Failed escape

[Palomita]

I just remembered this story that happened to me a couple of years ago... Its one of the more special ones... patient wasn't sucky, but this is worth mentioning nonetheless...

I was upstairs passing food trays to the patients... I get to this one room, grab the tray and i'm about to go in when the patient steps up to the door frame and yells at me:

P: I wanna get out of here! get me out of here!
Me: Uhh i'm sorry sir, I can't do that.
P: You people are holding me prisoner here, I wanna go home!

At that, he rips out the IV from his arm... blood starts dripping everywhere. I just stare at him in shock... so he decides to take off his patient robe and wrap it around his arm to make the bleeding stop (thank heavens he was wearing pajama pants, so he wasn't naked after doing that). So he looks at me again, and points to a nearby wheelchair.

P: could you bring that wheelchair closer please? (he can barely stand as it is... the longer he's staying up, the weaker he's appearing to be)
Me: I'm sorry sir, but I'm not going to contribute to your escape (yes I actually said that)... now why don't you sit down on the chair in your room and i'll serve you your lunch.

At this point the poor guy didn't have anymore energy to be standing...so he sat down and let me give him his tray. After that I sought out a nurse and informed her of what happened... she told me that it wasn't the first time that day he had done that, and then she left to go put in his IV...

That was one of my most shocking moments while passing trays... others would include me walking in on old men lying naked in bed touching themselves (which taught me to ALWAYS ask if I can come in if the curtain is drawn)... and walking in a room to find the patient is dead and the nurses forgot to mention it so that we wouldn't have a tray for the patient...

[tollbaby]

That was one thing I hated about volunteering at the Rehab Centre (accident/heart patient rehab, not drug/alcohol). I once walked into a room to refill the water pitchers and tidy up, and found a dead woman in the bed. *shudder* I'd had family members die, but I'd never been the one to FIND a dead body before. That's what made me decide NOT to go into nursing. I just couldn't handle people dying, etc. (that, and I'm a massive emetophobe)

[Princess-Snake]

What that guy did was sucky, but I can't say that I really blame him. I've been in hospitals countless times and want to go home. I've never done anything like pull an IV out of my arm. Most severe case of home-sickness usually results in me crying myself to sleep while watching America's Most Wanted.

[tollbaby]

To be fair he was probably not entirely "there" if you get my meaning.... If he had tried it several times and was really in the mindset that "you people are keeping me prisoner", it sounds like maybe a family member should have been present to run interference for the staff. My grandma got like that after her last stroke, and it wasn't pretty.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I once pulled an IV out of my arm... but I was still under anasthesia when I did it so I can't be held responsible (the doc told my mom and she told me about it later)

[hecubus]

At that, he rips out the IV from his arm...

...she told me that it wasn't the first time that day he had done that, and then she left to go put in his IV...

What I can't figure out is, if the guy had pulled his IV out several times, why the heck hadn't the staff put him in soft restraints or something? To leave a patient with several instances of pulling out his IV unrestrained and able to do the same thing again and again is simply ridiculous!