Share Your Funniest Patient Stories...

Nurses Humor

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We all have lots of stories to tell. I thought it would be fun if we shared a few of our funniest patient stories with each other. :lol2:

Here's mine...

I keep remembering a particular incident a few years back. It wasn't even my patient.

I was heading down the hallway on the CCU unit in which I worked. I was minding my own business, heading down the hallway and I just happened to glance into a patient room...

I couldn't believe what I saw...

An older gentleman, who clearly was having some post-op dementia after open heart surgery....

he was sitting up in the middle of his bed and with knees bent and feet braced at the bed rail for extra support....

With both hands...

HE WAS PULLING on all of his CHEST TUBES with ALL OF HIS MIGHT!!!

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Needless to say, I sprang into action along with all the surrounding nursing staff. It took security along with all of us to restrain this man so he wouldn't hurt himself. Though it wasn't funny at the time....I can't get this picture out of my mind and find it amusing to remember.

What's your story?

I had a patient who only had one leg and habitually forgot to put on his artificial leg before getting up to the bathroom. He was always falling. I walked in one day and found him sitting in a heap next to the bed. Instead of reaching up to get the call bell for help he just grabbed a pillow and made himself comfy on the floor for a nap. Knowing he was going to get the standard warning not to get up by himself, he said, "I didn't fall, it was a controlled landing."

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Mountain Nurse said:
Well, I am a CNA and I used to work in a LTC facility. We had a man, who was maybe sixty. He had had a quadruple bypass surgery, and had came in on my 3-11 shift. The other aide I was working with went in to check him, and came back out as wide eyed as an owl. She said that mr so and so had a, had a, and then whispered to me that he had an erection. She weighed about 265 lbs, at least, but was convinced that it was her and refused to go back in. Later, we found out that he had ED and his propriopism was permanant. Wasnt the aide after all!!

Some gents like a good-sized gal. Something to hold onto. :yes:

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My friend works in inpatient dialysis. One day she was running a wee bit late so she came rushing in and set her purse and her lunch down on the counter. One patient was waiting and another was brought in so that took her attention for a couple of minutes. When she turned around the first patient was eating her lunch!!

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Specializes in IMC, school nursing.

I work post op OHS. We occasionally have pts with post op confusion called pump head. Change of shift on a Friday evening, lots of visitors up and down the halls and down the hall comes a 5'4" tall 275 pound man barrelling toward the nurses station. Oh, and he was totally naked dragging chest tubes with fists clenched ready for bear. He stops in front of his nurse and starts yelling at her. I and another male nurse (he was fresh off orientation for his first nursing position) were on either side of the pt. I told him on three we approach him and restrain him. One, two, three... I go for his arm and the other guy... stands still. Thankfully, I was able to restrain him until other staff could help. Way to leave me hanging dude!

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Specializes in NICU, ER, OR.
danissa said:
lori in this age where we are so aware of child abuse, it's not so funny!! Perhaps your TBI was unaware but this still strikes a creepy cord.

I know this is old, but I totally agree, there is not one thing funny about this incident, and tbh anybody who finds it funny at all, I wonder about. Seriously.

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emmycRN said:
I overheard an interesting conversation between a confused elderly woman and a doctor with a heavy asian accent. He was trying to explain to her that she didn't need to get up to pee since she had a foley. Went something like this:

Doc: Maam, you have a foley catheta

pt: I have cancer!!

doc: You have a catheta!!

Pt: Oh god! Cancer?

Doc: No, catheta!

This is where I stepped in and explained what doc was trying to say. :lol2:

:roflmao: ROFLOLDNPIMP!

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Specializes in Hospice, corrections, psychiatry, rehab, LTC.

Back in the days when some people were still giving cardiac thumps prior to initiating CPR, as an orderly I was making my routine rounds through the hospital. I walked past a room where one of our respiratory therapists was working with an man who appeared to be about 80 years old. She was frantically shaking him, and then she delivered a shot to his sternum. The man opened his eyes and said "What in the hell are you doing?"

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Oh the days of the precordial thump! I kept having to thump this older gentleman, and the last time he opened his eyes and goes, "Lady, what the devil do you keep hitting me for?"

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Actually it is. My step kids mom had 3 complete sets of adult teeth in her upper jaw and had to have 32 teeth removed to leave the "normal" 16. Also, my oldest step daughter wound up with a total of 24 adult teeth in her upper jaw, removed the extra 8 to leave the normal 16. It's rare, but does happen.

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The original poster of this story stated it was 30 years ago and sadly, those things were legal and allowed back then. There were no restraint laws, there wasn't HIPPA, no elderly advocate offices, no surveys by the state to ensure proper care and no laws for elderly abuse and neglect. Basically, anything could be done to "keep the patients safe" as they called it (thankfully people soon realized that these actions were harmful and were banned, but it took a VERY LONG TIME for that to happen!). Back then, restraints were not only allowed, but encouraged, especially for Alzheimer and Dementia patients. The POSEY VEST was probably the biggest restraint used. It was a vest that was put on the patient with long straps that came out the sides and they were tied to the bed (Google Posey vest or the movie MOMMY DEAREST because it was the best she used on her son). Worst restraints and ankle restraints were also used, but the Posey was most common. Even in 2001 when I went thru my STNA training (I have now been a nurse for 10 years), even in 2001, we had to learn how to apply and release Posey Vests. Thankfully they are no longer allowed to be used in LTC, but, like i said, 30 years ago, that was the common practice. I think the poster was stating all his episodes of "getting lose" and "running away" were the funny parts, not him stumbling down a flight of stairs.

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Specializes in Hospice, corrections, psychiatry, rehab, LTC.

My sister did a travel job at a southern hospital several years ago. One of the ER doctors had been counseled for his lackadaisical response during codes. Naturally, he went to the other extreme. The first code after the counseling, he yelled "Pow!" as each shock was delivered. He shocked the guy something like 8-10 times, and his chest was absolute toast.

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Specializes in ER, ICU, POST ACUTE CARE.

Ok, lets see if I can share this without using the words the patients used, and tell it. I had a young male patient who was in an accident, he had to have an AKA (above knee amputation). He was confused while coming out from anesthesia, I heard a lot of noise coming from his room. He was up jumping on his other foot, pulling on his Foley catheter line. As I helped him back into bed he said, "First you SOBs cut off my leg, then you tie me to the bed by my D---". Hope this did not offend anyone, the words I had to use.

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