What was your scariest threat from a patient or family member

Nurses General Nursing

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Please share how your employee handled the situation and how you dealt with it.

If your not using patient names, you would be fine. Your telling a story...

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Specializes in EMS, ED, Trauma, CEN, CPEN, TCRN.

Injured Taliban patient, sounded like he was saying some pretty nasty things to me judging by tone and expression. I smiled and pointed to the 9mm pistol on my hip. He stopped talking. :)

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Specializes in Med-Tele; ED; ICU.
Injured Taliban patient, sounded like he was saying some pretty nasty things to me judging by tone and expression. I smiled and pointed to the 9mm pistol on my hip. He stopped talking. :)
How I wish that I could have my G43 on my person while I'm in the urban trauma center, not to mention walking to and from my car.

By and large, cops don't prevent crime, cops document and investigate crimes.

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Didn't happen to me, but I was receiving bedside report in NICU and a parent was at the bedside. He found a spot of blood on the side of his infant's bassinet (probably a splatter from a heel stick the night prior).

He absolutely freaked and starting shouting and screaming at the day nurse. She looked like a dear in the headlight, apologized, and got up to get a anti septic wipe to clean up the nano-drop. Poor thing caught her foot on the bassinet and tripped.

The Dad then threatens to break [her] face”.

I guess he didn't like the way she apologized and grabbed her by the arm, twisted it behind her back, and then put his other hand on the back of her head and did in fact smash her face into a set of upper cabinets. Over and over and over again. She was a bloody mess.

That hospital had its own police force, which we overhead paged. He didn't stop bashing her face in until they showed up mere seconds later. I was the one who ran to page the police.

He got carted to jail, the day nurse pressed charges, and I ended up testifying against the father. He posted bail, but the hospital's legal team said we could not ban him from the unit; we just had to have a police offer there when he visited.

The awful situation got worse when he asked me to primary his baby; I told my manager I didn't want to because I was a witness AGAINST him. They told me to primary the baby or I would face disciplinary action.

Being a brand new nurse, disciplary action felt like a fate worse than having my face beat in, so I primaried that child for the three weeks left she had in the hospital. I refused to wear my badge when he was around, because I didn't want him to know my full name. This was before cell phones, so I paid to have the phone company make me unlisted.

My husband also bought me the strongest, street legal pepper spray and a large pocket knife for when I had to walk to my car. I ended up having the police walk me to my car after every shift anyway. And I never parked in the same area twice in a row.

It scared the poo poo out of me and looking back, I should have just taken the disciplinary action/firing. But apparently he told my manager that I was the only nurse that he trusted”. I called BS on that one. I was the only witness and my testimony helped him get convicted for assault and battery.

Gives me chills to this day.

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Specializes in NICU.
Didn't happen to me, but I was receiving bedside report in NICU and a parent was at the bedside. He found a spot of blood on the side of his infant's bassinet (probably a splatter from a heel stick the night prior).

He absolutely freaked and starting shouting and screaming at the day nurse. She looked like a dear in the headlight, apologized, and got up to get a anti septic wipe to clean up the nano-drop. Poor thing caught her foot on the bassinet and tripped.

The Dad then threatens to break [her] face”.

I guess he didn't like the way she apologized and grabbed her by the arm, twisted it behind her back, and then put his other hand on the back of her head and did in fact smash her face into a set of upper cabinets. Over and over and over again. She was a bloody mess.

That hospital had its own police force, which we overhead paged. He didn't stop bashing her face in until they showed up mere seconds later. I was the one who ran to page the police.

He got carted to jail, the day nurse pressed charges, and I ended up testifying against the father. He posted bail, but the hospital's legal team said we could not ban him from the unit; we just had to have a police offer there when he visited.

The awful situation got worse when he asked me to primary his baby; I told my manager I didn't want to because I was a witness AGAINST him. They told me to primary the baby or I would face disciplinary action.

Being a brand new nurse, disciplary action felt like a fate worse than having my face beat in, so I primaried that child for the three weeks left she had in the hospital. I refused to wear my badge when he was around, because I didn't want him to know my full name. This was before cell phones, so I paid to have the phone company make me unlisted.

My husband also bought me the strongest, street legal pepper spray and a large pocket knife for when I had to walk to my car. I ended up having the police walk me to my car after every shift anyway. And I never parked in the same area twice in a row.

It scared the poo poo out of me and looking back, I should have just taken the disciplinary action/firing. But apparently he told my manager that I was the only nurse that he trusted”. I called BS on that one. I was the only witness and my testimony helped him get convicted for assault and battery.

Gives me chills to this day.

Holy &£@*. Was the other nurse okay? (Physically at least.) Please tell me you both quit that place as soon as possible. I can't imagine a facility being so utterly uncaring of what might befall their staff.

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Holy &£@*. Was the other nurse okay? (Physically at least.) Please tell me you both quit that place as soon as possible. I can't imagine a facility being so utterly uncaring of what might befall their staff.

I left the facility shortly thereafter...probably a few months to the best of my memory. And I was there two years total. I had to secure a new job first. Remarkably, that nurse never EVER left that job or unit. I have no clue why. She did move into a nurse educator position and away from the bedside...can't say I blamed her for that!! Hopefully they treated her better than they did me. Making me primary that kid felt all sorts of wrong. I lived in fear because obviously he didn't have a problem seriously messing up a nurse, and I felt like a giant walking target since we had the entire criminal case to work through.

As for her physical injuries, he messed her up pretty badly. Broken nose, a couple of facial fractures, he messed up her wrist as well. She was out of work for a long, long time. A couple months I want to say? She was never the same, at least as long as I keep in touch with her. She became very quiet and withdrawn in general. She used to be fairly bubbly and outgoing. I haven't heard from her in years, but I left the state. I hope she went into therapy; she hadn't the last time I spoke to her. She was married with 4 very young children too. Her husband was a cop as well.

I wasn't terribly traumatized, at least not like her. I was definitely afraid and insanely guarded, but I didn't have anything that would qualify as PTSD. The victim however...she was just a shell. She looked like she lost weight too, on top of her psychosocial symptoms. She was such a lovely woman, very warm, and a fantastic NICU nurse...I often wonder about her...

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Your story makes me sad for the nurse and angry at the man and your job.

Disgusting!

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A 90 year old demented lady.... asking me for a date!!!!:nailbiting:

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Specializes in Oncology.

I can't recall any family members personally threatening me. Another nurse I work with did find herself in the back of a room with a family member shaking a fist in her face threatening to "mess [her] up." The charge nurse hit the panic button we have at the nurses' station and security escorted those family members out and told them if they come back it will be in handcuffs next time.

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A long time ago when I was doing peds/neo CCT I had the father of a baby literally pick me up completely off the floor by the throat and plaster me against the wall while screaming at me that we would NOT be giving his newborn any blood transfusions. He was JW and the stupid thing was that this child wasn't even going to need one. He was a simple TTN but the referring pedatrician told the father that we might transfuse the baby on the way back to our hospital. We didn't even carry blood with us or a warmer for that matter. Once I got my wits about me I lit into him and let him know in no uncertain terms that he was lucky I didn't call the police on him as I had witnesses and videotape. It doesn't matter what your state of mind is you have no right to lay hands on another person. I reported the physician to her superiors and received a letter of apology. I didn't think highly of her in the first place (she really was an idiot) and after that it took every thing I had to maintain a professional relationship with her. I had impressive facial petechiae for about a week.

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Specializes in ICU; Telephone Triage Nurse.

I've never had a patient threaten me personally, but a few threatened to kill their PCP's and/or the pharmacist's (on a recorded call line) for not allowing early refills for their routine narcotic Rx's. These were patients with BH Dx's: all involved had to be notified, security called, a report filled out, and the Po-Po were also involved too. Most patients weren't expelled from the system, and called back to do it all again at a later date. This was maybe 12 years ago, and the VA, so perhaps things have exchanged quite a bit since then as I no longer work there.

On a side note, I have been nearly run off the road and chased while driving to work maybe 2 decades ago. Two young men were weaving in and out of traffic

and driving well over the speed limit. It was dark out and late at night - I took a right turn onto a major street and couldn't tell they were driving perhaps 80 MPH or faster in a 40 MPH speed limit zone. Of course they pulled up behind me at light speed driving so fast, therefore decided I had cut them off. They pulled up next to my car, harassing me and tried to run me off the road (this was in the days before everyone and their grandma had a cellphone). When that didn't work they followed me to the hospital parking lot, but they took off when I pulled up to the security kiosk. From the next day forward I have carried pepper spray (not effective against firearms, but at least it's something - our state allows conceal/carry with weapons, but I would have to be hard pressed to pull out a gun, even in dire circumstances).

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Pt was a 32 yo male admitted for symptomatic bradycardia likely related to drug abuse. Pt met a friend who was also admitted to the floor who the pt admittedly used to sell drugs to. Exchange of money in front of nursing, security called, pt was told he would not be able to leave room, belongings were searched, contractual agreement made. Pt became infuriated at this and threatened nursing/ hospital staff/ physician. Security attempted to escort pt out of hospital which ended up in a brief scuffle, pt was promptly arrested and d/c'd to county jail.

Don't f*ck with us. 🙆

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