Share The Weirdest Reasons Patients Push The Call Light

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You guys always crack me up, so I came up with this question to hear more funny weird stories.

What were some funny, stupid, or weird reasons patients push the call light for?

Are you supposed to go to the room right away or how does it work? I will be an RN next year and interested in knowing more about the actual daily life w/ pt.

Here are some of the best...

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Specializes in Nonviolent physical intervention.

When I was a student, I had an elderly man with dementia. He pressed his call light, and when I came into the room he said, "Miss, all these phones are in my bed". He was referring to his telemetry monitor, call light, and TV control. I told him what they were and he just looked at me and said, "Nope. These are phones, and I want them out of my bed".

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Had one particularly confused fellow who would press the call button and yell "Bombs away"!! Maybe he was a bombardier in the Air Force, or maybe he thought he was! (he wasn't my patient but we heard him throughout the unit)

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:rotfl:

Before I came to nrsg school I was a legal assistant at a small law firm, where I swear, I had to explain how to use the fax machine at least four times a day. I used to say that once I was a nurse, at least I'd be taking care of people who had an excuse for not being able to wipe their own @$$!

haha, seriously! It's always the (medical) residents that can't be bothered to READ the tray that says "Place face-down" and the "SEND" button. I think I would be embarrassed to ask for something like that without first TRYING to figure it out myself.

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When working in a nursing home many years ago, I had a confused pt turn on her call light to tell me "someone is biting my butt". Tried to reassure her that no one was biting her, but she insisted. We finally rolled her over enough to show her. What we found was her dentures underneath her, and she did have teeth prints on her butt.

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How about when it isn't a patient that hits the call light??? No joke, we once had a RN that was suffering from menstrual cramps and decided she could not work anymore that night. So we had to call in a call person to cover for her. The "sick RN" decided that she wanted to lay down before going home so she went and got into an empty patient bed. While that is unbelievable, what completely shocked us is that she had the gall to put on the call light....and ask for warm blankets and a sprite!!! :eek: Needless to say, she did not work there for very long...

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I had a female pt call from the bathroom. She said she was constipated and needed me to "pull" the feces sticking out of her behind because it wouldn't come out! I told her to take her time, keep trying and I gave her some water to try to loosen things up a bit! By the way, both of her hands worked, too!

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Specializes in Med/Surg, LTAC, Critical Care.

One LOL (Actually a Big OL) we had as a frequent flier...Never used a call light, she preferred to holler...

"I need the bedpan...I've already done it!"

Once, we had her in a room about as far from the station as you can get (other rooms were full). We look up and see that she is standing at our desk. She walked...WALKED...by herself with no probs to the desk to tell us she needed help getting on the BSC...

Another time, she kept repeating "Are you gonna kill me?", over and over and flippin over again... I'm about to leave, just hung a new bag of NS for day shift. The day shift tech comes in to check VS and what do you think the lady asks her? Unfortunately, the tech twisted her words (completely accidental), meaning to say "Oh, we're gonna check your VS", she actually said" Oh, we're gonna kill you"...:eek: Her face then looked like that little smiley thing I just put there and so did the patient's. On that note I left.

Another unrelated incident... a nurse we have no speaka da english so good...

A patient rang the light to have the pillow adjusted from the room we hear:

"Do that feel good?"

Pt: Oh yes

Nurse: My job to make you feel good all night

Now picture the "Me love you long time" dialogue from Full Metal Jacket... That's what we all thought. She came back to the desk wondering why we were all about to fall over laughing.

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Specializes in Adult Oncology.

I had a family member use the patient's bathroom this weekend and accidently pull the emergency cord next to the toliet. We have signs up all over our rooms and bathrooms telling visitors to use the visitor's bathroom next to the nurse's station. So the emergency light goes off and it rings the nurse's station and the unit clerk answers it and we can all hear everything, the guy in the bathroom, his wife in bed (the patient) telling him to hit cancel on the light, etc. Then the guy comes up to the nurse's station and tells us it was a ghost.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, ER, ICU.

Worked on a Med/Surg unit that, quite often, had dementia patients. I once had to answer a light because a woman had to tell me that there were two little kids running around in her room stealing her candy from her bedside table and would not give it back to her. Another nurse and I, to satisfy her, got on our hands and knees and crawled under her bed to "get her candy back" from those little punk kids. I hate stealers!

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Specializes in Veterinary technology.
I once had a patient who called me to the room to wipe his butt because he did not wipe his own butt at home....his wife did. :uhoh3: (I'm not kidding about this):rotfl:

That same patient would call me to his room to pull the bedside table closer to him, and pour him a cup of cold water. He didn't have to do this for himself at home. His wife did it, or their "help" did it.

Was he too sick to wipe his own butt and get his own water? No. He was a walky-talky dressed in a silk robe and jammies who could do everything for himself if he wanted to. He didn't want to. :rolleyes:

Oh goodness, his poor wife. I don't know how anyone can have that much patience with someone.

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I was still a CNA. I walked into a room of a patient who just called and asked what he needed. He said "Well? Are you going to fix my member?" All I could ask was what was wrong with it. It was the catheter but someone must have just been in there, said they were going to fix it but never returned so he called again. It was too funny!

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Patient called once to say, "I need some phenergan right away please." Got to the room and he had eaten no joke half of a coconut cake!

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