Nurses BLOOPERS!

IT was a long day working as a camp nurse for an outdoor school! I had 120 pts a day, did all their meds and acute situations...I sent three to the ED and more so home that day and I was utterly exhausted! (I was at camp 24 hrs for 6 days..one day off..back to 24 for another 6 times four months! in the freezing cold of MT. Hood!..no heat except for my space heater! Very rustic indeed...LOL!).

So I come stumbling out at 2200 into the common area where all the other staff meet (I was the only medic!) and said "oh dude..I need some more 'sand handitizer' " (instead of 'hand sanitizer'). Okay that one was funny on its own...but lo and behold the BIG WIGS of Outdoor school were having a meeting in the common area when I said it..and yes, hadn't met them yet! LOL, what a first impression!!!!!!!

Then to make matters worse..I saw them..gulped..then had the MOST uncontrollable giggle fit one could muster and went skipping back to my office red faced and laughing so hard even the kids at the total opposite of camp could hear!!! OH yeah good one nursie!!!!

They laughed so hard, and were there to actually give yours truly an award for being the only nurse that handled a code in outdoor school. Again real swift Triage..but they thought it was so funny..and luckily..so camp like! LOL!!!!!!

Now it is a running joke in the local school system and my friends and family! WOW..it is even hard for me to actually say 'hand sanitizer'...nope..I now call it Sand hanitizer".

Now remember..when you don't have water...use your sand hanitizer!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!

One day I was running around extremely busy...especially with phones ringing off the hook. I was in constant motion. The place had a dumbwaiter (a small elavator that transports things between floors). The dumbwaiter would "ding, ding, ding" when something arrived on the floor.

As I responded to the "dings" of a delivery and opened the door to the dumbwaiter to retireive what was in it, I said "this is my unit, me speaking, how may I help you?"

The 2 units of prbc's didn't respond.

It was perfect! I never laughed so hard! What a great release for a crazy day.

I once charted hell protectors in place!!! instead of heel protectors.

Yesterday I had to call the hospital ask for speech pathology and said peech spathology instead. The hospital operator and myself had a good laugh about that one.

Also I was on hold with a doctors office today and when the nurse answered the phone I said "north wing this is Lisa how may I help you? like the phone had rang......long day

Triage_RN34, just curious...what Outdoor School did you work for? I'm a senior in high school and I go to Camp Namanu as a student leader every spring and fall.

Every now and then, when I page a DR, I give the answering service my home number (about twice a year). I have always caught it, but dread the day I don't. Usually happens on a very busy night.

Once, I was realllllly tired, and had to pick up this kid at an outlying hospital and I documented....Ant. fontanel soft and flat with good bowel sounds :lol Dang.... :lol

Once, I was realllllly tired, and had to pick up this kid at an outlying hospital and I documented....Ant. fontanel soft and flat with good bowel sounds :lol Dang.... :lol

So would that make him a butthead?

i'm working as a care attendant in a nursing home, and @ dinner time we go around the patients and put bibs on. wel the very first day i was there i was so egar to impress that i put bibs on ALL the patients, ..... EVEN THE ONES ON A PEG FEED.......:imbar

Triage_RN34, just curious...what Outdoor School did you work for? I'm a senior in high school and I go to Camp Namanu as a student leader every spring and fall.

I sent you a PM, but YES...I was the nurse for Namanu in 2001 and 2002, alternated with Bear Claw in 2002..when he was brand new..I was the nurse right before him, and he is AWESOME!!!! I LOVE THAT GUY!!!!!! Say hi to him if you see him please...Triage says I want those tacky blue/green curtains dude in the home of health dude!!!! He will so know what I mean! (I wore them to my last formal dinner there in a toga once..was hillarous!).

It is awesome that you are a student leader there! I was one too, but in Wash Co back when they had a running outdoor school program (I guess it is pretty much dead here now, only one camp and very few people can afford to go ). So I went from student camper, student leader..then nurse! Great program and I am so glad for folks like you that keep this alive and kicking!

Hope your 'broken zippers' are to a minimum this Spring, and the weather less damp (yeah right! LOL!), and get a great skit for the last fire ring! (I have TONS of ideas if you need a few!).

Huggles fellow Namanuian...From the crazy TRIAGE gal from 2001 and 2002~!

OH YEAH..remember...it isn't hand sanitizer..it is sand hanitizer!!!! LOL!!!

Let's see... there was the lady in the nursing home I worked in who'd died - I laid her out nice and closed her eyes but one of them kept popping open so I set two quarters on top of her eyelids. Her daughter arrived to see her mother before the morgue came to get her and as we were talking there was this "pingping..." noise - both eyes had opened again and sent the quarters rolling across the floor. I laughed until I thought I'd die.

Then there was the lady giving birth in L&D one night - she was ready to go and there was no doc in the room, just me, she'd gone from 5 cm to crowning in like three minutes, and as I was grabbing for the delivery pack I slipped and fell and sprained my ankle. I could *not* get up. Pt. and I were both shrieking for help and I crawled into the bathroom to yank the emergency bell, but still nobody arrived before Mom had to self-deliver her baby's head.

Oh yes and my first day in home health - went to visit this nasty old lady out on a country road and noticed that - besides the lawn mower in her living room, there were eggs all over her house. I soon learned why - when I sat down at her table to prep her insulin this huge chicken jumped into my lap. The thing was not leaging, either. I was terrified, every time I'd move it would threaten to peck me. Finally I sort of flung it off my lap (no, no egg) but that was quite an experience...

LOL :chuckle Your stories are so funny!

I remember one more... Same person I mentioned before. She drove home from her PM duty, exhausted and all. She parked in front of their garage trying to open it with a remote control. She couldn't open it. She decided to wait for a while inside her car hoping that her husband would open the garage door for her {if he noticed that she's home already} ???? Anyway, while she was waiting, she fell asleep out of exhaustion. The husband was so worried about her coz it was getting too late already and she wasn't home yet. He decided to look for her after finding out that she left work already to go home. As he was backing out of their garage, he saw his wife's car parked at the neighbor's driveway and there she is sleeping inside the car :chuckle .

One of my friends at work told a story the other night about when she was a brand new nurse. She called a Dr to tell him the patient had slow respirations, shallow breathing, etc. He asked her if she had given the patient any morphine. She said before she even thought about it she asked him "No, did you want me to?". She held the phone away as he yelled Nooooo at her. :chuckle