Strangest Visitor events

al7139, ASN, RN · Jul 26, 2007

Heres another funny one,

Not a visitor, but an exchange between patients.

My pt was a very nice elderly man, who had survived the Holocaust and a concentration camp. Across the hallway, we get a new admit (not my pt). Older F. This woman was constantly on the call bell, and if noone answered after (I swear) one "ding", she started screaming for someone to come(apparently, in her mind we were all there to wait on her hand and foot, and had no other patients), and then was very mean and nasty to us when we did. We couldn't close her door (fall risk and claustrophobic), and this very nice man across the hall did not want his door closed b/c it gets kind of stuffy in the rooms with the doors shut. He asked me if there was anything we could do to shut this woman up, but as you know we can try to set limits, but we can't be mean about it (which is what it would have taken). Anyway, this man gets up out of bed, gets his walker, and walks over to her room and says to her (not an exact quote) "You are a real

b*#!h, and would you shut up, I am trying to sleep!"

I almost fell off the chair when I heard this, I was laughing so hard!

I wished we could have kept him on our unit to deal with our more challenging patients, because he said to her what we were all thinking.

It actually worked, and she was a much easier patient to work with after that.

I will say, however, that I did feel sorry for her, because noone came to visit her while she was there, and I think she expressed her loneliness and anxiety by taking it out on us, so in spite of how she acted, I always tried to be understanding and not take it personally.

It was still really funny when it happened though!

Amy

nyapa, RN · Jul 26, 2007

Had a pt in our hospital for about 6 months, 3 months in our ICU. His sister was, quite possibly, nuts. She would take pictures of the patient while he lay in bed, sedated on the vent. She would take pictures of us nurses while we were trying to care for her brother. She had a tape recorder and taped things we would say in the room. She would ask for a stethoscope so she could do his q4h assessments because she didn't believe we were doing it well enough. She would stand over us while we did peri-care and dressing changes, critiquing the whole time, saying it was not good enough and wanted to do it herself.

Had a similar experience with a pts son who was taping the staff because he believed we were mistreating her. The thing is, we suspected it was him who had been abusing her, but couldn't prove it. She had a seizure and it was our fault according to him, and he went to the highest authorities. But with the taping, they cracked down hard on him as it is illegal.

I have had the experience where a pt had two girlfriends (no there was no cultural reason); they used to visit together sometimes.

Interesting in another way; there was a gentleman who visited one of our pts. Turns out he escaped an Asian country as a teenager in WW2 by getting on the undercarriage of a plane, and flew over to Oz. He was obviously quite unwell when he reached here, but he survived, and has lived in Oz for years.

BBFRN, BSN, PhD · Jul 26, 2007

Then there was the wife who visited her husband.....and started bragging about her new lover.....(btw she was about 220#...patient was about 120#) Well the patient jumped out of bed and started hitting and choking his wife......his doctor who was a hand surgeon stood at the door..... while the nurses were trying to separate them.....and said "Pull his hair, that'll make him stop."-you see he didn't want to risk HIS hands on the patient.
Oh and the topper was it was Halloween and all us nurses were in costume......I (Florence Nightingale) one RN (Raggedy Ann) and the head nurse (a witch) were the ones there.
P

I literally spat my coffee out laughing over this one! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

confused101 · Jul 26, 2007

No, it wasn't in Ohio. I missed that one...

yeah we had one in ohio. I was in my senior year of nursing school. I was at the facility the day before and the day after. The husband and wife talked before if either one of them ever got the point of not being able to take care of themselves then shot them. Needless to say the wife had another big stroke. The husband came in and shot the wife with a silencer(aka through the pillow). One of my classmates were working up there that day and found her. It was a mad scene of police and media. Then the husband went home and wrote a note stating he did it and why. The police showed up at his house and he came out with a gun. The police had to shoot him because he wouldn't drop the gun. So both died by gunshot in like 2-3 hours apart.

So, I had to pick up stuff at the hospital for clinicals the next day. I fiqured it might be a lock down or something. Heck no! Came in with my bookbag and left without even seeing a cop or anything. Makes you wonder!