Share Your Funniest Patient Stories...

FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I · Jun 4, 2005

Today,one of the clients who came to see the doctor was told by the assistant who checked her pressure that the reading was 200/100. Her reply was, oh! is it still 300? ( 200 +100=300). I burst into peals of laughter when I heard this.

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: Wonder where the assistant went to school.:rotfl: :rotfl:

FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I · Jun 4, 2005

noseinabooknurse said:

I work in a nursing home and most everyone has dementia. There are about 3 residents that don't. One time I asked a lady who was sitting in her wheelchair what she was up to. She replied "I am thinking about the best way to get out of here" I thought she meant getting out of the facility, but I went ahead and asked her "Well, what are you going to do?" She got teary eyed and replied, "Well, I don't think that life boat is going to save all of us, but you need to save all of these people because the ship we are on right now is going down!" She stopped and then replied, "Save yourself. I'll wait for you in the water!" It was so sad that she actually thought it was happening, but funny when I thought about it later that night.
We have another lady that is deaf and pretty much blinde. She sits in her wheelchair in front of the nurses station and reaches out to touch whatever is in front of her. The other day, it was sort of a slow day and we had this lady sitting next to the lady that I mentioned in the first paragraph. The blind lady reached out and touched her face and was feeling of her to make sure she knew what was in front of her. The funny part is that this ladys hand just kept going further and further south on the other lady! She found the ladys boobs and began to prod them and say "WOW!. This must be a lady." Before she got any further than the belly I had to rush over there and speak in her good ear "You are touching that lady in the crotch and thats not very nice. She is about to get upset with you. So, you need to stop, please M'am." SHe quickly sat back in her wheelchair and said "OO MY. IM SORRY." My charge nurse was literally in the floor rolling. :rotfl:

I would have been too.

Teachchildren123 · Jun 16, 2005

I learned a lot when I was a nurse's aide. I was like a child, learning very fast a lot of stuff.

I learned English, a new place, new kind of work and a totally new word! :specs:

I am going as far as, the day that I was absolutelly insulted when this patient a/ox3, said (that because I could not give her ice cream: pt NPO and diabetic) that I was a son of a @#$. I could not believe that someone who knew me for 1 year, could talk about my mother that way!!!! :imbar

Well, you expressions are taken literallly too often by foreigner! It can be real funny at times! :roll Like, the day that I was working on the neuro unit and they paged Dr. Fu overhead, I was laughing inside because for me Fu = fou=crazy!

OK, let's get real! The possessed patient.

My preceptor was a retired nun, real sweat and honnest the God so beautifully glowing with her thick grey hair, her Colgate smile her pink cheeks like my grand-ma. :nurse: The nun truly thought that this particularly pt was possessed. She had put some holy water in the room, blessed her, put palm branches on her headboard... all this specially, after she had heard that the pt would welcome us with brown balls.The pt would confectionate and line them up on her side-rail and she would fingerflick her "brown balls" (you know what these were, nooooo! not chocolate!) to whomever would come to get her up for any kind of care. She had rotten teeth, a devil look, hair straight up full of "calix" and make spooky sounds like in Exorcist, scratch you, thighten up... resist all the way to the cafeteria. Completely demented!

Well, you should have seen THE SCENE when the patient's family found out what the nun had done!!!! Just to say, the family was not a all catholic, but a totally opposite belief.

Woooooo! :nono: :chair: :banghead: :smiley_ab :smackingf :innerconf :smokin:

WriteStuff · Jun 17, 2005

I was in my last year of Nursing School. We were doing our geriatric rotation in a small community hospital. My patient that day was a 91 year old gentleman who had all of his "faculties" intact, - mental and physical alike. He was to be discharged home that day.

I entered his room to assist him in morning cares and dressing to go home. He was a spry one for 91 years. He insisted on getting up immediately to "go to the bathroom first." Although he was on the spry side, I didn't trust him standing alone with me so I called one of my classmates to come and help.

We decided the best method would be to use his bedside commode. Now, for you nurses who entered the profession after the fact............back in the "cro-magnon" days of nursing, when I was a student, the hospitals used metal bedside commodes that had a seat, but also had a spring-loaded "platform" under the metal seat. The idea was for the nurse to push the metal bedpan onto this platform, which would then be held in place by the "springs" (flexible springs) as the bedpan rested on the platform. Got the picture there??

Ok. I'll call him Mr. Jones......91 yr. old Mr. Jones was in a great hurry that morning and urged us to "hurry with that contraption or you're going to have to shovel manure all morning you two!!!" My classmate stood in front of Mr. Jones to steady him as he positioned himself to sit on the commode. Suddenly, he began yelling: "Hurry it up, hurry it up......." I grabbed his metal bedpan from his bedside table and he leaned over at the waste, positioning his derriere over the "target" (metal seat of commode).

The closer he got to sitting, the louder he yelled at me: "HURRY UP WITH THAT THING WILL YOU?" Who was I to pay attention to "what" was also dangling into the open seat of the commode when I gave that bedpan a shove only Daddy would be proud of??

Suddenly , Mr. Jones gave out a blood curdling scream that was heard all over the hospital and people came flying into the room from every direction! I was in shock. What happened?

Yep, it happened alright. Mr. Jones, more than adequately "endowed" in the "family jewels" department, in his rush to sit, -combined with my youthful reflexes and lightening speed.....caught his member between the metal rim of the seat, and the bedpan!

I got an "F" in Clincal that day.

Bonnie Creighton, RN

Adam D. RN2005 · Jun 17, 2005

WriteStuff said:

I was in my last year of Nursing School. We were doing our geriatric rotation in a small community hospital. My patient that day was a 91 year old gentleman who had all of his "faculties" intact, - mental and physical alike. He was to be discharged home that day.
I entered his room to assist him in morning cares and dressing to go home. He was a spry one for 91 years. He insisted on getting up immediately to "go to the bathroom first." Although he was on the spry side, I didn't trust him standing alone with me so I called one of my classmates to come and help.

We decided the best method would be to use his bedside commode. Now, for you nurses who entered the profession after the fact............back in the "cro-magnon" days of nursing, when I was a student, the hospitals used metal bedside commodes that had a seat, but also had a Spring-loaded "platform" under the metal seat. The idea was for the nurse to push the metal bedpan onto this platform, which would then be held in place by the "springs" (flexible springs) as the bedpan rested on the platform. Got the picture there??

OK. I'll call him Mr. Jones......91 yr. old Mr. Jones was in a great hurry that morning and urged us to "hurry with that contraption or you're going to have to shovel manure all morning you two!" My classmate stood in front of Mr. Jones to steady him as he positioned himself to sit on the commode. Suddenly, he began yelling: "Hurry it up, hurry it up......." I grabbed his metal bedpan from his bedside table and he leaned over at the waste, positioning his derriere over the "target" (metal seat of commode).

The closer he got to sitting, the louder he yelled at me: "HURRY UP WITH THAT THING WILL YOU?" Who was I to pay attention to "what" was also dangling into the open seat of the commode when I gave that bedpan a shove only Daddy would be proud of??

Suddenly , Mr. Jones gave out a blood curdling scream that was heard all over the hospital and people came flying into the room from every direction! I was in shock. What happened?

Yep, it happened alright. Mr. Jones, more than adequately "endowed" in the "family jewels" department, in his rush to sit, -combined with my youthful reflexes and lightening speed.....caught his member between the metal rim of the seat, and the bedpan!

I got an "F" in Clincal that day.

Bonnie Creighton, RN

Just reading this is making me squirm. Let me ask, was he bobbitted (penial amputation for those who don't remember Loraina Bobbit did to her husband.) Or fully intact.

Adam D.

Graduate Nurse

WriteStuff · Jun 17, 2005

Adam D. RN2005 said:

Just reading this is making me squirm. Let me ask, was he bobbitted (penial amputation for those who don't remember Loraina Bobbit did to her husband.) Or fully intact.
Adam D.

Graduate Nurse

Fortunately Adam, he was NOT "bobbitted" that day, not even seriously injured, thank God for that! And you know...not only my story, but others of our stories we're sharing were not all that "funny" at the time. I think the comic relief is in the fact that he was not hurt and I can look back and see it as a humorous story. If I had done him true damage, I would not have shared this of course. But it is a true story. I did "giggle" a little when you you signed your post as "Adam", LOL.

LoraLou · Jun 18, 2005

My favorite funny story would have to be when i was an aide in a nursing home through school. Another aide and I were assisting a resident back into bed and she started to fall so the other aide I was working with kind of twisted around and landed with her back on the bed and the resident on top of her, so we just kind of stood there for a moment and the res. started laughing and we asked her what was going on and she just goes...Boy I never thought I'd be riding you like this.

To this day I look back and laugh at that.

FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I · Jun 19, 2005

WriteStuff said:

I was in my last year of Nursing School. We were doing our geriatric rotation in a small community hospital. My patient that day was a 91 year old gentleman who had all of his "faculties" intact, - mental and physical alike. He was to be discharged home that day.
I entered his room to assist him in morning cares and dressing to go home. He was a spry one for 91 years. He insisted on getting up immediately to "go to the bathroom first." Although he was on the spry side, I didn't trust him standing alone with me so I called one of my classmates to come and help.

We decided the best method would be to use his bedside commode. Now, for you nurses who entered the profession after the fact............back in the "cro-magnon" days of nursing, when I was a student, the hospitals used metal bedside commodes that had a seat, but also had a Spring-loaded "platform" under the metal seat. The idea was for the nurse to push the metal bedpan onto this platform, which would then be held in place by the "springs" (flexible springs) as the bedpan rested on the platform. Got the picture there??

OK. I'll call him Mr. Jones......91 yr. old Mr. Jones was in a great hurry that morning and urged us to "hurry with that contraption or you're going to have to shovel manure all morning you two!" My classmate stood in front of Mr. Jones to steady him as he positioned himself to sit on the commode. Suddenly, he began yelling: "Hurry it up, hurry it up......." I grabbed his metal bedpan from his bedside table and he leaned over at the waste, positioning his derriere over the "target" (metal seat of commode).

The closer he got to sitting, the louder he yelled at me: "HURRY UP WITH THAT THING WILL YOU?" Who was I to pay attention to "what" was also dangling into the open seat of the commode when I gave that bedpan a shove only Daddy would be proud of??

Suddenly , Mr. Jones gave out a blood curdling scream that was heard all over the hospital and people came flying into the room from every direction! I was in shock. What happened?

Yep, it happened alright. Mr. Jones, more than adequately "endowed" in the "family jewels" department, in his rush to sit, -combined with my youthful reflexes and lightening speed.....caught his member between the metal rim of the seat, and the bedpan!

I got an "F" in Clincal that day.

Bonnie Creighton, RN

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: Bonnie, you may have gotten an F for clinicals, but you sure got an A+ for humor and for Memorable Moments! Way 2 go!!!

WriteStuff · Jun 19, 2005

Franemtnurse said:

Bonnie, you may have gotten an F for clinicals, but you sure got an A+ for humor and for Memorable Moments! Way 2 go!!!

Glad you saw the humor in it. Metal bedpans and bedside commodes with a Spring-loaded platform went out of "fashion" right after that. LOL

Danianne · Jun 20, 2005

here is one. I work in LTC and one day my boss called at about 4:30 am to ask me to come in for a 6-2 "Bath Team" shift. any way I had never worked in the tub rom before and was just pretty much winging it :rolleyes: . I had this guy on the bath chair (the electric ones that go Up and Down) and I was using the short tub with the deep foot well. so the sory goes I put the guy way way in the air and got his feet over the edge so far so good. slowly started pushing him forwards to the tub. he puts his feet into the water and lets out a blood curdiling yelp. I run over and thrust my hand into the water thinking that it was too hot but it felt fine. all the while he is waving his arms and gasping. i call to my partner and say somthing os wrong with ******* . she come over to assess the problem.. I had forgotten to hold up all the dangly bits that were hanging through the toilet seat type hole and had almost sheared the bits completely off. :eek: someone forgot to tell me that the chair only had 1/8 inch clearance aboce the side of the tub and when there was extreme dangliness (

Forcemaster · Jun 20, 2005

This was not so much funny at the time as scary as hell...

I work on a Trauma ward in the UK where we mostly deal with patients who need orthopaedics and/or plastics input.

Well we only take admissions from the ED, and one night a couple of months ago I got a call from the Site Nurse Practitioner (the senior nurse who runs the hospital after hours), telling me she had an admission for me...

Well this admission was a really pleasent young lady who had GDFD (this is an unofficial diagnosis of 'got drunk and fell down' :chuckle ), getting a quite impressive fracture along the anterior border of her fibula. Well they put a plaster backslab on her down in the ED and she was to be NBM for Th first thing in the morning. The thing is, about an hour after coming onto the ward we heard this almighty crash and a scream of pain... It seems she had decided to get up... Now when my colleage and I had left her, she was alert and orientated, and she knew she was to ring the nurse call bell if she needed anything and that she was not to even think about walking till after surgery... Well it appears she sleep walks... :stone

She had gotten out of bed, hobbled on a still wet plaster into the next room and slipped on the floor... I rush into the room to see her broken leg twisted at an inhuman angle and blood running all over the floor... She had completed the fracture of her fibula, and also broken her tibia to the extent she had an open fracture and had lacerated an artery. So while I desperatley try to staunch the bleeding and my colleague calls the on-call ortho and anaestetic docs, the elderly gentleman (who had a fractured neck of femur) in that room had been so traumatised by the incident, arrested...

Thankfully all involved in the incident made a recovery, though the elderly gentleman has still yet to leave the hospital, having had angioplasty and a triple CABG, he now has an HAI...

Anyway... bearing in mind I was due to finish my shift at 08:00, i think I finally left work at 11:00 after having filled in all the paperwork I fell behind on while saving life and limb... Not my favourite shift :stone

FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I · Jun 20, 2005

WriteStuff said:

Glad you saw the humor in it. Metal bedpans and bedside commodes with a Spring-loaded platform went out of "fashion" right after that. LOL

That's because I worked with them too. I was a nurses aide at a LTC facility, called a nursing home, but ours was called the the Sullivan County Infirmary back then, and the best thing about was the interaction with the patients. We were able to do a lot of that back then. The bedpans were autoclaved daily at our facility. Yep, I'm one of them there old timers too. Only I'd have to be completely out of my mind, not recognizing where I was or who was taking care of me before I'd consent to be placed in a LTC facility today. The TLC is no longer there; Sadly, there are now too many residents to one nurse, or aide. Unfortunately, progress has led to too much automation, and dehumanization IMHO.