Thursday, August 16, 2007

Power

Very drunk boy presents to triage. No, make that "presents to waiting room". He was carrying on and causing enough drama for security to be called and all of us to head out and see what the hell was going on.

In an effort to do some damage control, we drag his drunk ass back in a wheelchair (homies, have a seat) to see what all the hysterics and hyperventilation was about. Every other work is an f-bomb (literally) and he's scratching and hitting and trying to bite everyone in sight.

Meanwhile, from the curtained cubicle next to ours, Dr. Young Stud (who looks like a 16-year-old on steroids and is one of only 3 docs in our ER that I would let touch me because the rest suck most of the time) has decided to come over and see what the hell is going on.

He leans across the empty bed and gets down to Drunk Boy's eye level and says, "Buddy, you can't talk like that in here. We're trying to help you, let the nurses do their jobs and we'll help you. Just calm down and stop cussing."

You can imagine the response. It was liberally laced with expletives. Well, one expletive. Apparently our local school system only teaches the alphabet up to "F".

Dr. Young Stud says, "You can not talk like that in here. Everyone can hear everything that you're saying. You need to stop now." (He's starting to become a little bit unhappy.)

Said behaviour continues.

Doc's now pissed. (Welcome to the club; the rest of us were pissed about 10 seconds after Drunk Boy was dragged in the door.) He says," You have one more chance to knock it off. Otherwise you will regret it."

More f-bombs from Drunk Boy.

At this point, Dr. Young Stud (who is about 6'4" and 250 lbs, not a little guy) vaults the bed and lands in front of Drunk Boy, and says, "That's it, you're done. You're in my world, now, little boy, and you just used up all your chances."

Drunk Boy commences levitating (with a little help from the hands standing by) to the bed with it's waiting 4-point restraints, and in about 10 seconds goes from screaming in the wheelchair to laying flat on his back, eyes huge, unable to move a muscle, with a large, angry doctor in his face. "If I hear one more cuss word out of your mouth, I promise you, this will look like nothing."

Dead silence. And then the sobbing begins. "I want my mom." Conveniently located by the homies, who have now split, mom is in the waiting room. Drunk Sobbing Boy is now mostly quiet.

And the mood has gone from pissy to jovial in the ER. Because nothing cheers you up like making a belligerent drunk cry for Mommy.

6 comments:

Angry Nurse said...

Similar situation just the other night for me.

Drunk yelling, screaming and calling the ladies the dreaded c word.

I get involved and calm try to discuss with him the need to tone down when he makes the mistake of yelling I know my rights. Roughly ten seconds later he's face down on the bed and four pointed with me hissing in his ear "Your rights just ended, welcome to the world of mental health warrents"...

They just never learn!

mielikki said...

good on Dr. Young Stud, we need more like him, and angry nurse up there. If they start that behavior in the ICU, I can usually just reward them with ativan. We can't use 4 points unsless we have a very nice MD willing to come in and reassess the patient every 4 hours, and a sitter for the patient to have him under constant observation. . .

NocturnalRN said...

Haha!

The Platypus said...

Our security staff can touch a pressure point on a patient's shoulder which will turn even the most out of control psychotic into the perfect guest, but they only use it on special occasions.

Peter said...

I learnt a long time ago, not to argue with a drunk.

It would look confusing to an onlooker in A&E when a nurse copes a verbal bashing from a patient and the nurse replies with control & restraint.

But the only way to deal with them is to treat them like the doctor did.

Anonymous said...

awesome