What is your worst visitor story?

Nurses General Nursing

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What is the worst thing a visitor has done?

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Specializes in Adult and pediatric emergency and critical care.

Bring in drugs for the patient, steal food from the peds nutrition room, attempt to kidnap patients that they do not have legal custody of, instigate fights with staff, and so much more.

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Specializes in Pedi.

One day we had a Grandma come visit her grandson in the hospital/bring either Christmas or birthday gifts and the child's Mom beat her up in the hallway.

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I've got too many stories to tell. A visitor claiming to be a med student and the patient's cousin, injected drugs into the patient's CVL causing arrest. We could not get her back.

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

Dealing drugs from their child's PICU room (caught on video EEG), having sex on a couch in the waiting room.

My personal fave was the daughter of a hospice patient who passed who 1) went back to sleep after the body was removed 2) was irate that she could not order room service (after mom was deceased and gone) and 3) dangled her car keys in front of me and said "You can put these in my.car and bring it around" pointing to her SEVEN pieces of luggage.

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Specializes in Critical care.

Threatened violence with a gun. Our unit was put on lockdown.

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

Wandered back into the OR right outside the room we were resuscitating a gunshot victim. Claimed to be friend... security escorted them out to the very friendly police officers who slapped him in handcuffs and removed a gun. Wasn't a friend. Wanted to "finish the job". Oddly enough, over the next week all doors into the OR were fitted with keypad entry.

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Specializes in ICU, LTACH, Internal Medicine.

I was once directly exposed and one more time "ordered" to be exposed, through management, to the stuff I am very much allergic to by visitors AFTER I told that to them in clear English. Both later named their actions "just some practical joke". The first time I ended up in ICU in the same hospital after Rapid Response with all its bells and whistles.

A visitor brought in the room where her relative was lying comatose on vent her very frail, pleasantly demented and terribly disheveled 90+++ years old grandmother in wheelchair "so she could visit him" and abandoned her there. After some following administrative adventures, the poor sweet old lady ended up as "ward of the State" and a local SNF resident, as she only knew her name and the only one contact was that granddaughter who did not take phone calls. The second and third contacts provided happened to be fake. The granddaughter came back in about 2 weeks after enjoying a cruise and was beyond irate after finding that the unit did not provide free meals, housing and care for her grandmother all that time and even did not collect her SSI check.

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Specializes in ICU, LTACH, Internal Medicine.
having sex on a couch in the waiting room..

Sex right in the room with patient still hooked up to Tele. The process was interrupted by staff who promptly run into with crash cart and everything when the afib became quickly escalating RVR.

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Specializes in LTC, Rehab.

The first several stories top mine by a long shot, but maybe you'll get a little shaking of the head and a laugh out of my two. I'm going to mention my 'best' visitor incident too (I've had many more nice or 'best' visitor incidents, but this one bears mentioning).

Worst: one of the many siblings or in-laws of one of my residents - in the ROOM of the resident, let me add - called or texted the POA (one of the daughters), who then called my unit wanting to know if/when (and if not, why not) her mother had gotten a pain medication. ?!?!?! (They could've considered asking the nurse - that would be me - who was right there).

'Best': a guy came in to visit a majorly-PITA resident who'd only been there a short time but had already established his surly, non-cooperative, never-satisifed credentials. Shortly thereafter, visitor and resident come up to me and announce that he's leaving. I had to quickly fill out a leaving-AMA form, but I think I did a "YEAH!" along with a fist-pump after they left.

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Specializes in Emergency/Cath Lab.

Overdosed next to the pt

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Specializes in Case manager, float pool, and more.

Well, not the worst but certainly memorable. I was working on the top floor of a hospital as a semi-new grad and a patient visitor from a floor below stayed with his friend past visiting hours. Apparently, he has sundowners and got up to our floor after our pts were all sleeping and started yelling down our hall for his wife.

He was yelling, " Where did you people hide my car keys?" And other colorful language not appropriate to repeat. Anyhow he started calling his wife's name and we had a dementia pt with her name who started calling him to come get her cause she was tied up ( restrants r/t pulling out her IV and foley and combative ). Those two were having a hilarious short conversation.

I was really glad to know he couldn't find them. We figured out where he needed to be and escorted him to his friend's room who called his brother to come take him home.

Most pts were gracious about it in the morning though.

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