National Nurses Week: Crazy Stories On The Job

It’s National Nurses Week and we are celebrating all that nurses face on the job!   Some local nurses shared some stories:

• Dana: My mom’s a nurse. She once told me of a seriously overweight woman who came into the office complaining of a foul body odor. After running down the checklist, the doctor examined her and discovered a sandwich jammed between the folds of her fat. The sandwich was trapped in there so long it was covered with mold.
• Stephanie: Had a patient who was a prisoner, shackled to bed. As I start opening her meds, I look up at her TV, and see she is watching a show that is describing how to escape handcuffs if you’re kidnapped. She looks at me, and then at the officer watching her and says “Maybe I shouldn’t be watching this…”
• Brynn: While reading one of my co-workers notes in the chart, she meant to say, “patient noted to have fecal compaction”, but instead wrote, “patient noted to have FETAL compaction”. Got me laughing for a few hours.
• Becki…I’m a psych nurse and approximately 18 years ago when I was a new nurse at my 1st job it was not in the job description to take a punch in the jaw from a patient or get chased by a patient who  wanted to show me how he choked a snake. My current job is much better btw. 

If YOU are a nurse, what is craziest thing YOU’VE dealt with on the job?