Back when I was in high school, I had the opportunity to do a co-op placement at one of the local hospitals. Essentially, the hospital got a grunt for free and I got a credit towards my diploma. For the most part it was fairly uneventful. I mainly stayed in the library digging through various medical journals looking for obscure articles for the doctors and delivering mail. I got sent up to day surgery a few times where I got to do a lot of the running around for the nurses and the things they just didn't have time to do (bringing patients juice, popping in to see if they needed anything, keeping a chemo patient company during treatment, etc). The nurses were very welcoming despite me being a useless little teen and even took the time to explain their check-in procedures and such. It was a positive experience but very quiet, so I got really excited when the powers that be decided to send me up to the psych ward to help for a the day.
I had no idea what to expect going in there, but I was just happy to not be delivering mail. I had never even been to that floor of the hospital before, but I got a bit of a lump in my throat when I got to the doors of the psych ward and fumbled for my key card. The charge nurse immediately swept me into the nursing station and set me to work with getting some of their paperwork organized. It was pretty unsettling to say the least. There was an emaciated woman curled up in a doorway sobbing as a nurse tried to coax her into eating. One of the patients started wandering in and out of the nursing station to inform me of a childhood of severe sexual abuse. He became very agitated very quickly, but thankfully there was a very large nurse that was keeping an eye on me and put himself between the patient and I. After gently guiding this gentleman away from the nursing station and calming the patient, he had a word with the charge nurse and I was scooted off into a little office to continue my tedious work.
I spent the majority of the shift in the office and it was surprisingly quiet. Anytime I had to return to the nursing station the previously agitated patient was very pleasant. About ten minutes before the shift ended though, there was an bloodcurdling shriek and the sound of various equipment smashing against a wall. I had no idea what to do. I looked out the window of the office and saw the female patient flying like a bat out of hell into another patient's room and barricade herself in. The charge nurse threw open the door to the office, asked if I was OK, then locked me in the office. All I could do was watch the scene across the hall from me, only occasionally breaking my bug eyed stare to glance at the emergency button on the wall that I hadn't noticed before. My shift ended as maintenance arrived to help pry open the door to get to the patient.
The charge nurse walked me out. I must have been white as a ghost because she was laughing when she asked me what I thought. Just as the doors to the ward click shut behind me, there was a another panicked scream and banging on the doors. I jumped and looked back to see the male nurse pounding on the doors, screaming "OH GOD HELP ME! GET ME OUT! UNLOCK THE DOOR!"
The locked buzzed and he hobbled out of the ward, doubled over with laughter. "I love doing that", he said before skipping ahead of me towards the elevator.
Over the years, I've come to appreciate his sense of humour.
Showing posts with label newb. Show all posts
Showing posts with label newb. Show all posts
Apr 18, 2011
A day at the races
So I figured I would kick things off with the story of my first time doing first response at the race track (cars, not horses). I picked an interesting time to start going there, since my first day happened to be an annual event that involves hundreds of amateurs (read: any schlub with a beat up car) trying to keep their junker on the clay track without hitting the wall or each other (though there is was usually a cop car ever year, always closely followed by one that had "get the pig" spray painted on it...). Anyway, I had heard tons of stories from the senior responders about the insanity that goes on at the track (lots of alcohol and drugs, there is a theory that each portion of the grandstands are really a family and they are not allowed to interbred with the other grandstand families). I was really excited to finally start covering something a bit more exciting than mellow little fairs and whatnot, and since I'm an adrenaline junkie I didn't really think about the danger involved...until I got to my posting and had a little chat with my partner.
My partner was this unbelievably sweet, very very french senior responder who also happened to be the team leader for that event. We were posted in center ring. I thought I was going to get stuck up in the grandstands or the pits with one of the Rn's so I was overjoyed when I found out I would be in the center of the track (nothing against the pits or grandstands, they have their fair share of excitement as I later found out, I just assumed the center got more action). I was even more excited when I found out that I would be one of the teams actually standing in the field (therefor absolute first response for crashes) instead of being backup/EMS handover in the ambulance parked in the middle.
So there we are, standing in the middle of a huge circle of cars being operated by mainly intoxicated/high amateur drivers, and I'm so excited I'm almost shaking. The cars are just finishing lining up, then my partner said something that scared the living hell out of me. He grabs me by the shoulders and tells me:
"OK, we stand facing each other at all times. You watch over my shoulder, I watch over yours. If I grab your shoulders and start walking to the side, don't panic, just move with me. It means there is a chunk of the track or a car flying at you and I'm moving you out of the way so you don't get hit. You do the same for me. You're facing corner 4, watch that one because they always hit the wall at corner four and someone might roll into the crowd*. OK?"
Uhhh buuuuh waaaaaaah?! OK! I started questioning just what the hell I was about to get myself into but it was far too late to even think of asking for a posting change since the flag was drop and the race was on. Luckily enough, there weren't any serious injuries that day. We did respond to a t-bone during one of the womens' races but I was mainly stuck in the back of the car stabilizing her head, getting the collar on, and sliding the KED kit down (she turned out to be fine, was just really shaken up but you can't be too safe). A few hit the wall, a few fires (one which involved gas being spilled all over the track before igniting, but that was the fire crews job), maybe a few rollovers (this was years ago and I ended up doing a lot of response at that track so my memory is a bit hazy), but overall it was a good day.
After each race, most of the cars would just park in the center field around us since the drivers had no intention of doing any other racing, so we had to scramble to make sure the keys were out of the ignition of all of them in between races. By the end it looked like a parking lot in there.
Luckily for us, neither of us had to move each other out of the way of flying debris...though I did end up pointing over his shoulder a few times shouting "HOLY SHIT!" to which he just responded "corner 4?"
Good times.
*A car actually did end up rolling into the crowd eventually, but that was years later and is another story for another day.
My partner was this unbelievably sweet, very very french senior responder who also happened to be the team leader for that event. We were posted in center ring. I thought I was going to get stuck up in the grandstands or the pits with one of the Rn's so I was overjoyed when I found out I would be in the center of the track (nothing against the pits or grandstands, they have their fair share of excitement as I later found out, I just assumed the center got more action). I was even more excited when I found out that I would be one of the teams actually standing in the field (therefor absolute first response for crashes) instead of being backup/EMS handover in the ambulance parked in the middle.
So there we are, standing in the middle of a huge circle of cars being operated by mainly intoxicated/high amateur drivers, and I'm so excited I'm almost shaking. The cars are just finishing lining up, then my partner said something that scared the living hell out of me. He grabs me by the shoulders and tells me:
"OK, we stand facing each other at all times. You watch over my shoulder, I watch over yours. If I grab your shoulders and start walking to the side, don't panic, just move with me. It means there is a chunk of the track or a car flying at you and I'm moving you out of the way so you don't get hit. You do the same for me. You're facing corner 4, watch that one because they always hit the wall at corner four and someone might roll into the crowd*. OK?"
Uhhh buuuuh waaaaaaah?! OK! I started questioning just what the hell I was about to get myself into but it was far too late to even think of asking for a posting change since the flag was drop and the race was on. Luckily enough, there weren't any serious injuries that day. We did respond to a t-bone during one of the womens' races but I was mainly stuck in the back of the car stabilizing her head, getting the collar on, and sliding the KED kit down (she turned out to be fine, was just really shaken up but you can't be too safe). A few hit the wall, a few fires (one which involved gas being spilled all over the track before igniting, but that was the fire crews job), maybe a few rollovers (this was years ago and I ended up doing a lot of response at that track so my memory is a bit hazy), but overall it was a good day.
After each race, most of the cars would just park in the center field around us since the drivers had no intention of doing any other racing, so we had to scramble to make sure the keys were out of the ignition of all of them in between races. By the end it looked like a parking lot in there.
Luckily for us, neither of us had to move each other out of the way of flying debris...though I did end up pointing over his shoulder a few times shouting "HOLY SHIT!" to which he just responded "corner 4?"
Good times.
*A car actually did end up rolling into the crowd eventually, but that was years later and is another story for another day.
First post
After getting hooked on a few health care related blogs *points to links*, I started thinking about all the interesting, scary, and downright crazy things I've seen so far in my years filling various rolls in the field and how many bizarre things I will inevitably end up seeing not only as a future RN (I start pre-health in September) but also as a patient (since I am now going through the diagnosis maze for M.S.-like symptoms). So why not make my own blog? We'll see how well this goes.
This blog will be a bit all over the place in terms of subject. There will be student related ranting (both from my previous time in college and my upcoming time in college and university), funny stories, sad stories, and a few ramblings from my point of view as a patient as well. I started out doing first response and emergency is where my heart is, so I'm guessing most of this will be covering that subject.
Oh, also: I curse like a sailor. You've been warned.
This blog will be a bit all over the place in terms of subject. There will be student related ranting (both from my previous time in college and my upcoming time in college and university), funny stories, sad stories, and a few ramblings from my point of view as a patient as well. I started out doing first response and emergency is where my heart is, so I'm guessing most of this will be covering that subject.
Oh, also: I curse like a sailor. You've been warned.
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