Share Your Nursing Horror Stories

Indy, LPN, LVN · Apr 18, 2007

My nights have been pretty tame compared to the 4 or 5 code nights. Good grief. Those nights would have had me wanting beer and eggs for breakfast!

Ok but the first code on any unit I was working on, was quite a night. I had one patient with no legs who was my "good" patient. One guy getting blood who was a bit forgetful and could go in and out of A fib, whose wife probably decided to get some rest and was not staying the night. One cocaine user who wouldn't tell me how much he drank, just that it was two days ago, and he was on a bowel prep for colonoscopy the following AM. Good man, he drank all his golyte before 9 pm. One other patient, that I can't remember anything about.

I was maybe a month or so off orientation, too. So I knew to watch for DT symptoms in the one patient, and the night before, when I had admitted him, I left that AM telling dayshift to please get me some tranxene or ativan or something for him when the doc rounds... that didn't happen. So, just before 4 am, I get my VS on my patients and I find this patient eating pepper packets, paper and all, sweating bullets, high BP and just acting kinda squirrelly. Oh, and he's had no sleep 'cause he's still pooping buckets.

Come out of the room, to tell my charge that I got a DT's in progress and this blur goes past me while I hear tele alarms. Loud ones. Phone rings, tele's screaming at me "get to XXXX's room" well okay thanks; I hang up and grab the code cart and just about turn it over sideways. Turn around, charge nurse is walking by saying "well he's fine, he's peeing." So I try to fit the stupid cart back in its cubbyhole and it doesn't want to cooperate. Nurse goes back to her patient's room and as I'm fidding with the cart she screeches my name and darn near curls my hair with that noise; "get the code cart" .... Ok by now I've got the electric cord wrapped around my feet, the phone's ringing and the alarm's going off on the tele monitor. I couldn't figure out which way to move! Fortunately at that moment, a resp. tech walked by and said "ok who's coding?" I told her, she called the code and in about 10 seconds they were there. I had managed to untangle the cart and get it to the room by that point.

No problem, eh. Well then I get A fib calls from tele on my guy who got blood. He.... um. is in A fib all right but he's standing naked at his sink, pleasing himself and chewing gum. Telemetry still on him, how, I don't know. I walked right out of there, called the doc on my fella who was in need of tranxene. I get orders for ativan. No problem, he has two INT's, one of which has NS running... right?

Not anymore! He has poo in a wide swath from bed to bathroom, all over him, the whole toilet's a mess, he's sitting on it sideways, and his IV's are gone. The NS line end is sitting in the poo on the floor, leaking at a nice rate and adding to the mess. Hm. Oh yes the third nurse's patients, two of them picked out their IV lines about that time and bled all over creation because they were both on heparin.

So a nice nurse shows up from another unit and asks what I need. I tell her there are at least 3 people who need IV's all of a sudden. She grabbed the tray and went to each room and restarted IV's, me and the third nurse went behind her cleaning up. Except for the fella with DT's, I didn't put her through that. As she's getting done, I go to see the naked guy with A fib who's now in sinus. I get his gown on and realize, his INT is on the floor. So we restart his IV and get him "settled" but he refuses to get in the bed. Instead, this fella stayed by the window, standing up, sleeping. Ok.

At 0700 I was cleaning the entire room, bed, and patient (DT's) up for the third time, giving him his third dose of IV ativan, and he was starting to look more human, and pooping a little bit less. The GI doc was kinda surprised to find out I hadn't called him, to tell him that this fella wasn't going to be able to have a colonoscopy that day. I prettymuch ignored whatever he had to say about that. One nurse from dayshift was kinda ill with me for not putting the patient without legs on the sling scale to get his weight. Heck, I hadn't weighed anyone. And at that point, I wasn't worried about it.

LDJRN · Apr 18, 2007

okay this story was relayed to me by a coworker as it happened on a night i was not there. doors are locked after 8pm, so everyone needs to have an access card or be buzzed in. unfortunately we have no security that watches the front doors and every floor can buzz people in. a guy dressed like a maintenance employee was buzzed in, went up to our floor and went into several patient rooms and stole an indescript amount of money. after he got on the elevator, one pt came into the hall screaming that he'd stolen her money. the nurses called the moonlighting sheriff and he arrived on the unit. the guy was leaving in a taxi at this time. somehow, they got the taxi stopped before it left the property. the guy, unfortunately had drugs on him and did a stupid thing. he swallowed them...and coded. had to be hospitalized and under arrest in one night.

this story happened to me. i was working the 2-10 shift in an ltc facility on the "medicare unit". we had 26 patients, 2 nurses, and 3 aides; all women. mind you the nurse working with me was a tiny little thing. there was one pt a recovering crack-addict who had since become a preacher. he was out on pass for most of the shift and came back with a lot of nicks in his head. we were told to watch for this with him by his family, cause he used that way (wierd!). well, he was acting very strangely; so we searched his person. he had a pretty good sized pocket knife on him, so we ended up searching his room. this dude had a loaded gun in his night stand drawer! we ended up calling the don, and 911. needless to say, he left that night. only, they just confiscated his weapons and let him leave in a taxi. all i could think was "thank you, lord." he could've shot all of us that night.

incublissRN, BSN, RN · Apr 18, 2007

okay this story was relayed to me by a coworker as it happened on a night i was not there. doors are locked after 8pm, so everyone needs to have an access card or be buzzed in. unfortunately we have no security that watches the front doors and every floor can buzz people in. a guy dressed like a maintenance employee was buzzed in, went up to our floor and went into several patient rooms and stole an indescript amount of money. after he got on the elevator, one pt came into the hall screaming that he'd stolen her money. the nurses called the moonlighting sheriff and he arrived on the unit. the guy was leaving in a taxi at this time. somehow, they got the taxi stopped before it left the property. the guy, unfortunately had drugs on him and did a stupid thing. he swallowed them...and coded. had to be hospitalized and under arrest in one night.
this story happened to me. i was working the 2-10 shift in an ltc facility on the "medicare unit". we had 26 patients, 2 nurses, and 3 aides; all women. mind you the nurse working with me was a tiny little thing. there was one pt a recovering crack-addict who had since become a preacher. he was out on pass for most of the shift and came back with a lot of nicks in his head. we were told to watch for this with him by his family, cause he used that way (wierd!). well, he was acting very strangely; so we searched his person. he had a pretty good sized pocket knife on him, so we ended up searching his room. this dude had a loaded gun in his night stand drawer! we ended up calling the don, and 911. needless to say, he left that night. only, they just confiscated his weapons and let him leave in a taxi. all i could think was "thank you, lord." he could've shot all of us that night.

how frightening!

Ruby Vee, BSN · Apr 18, 2007

this happened years ago and in another state. i was still working on a hematology floor -- 15 patients, and just me and a new grad. i'm just starting my med pass when nancy nurse the new grad comes flying out of a room and franticlly flipping through the kardexes.

"can i help you," i ask.

"yeah," she gasps. "which patient in room 2 is a dnr."

"why?" i asked, rather sarcasticlly. "which one isn't breathing?" (i should have known better.)

"the one by the window," she says. "is that bed a or bed b?"

of course it wasn't the dnr patient. so we start the code. then someone at the opposite end of the hall codes, so nancy is in one and i'm in the other. first patient dies, (she's 93 and i swear i broke every one of her ribs with cpr) but the second one pulled through. then a few hours into the shift when we're finally caught up with the midnight med pass, and i'm sitting down catching up on the code reports. nancy comes out of the room of a 27 year old pregnant girl with leukemia -- platelet count of about 30. the fetus has died, and she's being transferred to ob in the morning to induce labor -- it's about 0400. nancy tells me the patient has been complaining of abdominal pain, and she's been turning up the demoral drip every hour, but now she's on quite a bit of demerol (staggering amounts, really) and the patient is still complaining of abdominal pain.

"have you done an assessment?" i ask, dreading the answer.

"no -- do you think i should?"

turns out the patient is crowning. our house officer, percival is asleep in the on call room, so i call him.

"i don't know nothing about no babies," he says. "i done know nuttin' about no babies."

"neither do i," i said. "but you're the only md we have."

i hear a crash on the other end of the phone, but the line is still open and i hear him continuing to mutter "don't know nuttin' 'bout no babies. don't know nuttin' 'bout no babies."

nancy and the nursing supervisor (whom i paged right about the time i asked nancy if she'd done an assessment) are with the laboring woman, so i went to the on call room and opened the door to see percival sitting on the bed, head jerking and muttering "don't know nuttin' 'bout no babies."

"come on, perce," i say. i pull him to his feet and start walking him toward the patient, giving him vital signs, lab values and assessment as we go. i'm holding on to his upper arm and dragging him along with me when suddenly, percival goes down with me still holding his arm. he started having a grand mal seizure, and i dislocated his shoulder as he went down. damn! so now my hematology patient with little to no platelets is delivering a 6 month fetus and my only md is on the floor having a grand mal seizure! i called a code for percy and stat paged the ob doc on call for the patient.

mom did as well as could be expected, the fetus was partially decomposed. no bleeding to speak of -- how lucky was that? and percy went to the er and was admitted . . . to our floor. when i came back to work that night, half of his class of residents was in the room visiting, and when i popped my head into the room percy pointed his finger right at me and declared "there she is. there's the bitc* that dislocated my shoulder!"

antidote · Apr 18, 2007

Thats awful Ruby! It definetly seems like you had your work cut out for you that night! I wonder if they still only have two nurses on the floor now because it definetly seems like that facility was a bit understaffed!

And that comment by the MD was absolutely unnecessary. Was he by any chance mentally unstable beforehand? It's absolutely horrible to talk to one of your co-workers like that (I've been talked to like that by fellow nurses before, but never a doctor).

Thanks so far for the stories! Keep e'm coming.

TazziRN, RN · Apr 18, 2007

percy went to the er and was admitted . . . to our floor. when i came back to work that night, half of his class of residents was in the room visiting, and when i popped my head into the room percy pointed his finger right at me and declared "there she is. there's the bitc* that dislocated my shoulder!"

are you freakin' kidding me?!?!?!?!? just for that i would have pulled out the other one!!!

Ruby Vee, BSN · Apr 19, 2007

thats awful ruby! it definetly seems like you had your work cut out for you that night! i wonder if they still only have two nurses on the floor now because it definetly seems like that facility was a bit understaffed!
and that comment by the md was absolutely unnecessary. was he by any chance mentally unstable beforehand? it's absolutely horrible to talk to one of your co-workers like that (i've been talked to like that by fellow nurses before, but never a doctor).
thanks so far for the stories! keep e'm coming.

that institution isn't even there anymore -- this was (and i cringe to remember this) 25 or more years ago!

grandee3 · Apr 19, 2007

Are you freakin' kidding me?!?!?!?!? Just for that I would have pulled out the other one!!!

Ditto!

Elvish, BSN, DNP, RN, NP · Apr 19, 2007

My worst one (that I haven't blacked out, anyway) would have to be the entire first half of December 2003. I was working at a community health center & flu season was BAD that year. The first two weeks of December our clinic was packed, literally wall-to-wall with sick people. We started out isolating the sickest ones and very quickly ran out of room because they were ALL so sick. I don't think I saw anyone sick with the flu with temp under 103 all week. Run-of-the-mill minor illnesses I don't flip out about. But this was different. It was horrible. Two nurses to manage it all.

All this on top of regular well-child, -adult stuff, chronic dz maintenance, etc.

Magically ended when the schools let out for Christmas break. I have never been so thankful....