Who watches Greys Anatomy? Those of you who are medical and watch this show know that the actual medicine that takes place in this show is totally fake, but the crazy stories and personal interactions are completely spot on. When Derek was in a coma did anyone realize that his ET tube was obviously in the wrong place. Or when they shocked the patient in Torsades? I wanted to scream "Defib for VFib and pulse-less VTach!" My favorite moments are when they show someone being bagged and the ambu bag isn't even inflating.. Really how hard is it to get some details correct.
Rant over.. As I've mentioned before I am a Registered Nurse at our local Medical/Trauma center. I have a strong love for Emergency Nursing. There have been moments that have made me laugh hysterically and moments where I have balled my eyes out. In the past 4 years I have done just about everything you can think of. I've flown in the helicopter, stuck my hand in someone's open chest, delivered a baby, kept a straight face while listening to hilarious stories and complaints, but most importantly I have comforted and helped many many people of all ages.
I want to start a small section in my blog where I share stories of my nursing experience. All the good, happy, upsetting and just completely hilarious experiences that I have had or are currently having. So here we go starting with one of my most favorite experiences!
Animals to never snuggle... A Groundhog
One summer afternoon I was the main triage nurse, it had been a really slow day so you know something is going to happen to ruin your perfect shift. I hear a couple walk in through the main ER doors getting ready to check in, the man is laughing and his wife is screaming at him, this is normal in the ER. The registration assistant looks over the wall to me with a shocked look on her face and says.. "Umm you might want to just bring him back and I can get him registered then" I pull the mans chart from the wire basket and open the door to call his name. When I pulled the door back I saw a man standing in khaki shorts, sperrys and a ripped to shreds white button down shirt that was covered in blood. He had lacerations all over his arms, chest and face, and we are talking deep lacerations and puncture wounds. He didn't appear to be in any pain and was obviously intoxicated judging by the way he was laughing and how totally pissed off his wife looked. He walks into my triage bay without a care in the world and sits down on the chair across from me. His wife was standing as far away as possible with blood also all over her adorable white lily pulitzer dress. Side Note: I would murder anyone who got blood on my lily pulitzer so kudos to her for not killing him on the spot!
The first words out of my mouth to this man was "Are you OK?" He starts laughing and states "Of course I'm ok...Never better!" and continues to laugh. I look over at his wife and ask her what had happened. She is beyond furious at this point towards her husband, she states "We were at my family picnic and this A**hole gets drunk and decides to pick up a ground hog and snuggle it" I looked at her in utter disbelief. "Oh no I am 100% serious, bet you never heard this one before" She was right.
The man is still sitting there laughing and at this point he is getting out his phone and showing me pictures of him and the ground hog. I ask him why in the world he would ever think that this was a good idea. With all sincerity he answered "I just love ground hogs! They are so cute and fat and I love the way they wobble when they run away" He precedes to try and wobble like a ground hog. At this point it is taking everything I have in me not to laugh at the situation. He told me the story about how his brother in law dared him to catch the ground hog and when he did he began to snuggle it. When people at the party realized he had taken it to far by actually catching the ground hog they had tried to chase him to get it back. This was the point he stated that the ground hog "went ape sh*t" on him. He said he started running away from his family while still holding the ground hog close so that it wouldn't escape.
Getting really into the story (how could you not) I asked him what happened to the ground hog... He gives his wife a death glare and says "SHE MADE ME DROP IT" like a five year old who was told to put down a dead mouse or something. I really did laugh at this point and thankfully his wife laughed right along with me.
Now this gentlemen is bleeding all over my triage bay from multiple lacerations and I had to decide what to do about that. I quickly called our head attending physician and said "Dr... I think I might have a trauma consult out here?". Hearing my questioning tone he states "Megan, you know what your doing, does he meet trauma criteria?" (We pretty set trauma criteria that we follow). I said "Well no but I don't really know what else to call this". Now he is interested "Well what is it". "Man Vs. Groundhog" I stated. He started laughing on the phone "Um, no I don't believe that is trauma criteria but hang out because I have to come out and see this".
Lesson of the story is that ground hogs are quite mean and should never be snuggled ever. No matter how intoxicated you might be. You will end up in the ER and we will talk about you for years to come :)
This man only had minor injuries when he was all cleaned up. He was discharged and healed perfectly. Super nice guy, he did bring me in doughnuts a month after and apologized for being so drunk. Little did he know that he made my nursing career that day he was in my triage bay!
Thanks for reading!
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