I love moments when you have no idea what else to do but laugh. When the strangest things happen and you all just look at each other completely dumbfounded. Everything is so quiet, and then one person starts laughing and suddenly all of the ER staff are laughing along. Some stories are so good that they make their way around the whole hospital and even spread to other nearby Emergency Departments. This is one of those stories...
Just your typical Monday in the ER, full waiting room, hallway beds and everyone is stressed out. We were getting slammed with sick patients left and right, too many ambulances and traumas to even count. Is this a recipe for a hilarious disaster... Yes!
It was the middle of the afternoon almost the evening when my team of 4 nurses were all in a room starting the work up on a very sick patient that had just came in by ambulance. The patient started coding and soon the entire department was in the room helping out. Normally, the ambulance crew drops the patient off, gives report and heads back to their truck. We love this local ambulance crew and when the patient started going downhill, they stuck around to help us out.
In the midst of the chaos of trying to save a life, one of our other nurses walks in and says "Umm everyone.. I think my psych patient got out of their room". The patient was considered a 302 which means they were being placed in a psych facility against their wishes for their own safety and best interest. Side note- it is a lengthy process to commit someone as a 302, its not like we can just hold people against their will for fun. We all just looked and kind of dismissed her, psych patients leave their rooms all the time with a patient sitter to go to the bathroom or just take a walk around the department.
Now that my patient was stabilized a few of the other nurses went to help look for the other patient that was MIA. I stood back with my critical patient and was talking with the paramedic about everything we had done. I heard the overhead pager system calling for the patient that couldn't be found, Hmmm that can't be good. I said goodbye to the paramedic and went to help out my team.
I had just sat down to start charting when the paramedic came up to me, "Did anyone move our ambulance?" he said. I went back to check with our communication center (they control all the ambulances coming in and our helicopter) and no luck, no one had moved the ambulance. At this point I hear the other nurse saying "OH SH*T". I turned to the paramedic who was standing there with that deer in the headlight I just really messed up look on his face. "Did you happen to leave the keys in the ambulance when you ran the patient in?" I asked him. His face went completely white.
Prior to this incident it was common that many of the EMS crews left the keys in the trucks or even the trucks running.
The whole department got up and ran into the communication center where the crew was pulling up the security tapes that showed the ambulance bay. As clear as can be we all saw the missing patient hop into the ambulance, turn it on and drive away. The amount of silence in that room was like nothing you will ever have in a Emergency Department. You could literally hear everyones breath. Out of no where one of our charge nurses just starts deep belly laughing, a true hilarious laugh. Pretty soon everyone was laughing so hard we were in tears. Never in the history of our department has anyone thought to steal an ambulance until that day. Touche to that patient they will be remember for eternity.
Ending of the story...the patient was found shortly after (really you can't get very far in a stolen ambulance). No harm done everyone was just fine. Lesson to this story: If you steal an ambulance or any vehicle, do not drive it to your house and park in your driveway when we have your address on file.
Hope everyone got a good kick out of that story to start your week!
* Please be aware that a lot of details are left out or changed for patient privacy and the privacy of our department.
No comments:
Post a Comment