What is the scariest thing that has happened to you while working as a nurse?

CASTLEGATES · Oct 31, 2009

I can tell you about a coworker of mine who had a doc so angry at her, he pulled apart the blood bag and poured it over her head. This was years ago.

Hmmm the other was a female resident who was an RN who yanked an IABP cath through the sheath even after I told her NOT to or it may sever the balloon off into the AAA. I wrote her up.

Or the one nurse that dropped the bedrails and flipped the patient...right onto the floor, onto his face and he was on a vent. Dumb animal ended up getting fired for administering a non prescribed med she thought the doc was negligent for not ordering....dumb animal!

Or my first code where they had to crack the chest and do manual massage...that was wild.

Or when the head nurse took me into her office and literally cussed me out for not coming in (she changed the schedule when I was off and no one told me). Private hospital for ya!

Filine · Oct 31, 2009

Performing CPR on my collegue, who collapsed at work!

You can read more about it in a previous thread I posted

Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN · Oct 31, 2009

So far, it's been a needlestick (thankfully a sterile needle, though it was a hard reminder of what it could have been) and having something thrown at me.

MERRYWIDOW46 · Oct 31, 2009

Let's see, Having a urinal deliberately poured down my leg on IMCU. OR having a switch blade pulled on me in ER by an unhappy drug seeking patient. Tough call either way.

vivacious1healer · Oct 31, 2009

Patient had a 'pseudo-aneurysm' in her right groin (apparently in the location of where her prosthetic leg attached to some kind of belt). She wasn't able to wear the leg, so she was wheeling herself around in the w/c, when she came up to me and said "where is this blood coming from" as she pointed to her gown. It wasnt much, and it was kinda splattered.

Returned the patient to bed, grabbed some 4x4s, applied my gloves and just as I pulled back the gown, and there was blood shooting upward from the right groin.....yeah, the artery!!!

Put all my weight on her as I screamed for help and put her in trendelenburg.

It was quite the scene! Patient survived!

Being put in a head lock and taken down to the floor by a confused patient....(who was lucid/coherent hours before)

Thank goodness for my co-workers!!!!

sasha2lady · Oct 31, 2009

I had a resident who was a raging alcoholic gone mad....He picked up a wooden board and tried to hit me in the head with it...then when I got it away from him he tried to pick up a metal pill crusher and hit me with it.....I called the doc and 911 and got him outta there. I had my first code the day after christmas and NO nurse I was working with would help me one of which was an RN and our former ADON....so it was me and my cnas...they helped me start to finish for over an hour. We had a cocaine addicted pt come to us for "rehab" on our PT floor....dont know why.....and she was in bad bad bad withdrawals..her sons had beat her up when they were drunk and on drugs.....so that was a timebomb waiting to blow up.

Stacy in North Texas · Oct 31, 2009

I was trying to fold up a fold out sleeping chair. It was stuck, but I kept trying. I put all my weight into it and it finally gave, but it made me lurch forward very quickly and I hit my head on the edge of an inside window ledge. My preeclamptic pt was on mag sulfate and she was unaware that I knocked myself unconscious. I came to after about 1-2 minutes just as a co-worker came into the room. Blood was running down my face from the laceration on my forehead. I had to have 3 sutures.

When I was 32 weeks pg, I was asked to float to antepartum because L&D was slow and the charge nurse thought antepartum might give me an easier day (ha!). When I went into my 1st pt's room (a 24 weeker with PROM who was not in labor), she complained of feeling something weird between her legs. I took a look and gasped when I saw a prolapsed cord (my 1st one in 5 years of working L&D). I quickly gloved up and did a vag exam to try to get the presenting part off of the cord. Then I called for help and said we needed to go to L&D stat for a prolapsed cord. Several staff members rushed in and I hopped onto the bed with the very scared mother. We were both wheeled to L&D. I started feeling painful contractions, but tried to ignore it while I tried to calm the mother. I kept my hand in place all while they prepped her for an emergency c-section. Thank God, the baby survived and even thrived (the mother sent me a letter months later thanking me). My contractions stopped once everything calmed down, but it was a scary event for me and the mother.

Workedhard2bRN · Oct 31, 2009

Assisting in a code blue always does it for me.

roser13, ASN, RN · Oct 31, 2009

Coming to work for a 3-11 shift on the step-down trauma unit of a regional trauma center. First took report on the gang member that had been shot by a policy officer, then took report on the police officer who had shot the guy, then been stabbed by him.

They were in next-door rooms. Census was high and those were the only two vacancies. The families milling around outside (early years of 24/7 visitation policy) the rooms, gradually realizing who was next door to their loved one.

I was trembling all night, torn between worry that the gang member would get out of bed and go avenge his GSW on the officer next door, or that a family member or two would erupt into a new incident.

catshowlady · Oct 31, 2009

I was orienting in ICU. I had only been in ICU a month, had only been a nurse for six months, and I hadn't had ACLS yet. I was caring for a pt who was running a wide-complex tachyarrhythmia. The doc was supposed to come in for a cardioversion @ bedside that morning. I was already nervous for this pt; his HR was already in the 150's, his pressure was holding well, but I just felt he wasn't as stable as he looked. (We couldn't figure out why the cardio doc hadn't seen him in ER.) I'm talking with him, and he starts to slur his words and then loses consciousness. I look up, and the pt's HR is up to 200! :eek: I have never felt so helpless and scared in my whole life, knowing his life was slipping away in that second, and I didn't know what to do (not having had ACLS yet). I yelled for help and to call a code, and he ended up getting an emergent cardioversion by the ICU staff instead of the cardiologist.

Another scary episode was when I was taking care of very large man - a little obese, but mostly a big man who was also very strong (something like 6-4, 260%, don't remember exactly). This guy was a veteran with PTSD. He had been a POW and could not stand being confined or feeling trapped. He was in for angina and went to the cath lab for a cath. He came back on a balloon pump, and here I was responsible to keep this man down in bed because of the balloon pump! It only took about 4 hours for him to totally flip out despite liberal amounts of Ativan. It took every nurse on the floor to keep him from hurting himself and us. He was threatening to kill us if we didn't let him out of bed. I truly believe he would have, too; he was capable both physically and, with his PTSD, mentally. It was pretty scary for a while.

:paw:

susanthomas1954 · Oct 31, 2009

Had a gun pulled on me by a drunk visitor, while the gyn resident went to the floor under my desk. Called for security, hospital operator laughed and told me they went home at 5 PM. Went up to the drunk and escorted him down the stairs and gave him some money for coffee. Came back, the resident was gone, and two or three lights were on. Did any of my aides do anything, oh, heck no....

The drunk was mad because we had sterilized his girlfriend, (she had PID, wonder where that came from?) and somehow it was OUR fault. That was thirty years ago, and it NEVER OCCURED TO ME TO CALL THE COPS! Now, if you look at me cross eyed, I am over by the phone with 9-1 already pressed, and my finger on the 1, ready to go.