So since I have been working nights I have seen a lot of interesting things. Plus we are always short staff making it easy not to miss anything interesting because everyone is usually piled into that room working on the patient. Well we had 2 traumas come in with one doctor and 3 nurses on staff one of them being me. The patients that came in were drunk drivers that didn’t wear their seat belts and everyone was ejected from their seat. I took care of one patient myself that was gashed up, on a back board and still in his cervical collar. I got to start my first double lumen IV. It was a huge ass needle. There were 3 total trauma patients, one show up 15 minutes later. Its not that I wish for traumas to happen, but wow the thrill and adrenaline rush you get from them. There was excitement and terror feeling in my stomach. Especially when your in the room with the patient, one other nurse and a doctor who was floating between them. I finally learn to leave the paper work alone, get the allergies and the main info to rattle off to the doctor. The ER was put on stand still as we rushed to get fluids and get them in to CT to assess the damages. I felt like I was on that show on ER…here I was holding the neck in place and saying on my count…1..2..3 roll…wow…scary and thrilling. No time to worry about messing up just concentrating on what I was doing. Making sure I was alert and listening to what the doctor was barking out at us and getting those medicines pulled up and administered ASAP. What is awful is all those patients that showed up while we were so busy. The techs running around getting vials and making sure no one coming in was critical.
Another group of critical patients I have seen are overdoses. Which seems to be very popular around here. I have seen all ages from 16 to 75 years old. Most intentional others accidental. I hate those that I have seen twice for this. How has the system failed them? Why are they not committed? I have been in the room during intubations and placing patients on vents, to shoving charcoal down someone's throat…most will hurl stand far away…others will crap themselves half to death. By the way placing 16 gauge needles in are hard to do when the large bore needle doesn’t fit in a small vein. The other nurse had to get the line in. I ended up putting a 20 gauge as a second line. I have also taken these critical patients to CT. A nurse has to accompany the CT tech if the patient is stable but critical just in case something goes wrong. Well while I was there the blood pressure started to drop and I had to rapidly infuse some more fluids…while the tech said don’t worry no one dies in CT…I push them out in the hall…cute…not.
There is no routine in this job. You have to be on your toes at all times. There is no time to panic (still do a little…few deep breaths help..lol) I love this job!
Another group of critical patients I have seen are overdoses. Which seems to be very popular around here. I have seen all ages from 16 to 75 years old. Most intentional others accidental. I hate those that I have seen twice for this. How has the system failed them? Why are they not committed? I have been in the room during intubations and placing patients on vents, to shoving charcoal down someone's throat…most will hurl stand far away…others will crap themselves half to death. By the way placing 16 gauge needles in are hard to do when the large bore needle doesn’t fit in a small vein. The other nurse had to get the line in. I ended up putting a 20 gauge as a second line. I have also taken these critical patients to CT. A nurse has to accompany the CT tech if the patient is stable but critical just in case something goes wrong. Well while I was there the blood pressure started to drop and I had to rapidly infuse some more fluids…while the tech said don’t worry no one dies in CT…I push them out in the hall…cute…not.
There is no routine in this job. You have to be on your toes at all times. There is no time to panic (still do a little…few deep breaths help..lol) I love this job!
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