthernPsy]

Not exactly inpatient, but I work a unit where psych patients stay until disposition. Yes, we call the police on a weekly basis. At the main psych hospital, it seems to happen a time or two a month.

[sharpeimom]

The time I really remember was the time a 400# Heck's (good substitute?) Angel got ****** off because I wouldn't give him any narcotics, that hadn't been ordered and were against the hospital policy anyway. He was seven feet tall and used to winning his fights and had no intention of letting some 5'3 1/2" 110# RN who wouldn't give him some drugs stand in his way.

He grabbed me by one shoulder and the opposite hip, picked me up, swung me around, and I was airborne! He dislocated my shoulder and bruised my hip, and gave me a very black swollen eye with his elbow. The very large pair of aides known to one and all as The Bookends restrained him, then the bigger one picked me up while the other called the State Police, who were there within ten minutes.

When they got there, between The Bookends and the two equally BIG and INTIMIDATING state troopers secured him so he could be sedated. The troopers radioed for an ambulance and I was taken to be checked. Six weeks later, I was back on the job.

Oh the joys of a job at a psych hospital!

[lasair]

While I was an intern we had a guy inpatient, personality disorder....can't remember his psych diagnoses but he was not psychotic (I was never his nurse) something blow off there he threatened to stab two nurses with a pen if they went anywhere near him (he had a pen) he had also done some damage to a chair and vending machine. The Guards were called and they had to pepper spray him.

[Yosemite, RN, ASN, EMT-I]

Quite a few times, actually. A few "lock downs" where a potential patient showed up at the front door during the night, was let in by unlicensed staff (as per protocol), escorted to the floor of choice only to have a weapon or bizarre, threatening behavior presented. After multiple assaults, numerous presentations to the urgent care and blood draws for over a year for multiple bites, I was DONE. None were ever prosecuted, though, as the district attorney did not choose to pursue the matter(s).

[LisaNICUrn, BSN]

I work in an acute inpatient psych hospital. I only know of one time in recent years that the PD had to be called. A patient had broken off a chair and had a sharp wooden piece of it. He was threatening to stab anyone who came near him so we called the PD. He was tased. Other than that, we call a code and various staff from other psych floors come along with hospital security, but that's it. We can almost always control the situation.

[xenogenetic]

At state psych hospitals they usually have agency police on grounds who went through the same training as and are actual state troopers. They would respond to all psychiatric emergencies in tandem with regular staff and would standby if we needed them to jump in with pain compliance techniques.

[EatYourVeggies]

I have never called the police but sometimes we call hospital security for back-up in code situations : D

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

Yes. The patient had become agitated and refused to leave the premises (he had been discharged). He started threatening staff and others, then barricaded himself in an exam room. We tried everything but in the end we had to call the police. And it turned out that my angry little friend also had several warrants out for his arrest.

[MrChicagoRN, RN]

I consider our security team as part of our team; all CPI trained and they know they are there to follow our lead, and to assist.

We called police once at another place when an extremely violent patient couldn't be handled by security and staff.

Generally, consistently following the principles of CPI really does seem to reduce incidents. In short, that means you assess and intervene early, before things need to be hands on.

[puravidaLV]

HAHHA YES and then we got yelled at by metro police.

[gzussu]

We have our own police unit on campus. We call them for simple walk throughs if the malingerers start acting up or seem to be scheming. We call them if we need to give an IM whether it's a dec shot or prn to a normally uncooperative patient who always cooperate once they see uniform presence. At this current job where I've been for 1.5 years I've only needed the cops to help with restraints once and physical hold I think twice. At my previous job we had security guards who helped a lot on physical holds but as long as I was there which had been 1.5 years, we had one restraint but we had enough male staff that day that the security guards weren't needed.