Aaron C., Registered Nurse
Public Hospital, San Francisco, California, 5.6.14
As a nurse in the Cardiac ICU at a public hospital in San Francisco, I continually treat acutely ill patients with comorbidity and underlying psychiatric disorders.
One day, working with a man recovering from respiratory failure, I encountered a very scary situation. After waking my patient from three days of sedation and removing his breathing tube, he became increasingly paranoid.
Unknown to me, he had a history of paranoid schizophrenia, mostly untreated from his life living on the streets. Becoming increasingly agitated and paranoid, the 6 ft. 350 lb. man ripped out his IVs, climbed out of bed, and tried to leave the room. Yelling and screaming at me as I tried to get him back into bed, he grabbed a supply cart and tried to smash me into the wall with it. (more…)