Trauma Naked?

[mark90]

I was in an MVA a month ago. Paramedics cut off my shirt, and strapped me on a backboard. When I got to the E.R, I was conscious, with no visible injuries, just a bit of a headache. Yet, I was almost immediately stripped completely naked. I laid there fully nude for what seemed like an eternity while I was examined. Then the nurse put a cup over my member and told me to pee. I wasn't able to, so they put a catheter in me.

I asked them to cover me several times, but the trauma team refused, even when i was given an ultra sound i was not covered up.

This just doesn't seem normal to me. Is this standard procedure or did I just get stuck with a bad trauma team.

Please help me figure this one out.

Thanks,

Mark.

[MassED, BSN, RN]

You make a very good point multi. I wonder how often fear of the treatment can lead people to refrain from getting care when needed.

I mentioned in a prior post about my involvement in an aircraft accident. Once things had settled down and I was out of the wreckage, I knew I was a hurtin' puppy. The sort of injuries you worry most about; head, neck, and spine; I had them. Having just had a bad run in with an ER visit in my hometown, I was scared to think of what would become of me if I presented myself for treatment. I chose to decline all offers of help from rescuers and resolved to walk to the airline terminal from where I was to try to meet my family. That would be a big task for someone healthy. I was confused, dazed, in pain, and in a strange city. After walking away from the crash scene I ended up sitting beside the road until a police officer came along and convinced me to at least get checked out by EMS. It wasn't long before I was collared and strapped to a back board, and I was getting freaked out at my loss of control. At the hospital, I was fortunate to encounter a great trauma team. I explained my concerns about modesty, half expecting to be ridiculed. To my relief and astonishment, they seemed to understand. Curtains were closed and 2 guys laid a sheet over me and cut my clothing off from under the sheet. They were even careful not to cut my newly purchased trouser belt. I still have it today. They cleaned me up pretty good, and I was soaked in rainwater and jet fuel. I got the full trauma treatment. Every square inch of my body was checked but the treatment team worked around the sheets or blankets only uncovering what they had to for only as long as they needed to. I refused the catheter and gave them a urine sample in a cup. Nobody seemed to think less of me. Even with all the x-rays and untrasounds everyone was tops in preserving my dignity. I came out of the ER feeling real good about the treatment I received.

Was I treated well because the incident was a major media event and the hospital knew they might be under a microscope? Or was it just a darn good team of caring individuals? I like to think it was the latter. I wish now I had taken the time to go back and properly thank them.

As good as the ER staff was, the floor staff was the opposite. My stay ended early, and I left AMA and drove back home.

I think it is sometimes assumed that a sick or injured person isn't concerned about modesty. I know that's not the case from personal experience. Here I had health insurance coverage and I knew the airline would cover any other expenses. That was not my concern. My dignity was more important to me at the moment, and a prior bad experience had me on edge.

Sorry the OP had his experience, I think he suffered needlessly.

would you mind linking your prior post on the accident?? So I don't have to ask about the details of the accident and your injuries.... thanks!

[fuzzball7]

I was in a bad motorcycle accident several years ago.

They removed my clothes but nobody ever saw me naked the entire time when I was in the hospital.

Not even during bed baths.

When it came time for my member to be washed, they had me do it myself.

[fuzzball7]

Check that, they saw me naked when I was under anesthesia having surgery.

[MassED, BSN, RN]

for those who readily agree that what happened to the original poster was necessary, i find it very difficult to disagree with you. however, the comment from "spidey'smom" that her and her co-workers, if they are brought into the ER, wish to be covered up and have the curtains pulled before anything invasive was done, keeps haunting me. another type of double standard???????? i once heard a very experienced surgeon define MAJOR surgery as "any operation, of any kind,-----done on me!!!!!!

a curtain might be pulled, if one remembers. I've been on too numerous emergency situations where there was a lot of equipment and too many people to shut anything for privacy. That is an after thought sometimes when a true emergency exists. Which is why those large trauma bays just have a door to shut or a curtain to block the patient.

[mshultz]

a curtain might be pulled, if one remembers. I've been on too numerous emergency situations where there was a lot of equipment and too many people to shut anything for privacy. That is an after thought sometimes when a true emergency exists. Which is why those large trauma bays just have a door to shut or a curtain to block the patient.

I forgot to mention in my page 6 post that the curtain was pulled before they uncovered me.

However, I have read numerous posts and many books about overcrowded Emergency Departments, where even critically ill patients (like I was) are lined up in the halls. I do not see how privacy would be possible in those cases. Do the patients, visitors, and children get an unavoidable free anatomy course?

[MassED, BSN, RN]

I forgot to mention in my page 6 post that the curtain was pulled before they uncovered me.

However, I have read numerous posts and many books about overcrowded Emergency Departments, where even critically ill patients (like I was) are lined up in the halls. I do not see how privacy would be possible in those cases. Do the patients, visitors, and children get an unavoidable free anatomy course?

no - you slide one nonemergent person in a room for one in the hall who needs an exam, placed on a bedpan, placed into a gown... you don't do that stuff in the hall.

but kids, women, all visitors do get other lessons: those of crazy people yelling, cussing, spitting in the halls... accidentally seeing codes...no place for visitors, in my opinion. They need to get out if it's not life-threatening!!

[58flyer]

would you mind linking your prior post on the accident?? So I don't have to ask about the details of the accident and your injuries.... thanks!

Actually, the info given in the post you quoted is the most info I have given on the accident on this forum. The other mention was just in passing. What details would you like?

[emmy41lgpn]

Amazed AND amused at the responses about this incident as compared to responses to my question-------mdesty is more important than G.I. bleeding?

[MassED, BSN, RN]

Actually, the info given in the post you quoted is the most info I have given on the accident on this forum. The other mention was just in passing. What details would you like?

what happened... the mechanism of injury, that kind of thing - it always helps to learn from others' experiences... I'll go back and see if I can find what you wrote..... is it a story in a paper that I can google to read about...?

[nerdtonurse?, BSN, RN]

If you come in with a broken arm and you're A/O x3, I'm not going to strip you naked. You come in from a nursing home, you're going to be naked because I don't trust "skin warm, dry and intact" from the local NH's.

If you come in from a high impact MVA and I think the lap belt may have ruptured your bladder or intestines, I'm going to keep your skin where I can see it until there's proof there's no bleeding or rupture. I was working in the ER one night (floated from ICU stepdown, ER was freakin' slammed) and a guy came in, high impact MVA. Lap belt ruptured his bladder, and the first sign was extreme scrotal swelling (don't know if that's usual or not, but it made a serious impression on me to look at everything, all the time, even on someone who keeps saying they are fine). He kept yelling "cover me up," and we were busy trying to get a ultrasound to find out if it was just the bladder or the maybe the shoulder belt had given him a liver lac as well. He wrote a nasty letter to the hospital saying we had treated him "disrespectfully" in the ER, leaving him uncovered for "almost an hour". Turned out he was in the ER for only 15 minutes before going down the hall to CT, and I was the one who threw a blanket out of the warmer on him before he went. No good deed goes unpunished...

I've also been on the other side of the blanket, and when they were telling me they were sorry to be cutting my clothes off, I told them I'd rather be alive and embarrassed than modestly dead.

[58flyer]

what happened... the mechanism of injury, that kind of thing - it always helps to learn from others' experiences... I'll go back and see if I can find what you wrote..... is it a story in a paper that I can google to read about...?

I only wrote one article about it for an aviation safety publication many years ago. I just tried to google it myself to see if it made it into cyberspace but no luck.

As to my post, you quoted it so you know what I wrote.

Anyway, what happened... aircraft struck the ground at about 20 knots vertical speed and about 170 knots forward speed, caused by having flown through a microburst on final approach. The second impact was on a road hitting cars, fences, and lightposts. Aircraft began to break up and burn and then stuck a water tank.

My injuries were composed of brain contusion, skull fracture, several fractures in some vertebra, bladder trauma, and lots and lots of cuts, scrapes, and bruises. Got completely covered in fuel which also got in the eyes. Reinjured an already cracked sternum. That's all I can think of at the moment, my paperwork on the accident is stored in the attic so I don't have it in front of me. Lots of other people hurt way worse.

Feel free to PM if you need more detail, don't want to get in trouble for being :offtopic: :beer:

[MassED, BSN, RN]

I only wrote one article about it for an aviation safety publication many years ago. I just tried to google it myself to see if it made it into cyberspace but no luck.

As to my post, you quoted it so you know what I wrote.

Anyway, what happened... aircraft struck the ground at about 20 knots vertical speed and about 170 knots forward speed, caused by having flown through a microburst on final approach. The second impact was on a road hitting cars, fences, and lightposts. Aircraft began to break up and burn and then stuck a water tank.

My injuries were composed of brain contusion, skull fracture, several fractures in some vertebra, bladder trauma, and lots and lots of cuts, scrapes, and bruises. Got completely covered in fuel which also got in the eyes. Reinjured an already cracked sternum. That's all I can think of at the moment, my paperwork on the accident is stored in the attic so I don't have it in front of me. Lots of other people hurt way worse.

Feel free to PM if you need more detail, don't want to get in trouble for being :offtopic: :beer:

wow - you're lucky - you walked from that too... quite a story. :bowingpur I worked with a First Sergeant who had been in EIGHT helicopter accidents. He displayed the crashed copters in picture frames for all to see... he was a cat with 9 lives! (and a little nutso from PTSD, I believe...)

was this a small craft? Hopefully the ones that were hurt worse still survived. Thanks for the info! Not so off topic!