What's the scariest thing you've ever seen as a nurse?

[Nurse0621]

I'm Curious... What's the scariest thing/experience you've ever seen or had as a nurse?

Mine was when I had to tell a pt husband to leave as there was home/?abuse issues. The husband and patient got extremely angry and I had to call security to escort him out. When pt husband left I was very shaken over this situation as I was only a nsg student at the time. So I told the charge I was going to get a coffee and step outside for some air. When I went outside, the husband was pacing in the parking lot staring at me. It looked like he was going to go postal. I was stiff with fear and I didn't know wether to stay or run. Finally security ran out and escorted me in and the husband finally left. Man was I ever shaken up about that!!!

[KBRN1971]

I'm an ER nurse. I've been threatened, bitten, shoved, jumped at, stared down, and spat at, etc. etc. just part of the job in an area with high substance abuse problems. But by far, the scariest thing that I have ever seen was a 14 year old kid who felt that they were possessed. They stayed in one position sitting on the gurney with their hands folded in their lap for hours with their face face pointing down and their eyes staring up... I've watched wayyyyyy to many scary movies! It creeped me out for days!

[marydc]

I'm a psychiatric nurse and was assaulted resulting in a broken nose and other injuries but that happened so fast it wasn't even my scariest moment. The most frightening was when a very paranoid and delusional patient impulsively got another male patient in a choke hold completely cutting off his airway. A male tech and I were immediately there trying to get him off. He exhibited unbelievable strength and even as strong as our TA is we couldn't get him to release. I will never forget the look in either patient's eyes. One wild eyed like an animal, the other struggling and terrified. I honestly thought I was going to watch him kill him right in front of us. He finally let go when someone hit him across the face.

[LouTracy-Walker]

UPDATE: I am now an LVN working in an alzheimers unit.

[anon456, BSN, RN]

You all say you don't want to do peds and then go on to tell stories about big patients threatening violence.

[Postpartum RN]

Wow what an amazing thread; I don't have any stories that I can think of..but bumping for more from others

[CountryMomma, ASN, RN]

Eroding trach leading to an endobronchial one-way valve clot. Pt was coughing out massive amounts of Frank and clotted blood. Worst part was that it was high pressure coughing - room looked like a murder scene. Endobronchial clots are odd - the pt typically presents as HD stable until their blood gasses completely fall apart from the sudden loss of ventilation to a good chunk of lung.

Never will forget walking into the room and finding the wall, curtain, bed and pt covered in clots and blood, all while he's attempting to happily extubate himself d/t unit delirium.

[brownbook]

This was, in retrospect, more stupid than scary. I was the 11 - 7 administrative nurse, a code gray, (patient out of control), was called in the locked psych facility. Our hospital is next door to the sheriff's office so we can have deputies come as a back up. I can't remember the details of how that worked? They know they have to leave their guns outside the psych unit.

I arrived and a large man was very violent, attacking the responders, suddenly I thought I heard "He's got a gun." I immediately thought a deputy must have had his gun on him and the patient had grabbed it. I hid around the corner, finally stupid me realized someone had said.."call a code." I know those phrases don't even sound alike but...well....in the heat of the moment, and I am hard of hearing.....

Poor guy did code and died....I wonder if all along he wasn't even psychotic was having a heart attack and hypoxic or something?

[calivianya, BSN, RN]

My most recent was a really unstable post code. The differential dx was that he threw the most massive PE to end all PEs, but they caught it quick enough that they got a heartbeat back when they coded him. MD ordered tPA as a last ditch effort because he had no perfusion to his lungs. I learned that tPA post CPR results in massive exsanguination out of the lungs. We couldn't keep his lungs clear enough to ventilate him. We thought maybe it was him fighting the vent... we put him on bilevel and 100%, started flolan, were talking about the oscillator, paralyzed him, and I was in the process of hooking up BIS monitoring and train of fours when his 60% O2 sat caught up to him and he started bradying down. After he passed, I hooked the ETT up to wall suction just for kicks and giggles and got almost a liter of frank blood out despite the frequent suctioning we had been doing while he was still alive.

Reminded me that all of us are terribly vulnerable... we are just fragile bags of guts and bones held together by skin and we are fools if we think we are more than that. He had been on the floor for a very not exciting medical problem and was A&O, on room air, and ambulating before he threw that PE. He had apparently been talking with the nurses extensively about the vacation he was looking forward to taking when he got discharged from the hospital not that long before he coded. He wasn't even particularly high risk for a PE in the first place.