So the other day I went into work for three hours to cover part of a shift for someone else. Everything was going along really good at first - the waiting area wasn't full of impatient people and there were no ambulance crews lined up along the halls waiting for an empty bed to drop their patient in so they could run back out on the streets and pick up the next one. It was busy, just not insanely busy. I was thinking I could just keep a low profile for a few hours and escape unscathed, but then I heard this noise from the other side of the ER. There was this incredibly loud screaming (words that I can't repeat here), and a lot of miscellaneous clattering, crashing, and thumping. The part I didn't really like about this is that the whole show sounded like it was headed for my side of the ER - really fast. It turned out that this was a really big guy who had overdosed on some kind of drug and was, if you want to know the correct medical terminology, "freaking out". People are allowed to "freak out" in the ER as long as they don't hurt themselves or anyone else. It happens all the time. It's just that this particular individual apeared to be in violation of both of these rules. Looking back, it was kind of funny to see everyone's reaction. Generally, the female staff members ran and hid behind the desks in the nurses station. Most of the guys gravitated towards the disturbance instead of away from it. When it was all over, the overdose patient was lying on the floor with -count 'em- two paramedics, a doctor, the charge nurse, and me all on top of him trying to avoid his teeth, and calmly waiting for hospital security to take the guy back to his room so he could be treated for the problem that brought him there in the first place. A couple of minutes later you could never have guessed that anything out of the ordinary occured. Sometimes the wierdest things happen at work. -Hans |
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