moving the big ones

The answer is in your backpain, I'm afraid. If I had been in your shoes, I would not have moved anything that would have caused myself injury....not his feet, not his hands, not his head..........

Hope you heal without any after effects because we only have one back (one spine) and we need to keep that in mind when we try to do things that are humanly impossible for us to do.

How many other staff members were with you during this episode?

There are "big boy" hoyers, but they are expensive and unless your hospital has a bariatric surgery program, I doubt they'll go for it.

Check your job description for how much weight they expect you to lift- a typical amount I've seen is 75 lb. Refuse to lift him (or anyone) unless you have enough people to make keep you under that limit each.

The hospital needs to provide you with appropriate staff and equipment to deal with this- lifts, special beds, plastic sheet thingies like the OR uses to slide people from bed to stretcher, a lift team- whatever it takes.

Here's one website with a little information- http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/ergonomics/heritage.html

I did a search on "no lift nurse" and got several hits.

Take care of yourself- no one else is going to.

I don't think the problem was with the weight. We did have two "puhers", three pullers, and I had the feet. He has special "big boy" chair that folds itself like origami to provide comfort for the patient and easy moving for the staff and a "big boy" bed. the problem is that the bed has four posts, one at each corner, to hold up the trapeze for patient use. When I moved his feet from the chair to the bed it would have been no problem but for the post at the corner I had to twist around. Thanks for the replies and the links, I'll get back here and let you all know what happens when I get to work tomorrow.