Welcome Thursday visitors from Mama Kat and big hugs and high fives to my regulars!
Today I chose prompt number one:
An ER moment. (I'm assuming real life, not the show, right?)
Having kids, there were a few ER visits to pick from, especially from our acreage days. However, I am opting to tell you about something that happened during one of my ER shifts.
Nights in the ER were actually a lot of fun. This particular night I was working the same shift as the orthotech, who assists in casting and amputating appendages.
It was about two in the morning, and I was on "B" side, which is a little quieter than "A", but not as quiet as "Minor".
I was still quite new, so didn't get involved a whole lot; more of a people watcher. Suddenly the orthotech came up to my pod group and showed us an amputated finger packed in ice in a specimen jar.
"Touch it!" she said.
"Touch THAT?"
"Yeah! Just touch it. It's okay. It's sterile. It just feels really rubbery when the blood is drained and (naturally) the circulation has stopped and the ice is packed around it making it cold." she tried again.
"Um. Not a chance." There was no way on God's green frigging earth that I was going to touch some poor fool's amputated finger.
The other nurses around me wouldn't even touch the thing.
Well, can you believe that within a couple of minutes she had me convinced?
So I slowly and gently reached over....
I turned my face slightly away and watched out of the corner of my eye as my finger moved, seemingly with a life of it's own, toward the speciment jar....
And ever so bravely, I stuck my finger down into the container....
And wouldn't you just know it?
THE DAMNED THING MOVED!!!!
OH! MY! GOD! I screamed bloody murder.
And woke all the patients trying to get some sleep.
And scared the hell out of the nurses huddled around me.
My delightful orthotech had cut a hole in the bottom of the container and stuck her own finger in through the bottom, packed it with ice and went around to each pod playing her little trick.
Yup. Definitely my favorite ER moment.
5 comments:
C'mon, admit it - you were happy that it wasn't a real cold amputated finger. {*grin*}
There's always at least one joker in every crowd. They are what makes life interesting.
I remember doing the "mummy finger" trick with a small box for jewelry and some talcum powder to make my finger look really pale.
Thanks for reminding me of what I complete dope I was!
Hilarious!!! :) Happy Thanksgiving!
That's too funny! And your screaming picture made it even funnier! Nice work. Try to stay out of trouble today. No screaming on the job. :-)
Oh that's great. I love working with kidders like that.
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