Part 3

Hey, cadre family, Dr. Carrie here, your resident trauma and relationship life coach. And we're going to dive into stories from the ER part three today. I used to be an ER nurse, worked in several level one trauma centers in urban areas, and I have some pretty crazy stories from my time there as an ER nurse. But this one ranks up there as the most embarrassing for me. And I actually used to share this story when I would teach de-escalation courses when I would teach violence prevention courses to other nurses, especially ER nurses, because they endure probably the most violence from patients in the healthcare setting.

And I used to share the story as a lesson of what not to do. And I'm going to draw a parallel from this story that I actually have reflected on of like what is my biggest aha moment from it, so get ready, settle in for this hilarious embarrassing story from yours truly as a former ER nurse. m. and the police brought a patient to my room, I'm sorry, the paramedics brought a patient to my room. And he had been caught by police running on erratic behavior, not sure what was wrong with him, maybe on substances.

And the police called 911 because he started banging his head against the police car when they were coughing him like so hard that they thought he potentially had a concussion, so he needed to be evaluated medically. So the paramedics dropped him off. Now if you understand the laws in the states where you work, what happens here is there's often a hold put on a patient where they are under not arrest, but they're on a medical hold so that we can get them care, but does violate their free rights for a short time.

But basically the police were so concerned about this patient that they wanted to make sure that he got checked out. And so that's why paramedics brought him in. Now understanding that this patient was on a transport hold, I asked the paramedics, I said, so who's with him right now? You dropped him in one of my open rooms and you're talking to me at my computer is the other paramedic with him. And he's like, no, I said, oh, so he's been free to walk out, but he's been put on a hold and they're like, yeah, I guess so.

And so I thought, well, great. So like this guy could potentially have a head injury and now he's free to walk out, which is not really how we do it. So there needs to be like all these legal things that happened in the ER. So I looked down the hallway and I see him exiting the room, heading towards the exit of the ER. Knowing that I'm going to be held liable for this patient who's on a hold, I break out. So what do I do? I start running after him failed to tell the other nurses that I was working with.

Hey, I'm going to leave my section for a while here. Could you make sure my other patients are safe? And nope, I just took off because I saw him running down the hallway. And I thought, oh my gosh, this guy needs medical treatment. We need to make sure he's okay. He could have a serious head injury. So he takes off book and I'm running after him. Nobody even knows what's going on. They just see me running through the ER and they're probably like, man, maybe she has to go to the bathroom. I'm not sure.

But it just, it looks like an odd situation, but not enough to draw attention yet. So he runs out this very long hallway in the ER, out the doors. I'm trying to catch up to him. He takes off towards the front entrance of the ER, which is mind you in a downtown, very busy location. Okay, this ER smack dab in the middle of a downtown. m. It's track at time. He makes it out the front of doors of the ER and starts running across the street. I still have not caught up to him and I'm still running after him and have yet to tell anybody that I have now left the building.

I'm literally outside the building, probably not in the safest area. I mean, who knows this guy could like have a gang outside that could be ready to kill me. Wasn't thinking obviously. So I'm running after him. He takes off across the street, then decides halfway through to change directions and go around the other way. So he like literally does like almost a U in the intersection, which is a super busy intersection. And I'm trying to catch up to him. Meanwhile, security have now caught on that I'm chasing a patient or something because I'm wearing my scrubs and this guy is running and they're like, well, we probably should help her.

So security comes out. There's another building security come out. They start to try to tackle him and they end up putting him in a wheelchair kind of, you know, rough housing with him, getting him to get in the wheelchair. They're asking me, what's happening? Why are you chasing this guy? He's a patient of yours. And meanwhile, as they are getting him into the wheelchair, he takes off his prosthetic leg and literally chucks it at me to the point where I get bruised. I get like a bruised leg from his prosthetic leg, which is so unbelievably heavy.

So lessons learned in this example, number one, don't leave your patience and not tell anybody that you're leaving because I was responsible for other patients in the ER. Don't leave without telling somebody. Number two, don't chase down a patient in the hospital, regardless, outside the hospital in a busy intersection and put myself in danger. And number three, don't be outrun by a guy with a prosthetic leg. I mean, come on, I was in decent shape. What's happening here? So not one of my proudest moments, the best part of this story was the fact that all my co-workers coming in for the next shift, you know, driving around the hospital, it's like the parking ramps saw this entire interaction.

So I know I only felt horrible and ashamed and embarrassed, but heard about it for the next several days that they saw me get outrun by a guy with a prosthetic leg. So needless to say, learned a lot from this story. But really when I dig down deep, you can stop laughing now, when I dig down deep and go, why the heck did I do that? Like, what was I thinking? Obviously, I wasn't thinking it come down to this root of the fact that why I went into nursing, which is a good quality, is actually has negative consequences sometimes.

And it's the symptom of codependency. So let me impact that for you for a minute. So I have this lifesaver complex, okay? I actually used to have a license plate that said lifesaver because I wanted to save people's lives. I wanted to help them on the worst day of their life. I am a survivor of trauma, of sexual assault, and I've been through some pretty horrific stuff in my life. I've been a patient in the ER multiple times on really bad occasions, and I wanted to help people. But deep down inside of me, I have this need that's met when I'm in nursing.

And that's the need of wanting to be needed and wanting to help and wanting to save people. And I wanted to save this guy's life. I probably would have done CPR in the middle of the road and gotten hit by a car. Like, I mean, that's the first thing they teach you when you become a nurse, especially when you just learn basic CPR is check the scene for safety. Because if you are not capable of providing some safe medical care to someone and you're going to end up endangered, how are you going to help everybody else, right?

Like if you come upon a mass casualty and you end up a victim, you're no longer helping anybody. But we often put that aside, especially as nurses, especially as women, especially if you struggle with any symptoms of codependency, we put our own needs aside and help someone else. And we say, you know what, my needs don't matter right now. My safety doesn't matter right now. I need to save this guy's life. And so I'm going to run into the middle of a busy intersection and leave the rest of my patients because it matters more that I save his life than that I'm safe or the rest of my patients are safe is really what was going through my head that day.

And that's so backwards because that's not helping anybody. But it comes down to the root of me having codependent issues and feeling like I need to save everybody. And if you struggle with that, I want to tell you that one, it's okay because a lot of people struggle with this mentality, especially women, especially if you've had any history of trauma. We often struggle with codependency issues. And there are ways to be sweet, kind, nice, honoring to people and take care of people and even work in a profession like nursing like I did and still take care of human beings and not have that be kind of the root driving force for you.

So I have some other videos on codependency and I'll also film some more on this topic, but just know that if that's you, this is something you can work through. And maybe this has just been an aha moment for you of like, yeah, I do struggle with some of those things. That's okay. There are ways to learn and grow through this and just know that you're not a horrible human being. And there is a way to have like healthy relationships with other people and have a healthy relationship with your job even like I had to struggle with that.

When I started working through how do I not be codependent, I started to lose some meaning in nursing and that's okay too because your identity is not in helping people. Your identity is not in saving other people. Your identity is just you. And for me, my identity comes from my relationship with God, so maybe your identity is found in something in faith like me, but your identity is not that. And so I just want to encourage you today through this crazy embarrassing story to find your identity in something else and not helping other people or saving other people because it can really be to the detriment of you and your mental health.

So I hope this was encouraging for you guys today. Thanks for listening to my embarrassing story. I hope you got a few laughs out of it. And lesson learned, if you are a nurse and you are in healthcare, don't be out run by a guy with a prosthetic leg and leave your patients. Please just take that takeaway if you have to take anything away from this video. Thank you guys for tuning in. God bless.