Insane ER

This afternoon I did my weekly 5-hour stint in the ER. Last week it was pretty quiet and I was able to take a break. Not today. The place was nuts. Didn't stop for the entire 5 hours. There were so many PTs they had to make all the visitors leave: over 70. They ran out of gurneys, rooms, wheelchairs. Lots of people dehydrated, a guy with a kidney stone, people with diarrhea, vomiting (lots of smells), infected abscess on one guy's neck, a couple of people in a car crash in a taxi with relatively minor trauma, a "cooperative" felon who got un-handcuffed so he could be treated more easily, some falls, respiratory/cardiac distress, habitual drunk in for detox who needed to be reasoned with, one lady very distressed who wanted to leave and needed "handling" and so much more!

So many EMT teams at the ambulance entry it was totally crowded. I talked to people, brought food trays, fetched/alerted nurses to their PTs' needs, took a Rx to the pharmacy and brought the drugs back, took another order to the blood bank for platelets and brought them back, took lots of samples/sent lots of samples to the blood bank and the patho lab. A good day, in fact for me, but not for those in the ER. There were people who were there when I arrived and were still there when I left.