The escapee

[123456yy]

In the ICU, we are on the ground floor, and each room has it's own window. The window opens out from the bottom, with a locking mechanism to prevent it from opening very far.

We had a patient last night who was admitted for unrelated reasons which I will not get into. He did, however, have some preexisting "coco for cocoa puffs" issues. He was also a med-surg boarder and with no beds available, he was ours for the night. All night long he bothered us. Talking to himself, getting out of bed, pulling out his IV's and in general being a pleasantly confused pest.

At around 4am, we had another patient on the unit who took a turn for the worse, requiring all the nurses to assist with stabilization. We were all busy with this patient for at least an hour. When the ruckus had settled down, the nurse in charge of caring for the "coocoo for cocoa puffs" guy went in to check on him. She emerged immediately from the room with a look of alarm on her face, asking "Has anyone seen my patient???" The first step was to check the bathroom in the room, and under the bed. No patient. This was quickly followed by a check of all the hallways, the employee bathroom and lounge, and any other nook or cranny where cocoa puff guy could have stashed himself. We called security. They couldn't find him either. This was now a hospital wide man hunt. A closer inspection of the room and the equipment therein revealed the following:

1.) EKG monitor unplugged from the wall (so NO alarms)

2.) IV tubing disconnected from the patient and neatly coiled in the bed.

3.) IV pump turned off.

4.) Chair pushed up to the window.

4.)EKG cables and blood pressure cuff still connected to the tubing hanging out of the patient's window.

Yep, the patient had managed to squirm his way out of the small space at the bottom of the window. In his hospital gown and nothing else. I will never know how he did it, being a somewhat larger than average gentleman.

He turned up about an hour later in a wheelchair with one of the ER nurses who had seen a man in a leather jacket, baseball hat and hospital gown headed down the stairs from the parking lot back towards the hospital. Naturally she thought this was strange, and stopped him. As it turns out, the patient had actually gone home, gotten some of his belongings, which apparently he couldn't go another minute without, and returned to the hospital.

He was fine, although he just couldn't understand why none of us could stop laughing. I think the nurse in charge of his care will need a vacation and medication for anxiety and high blood pressure

[Jamesdotter]

This reminds me of an incident related to me by colleague, probably 40 years ago--she was working nights on a 25-bed unit with just one aide. She had a confused CHF patient whose doctor said to "watch him". She said, "I watched him--run down the hall, out the door and down the street, bare-footed in just his hospital gown". She called security, who found him, apparently none the worse for wear, about three blocks away! The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or at least the people do.

[nurseaboveboard]

Yeah, we had an old crusty patient escape in his wheelchair and with one of our O2 tanks. Called a cab and went down to the lobby to wait. He made it 50 miles, almost to his destination, when his O2 ran out and he started to panic. He began ranting, acting strange, etc., and only then did the driver start to question his behavior. Finally, he took him to the hospital ER in that town. I was relieved that he wasn't MY patient (haven't lost one yet :)), but I WAS the one who discovered him gone. What a corker! We all had a good laugh.