Super Sonic Transport

Their IV was leaking. It just needed a little cleaning up. The tubing wasn't securely screwed onto the catheter, and it was fine after I took it down and redressed it. While busy with that, the call light for the room across the hall was activated, so when I was done I walked over. My hip-phone rang.

"Hey shrimp," said Arly, our unit secretary, "The light's on in room 15. They're on the floor."

"I'm right here now, Arly, and it's not them. It's a visitor. Can you put a call out for whatever team takes care of stuff like this?" I asked, and she said she'd call SST. The patient was standing up and she appeared to be just fine, but the visitor was laying out on the floor, eyes closed, his legs folded underneath him.

I did what any nurse would do in such a situation; I walked over to the man on the floor and kicked him to see if he would arouse. Then I yelled "Get the fuck up, loser."

Not really.

I checked a pulse, asked him if he was okay, and waited for help. He started to wake up a little and moaned, guarding the left side of his abdomen.

"So dude, what the fuck's your problem?" I asked.

No, not really.

He was moving okay and another visitor had explained that they lowered him to the floor and that he'd felt sick for a few days. Kaylee came in with a vital signs machine. She put a pillow under the guy's head. More floor nurses came and we helped him up to a chair. He looked like he was in a lot of pain, and he said so.

Arly had called SST (Special Situations Team) by now, and our nursing assistant Casey went to get a wheelchair or stretcher. The visitor was sitting up and talking. I got a phone call from the emergency department.



"Do we have to come up there, or are you going to bring them down here?" asked Jamie.

Really.

We got the man onto a gurney and rolled him down to the ED. We couldn't find Jamie and nobody else had the faintest clue that we were coming. The desk people pointed us to an open spot in the hallway. After a few minutes another nurse came along and directed us into an ED bay, and a few minutes after that Jamie came in. We reported off to her and went back up to our own unit.

We later heard that the patient was admitted for kidney stones and was scheduled for lithotripsy the next day.