Stupid Nurse Trick... Don't try this at home... or work!

[TXRN02]

Ok, here's one for the books. I was attacked by my stethoscope yesterday. It flew into my eye HARD. Jammed my hard contact into it. I now have a corneal abrasion & have to be off work at least 3 days, and can't wear my contacts for at least a week!

A friend just brought me goggles, as a joke!

Has anyone else pulled one quite so brilliant?

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

in a hurry i ran into the supply room to grab an item. as i turned and started out i was grabbed and pulled back. as i was the only one in the room i was quite startled. what happened? there was a large bungey cord hanging from the side of the supply cart. it some how hooked onto my belt, stretched out and pulled me back. and i thought it was a ghost or ??

i can see how that could be somewhat disconcerting -- especially if you actually believe in ghosts!

[diane227, LPN, RN]

Back in the old days our stretchers in the ICU had the rails that went up kind of like a crib. One of the nurses had a patient who arrested. Instead of putting the bed rail down, she stood up on the side and with paddles in hand proceeded to attempt to defib the pt and instead defib'd herself. She coded on the floor as the patient coded in the bed. She did OK but she never made that mistake again.

[Jessiedog, RN]

One of my early codes, and I'd never pushed the Crash Cart before. Anyway, I was closest when the code went out, and adrenaline spurted. I grabbed that cart from the treatment room and barelled out. Bloody thing wouldn't move that well, so I pushed and pulled and did everything but pick it up and carry it, using all that adrenaline to my benefit.

Out in the hallway I thought I'd get a good run up, and I did. So the cart goes over sideways, with me hanging onto one end of it trying to prevent the eventual crash. The cart hits the ground and I stand there looking at it, praying "I hope the defib still works!" A senior nurse sees my predicament and we lift the cart up together. She then calmly takes off the brakes, and competenly wheels it into the patient's room. Did I feel like a ninny!!:chair:

[Jessiedog, RN]

It was And of course, who HASN'T cut themselves opening an ampule? I always use an alcohol swab to do the deed, but this time, the Phenergan ampule broke so jaggedly that it slashed my thumb open anyway...

As a new & very nervous grad nurse, I was assisting with putting in a thoracic tube on the ward. I was responsible for holding the local, which came in glass ampoules. I dropped one, and it shattered on the floor. I sheepishly cleaned up. I crushed the next one between my fingers. The attending Physicial gave me a withering look, and commented "I wonder if it hurts if you cut yourself with a lignocaine ampoule?" as he took them out of my hands.....

[Jamesdotter]

I always get the pocket of my tops caught on the door handle and get jerked back. Always graceful.

I have hit my head on cabinets so many times I probably have brain damage.

Do you ever get the impression that there's a design defect here somewhere?

[tiggerforhim]

Try pushing your patient into the shower in one of those PVC shower chairs that's also a bedside commode, giving them the shower, and then realizing you can't move the chair because the pan underneath the seat (which you conveniently forgot to remove and holds about 30 gallons or so), is full to the brim. Then try removing the pan and, because of it's huge weight that you are unprepared for, proceeding to drop it on the floor. To add insult to injury, this bathroom is built walk-in, with no walls around the shower area, so the bathroom and a quarter of the patient's room proceeds to flood (not to mention your lower body and shoes are well soaked by this point). I spent 30 minutes mopping up that mess with blankets before the floor was dry enough to mop, if you get my drift. First, however, I did get the patient back to bed and dressed and dried off before starting to clean up everything. I did discover scrubs dry very quickly, though, much faster than shoes.

[IlovebabyfeetRN]

I remember in nursing school being excited to hang my first bag of tpn (remember getting excited about these things in nursing school??)...well just as my instructor was warning me to clamp the tubing, I spiked the bag and wore a fair amount of smello yellow on my white school nursing uniform the rest of the afternoon!

As a CNA, I also remember walking a patient in a rehab to the bathroom because it was her prescribed ADL/range of motion activity. The bathrooms in this rehab were so narrow that my 250 pound patient had to wade sideways into the bathroom, where she promptly lost her balance. While I saved her a fall by gently easing her down my leg, I found myself trapped beneath her bottom against the wall across from the pull light...and the bathroom was at the other end of the room catty corner to the door to enter the room. The only other patient in the room was both hard of hearing and affected by Alzheimer's. My patient was completely inable to move herself off my feet. We both hollered to get the attention of someone walking past the room to no avail. I tried to stretch to reach the pull cord and the plastic knob on the bottom broke off and the string tethered itself behind the safety bars on the toilet (of course). After about half an hour to 45 minutes...I saw a bedpan (clean) in the tub, contorted myself to reach it...told the lady to wish me luck as there was only one shot to this deal...and hurled it into the hallway. The charge nurse, who apparently couldn't hear us yell but could hear the clatter of the bedpan, promptly came in and said "just what the heck is going....OH" and after nearly an hour, we were finally freed from our bathroom version of Twister. My patient, fortunately, suffered no injury....although she did need a clean dress at that point!

[SecondGenRN]

I always get the pocket of my tops caught on the door handle and get jerked back. Always graceful.

I have hit my head on cabinets so many times I probably have brain damage.

and here I thought I was the only one! It also happens frequently with my stethescope that I keep in my pocket... doorhandles and bedrails

[IlovebabyfeetRN]

How about when your earrings bang off your stethoscope? OUCH.

I have also had to stitch up scrub pockets that have jumped onto the door handle.

[nerdtonurse?, BSN, RN]

At our hospital, if we have a code on the unit, it blasts out the speakers (one of the nurses who won't leave the station if the place is on FIRE said she "didn't hear the code" when one of her pts brady'd down...yeah, uh huh...)

So, anyway, I'm trying to listen to a 400 pounder's lung sounds, and I mean, I'm listening HARD, and just as I took the bell off, it went in front of the speaker and BLAM, "CODE BLUE 301!" CODE BLUE 301" right into the bell. I clapped both hands over my ears, further driving the ear pieces into my head. I'm not sure, but I may have squealed, but I ran to the code, having a nice case of textbook tinnitus...

[jayne109, RN]

Okay, after reading these mine tricks are not bad.

1. We moved into a new ER with new everything and about 1/2 dozen chairs were not put together properly and they were high chairs. I seemed to "seek" these out and fall from them every time! they were put together so that if you sat on them, they pitched forward and pitched you out! I wound up with a sprained shoulder in a sling and a bruised ego.

2. Getting off at 0300 in a city like mine, you carry Mace. Well my mace was new and I was testing it. It didn't spray-it glopped right into my eye. Thankfully, my contact spared most of my eye from burns but I still wound up with 2 of Ativan and 2 Morgan lenses hooked to saline. That was an interesting experience.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

okay, after reading these mine tricks are not bad.

1. we moved into a new er with new everything and about 1/2 dozen chairs were not put together properly and they were high chairs. i seemed to "seek" these out and fall from them every time! they were put together so that if you sat on them, they pitched forward and pitched you out! i wound up with a sprained shoulder in a sling and a bruised ego.

2. getting off at 0300 in a city like mine, you carry mace. well my mace was new and i was testing it. it didn't spray-it glopped right into my eye. thankfully, my contact spared most of my eye from burns but i still wound up with 2 of ativan and 2 morgan lenses hooked to saline. that was an interesting experience.

ouch!

the mace sounds incredibly painful! i once ripped the metal cap off a nitroglycerin drip and had metal fragments fly into my eyes. my contacts were impaled with fragments, which was fortunate because it saved my eyes from more damage than they got. but i was in the er getting metal fragments picked out of my eye for most of the morning!

the chairs story resonates, too. only in my case, it wasn't the chair's fault. i'd had some personal problems and wasn't sleeping more than an hour a day. i was working night shift, and could fall asleep with very little notice when i was supposed to be awake, but could not sleep to save my soul when i was supposed to be sleeping. i feel asleep in one of those high chairs while waiting endlessly on hold for a physician, and pitched forward, smacking my face on the counter at the nurse's station. i ended up with two black eyes, a nose bleed, and everyone i knew laughing at me.