Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Chewbacca

Reading EE's post over at Backboards and Band-Aids today reminded me of my own tale of a good prosthetic gone bad...

A couple months ago I was working a hallway team when the triage nurse wheeled back an out of control male patient performing his best Chewbacca impression for the entertainment of all the truly sick patients.  Not only was he spitting and throwing punches, but he was doing his best to take off somebody's head by swinging his metal leg at anyone who passed by.  

Throwing him into a room, we attempted to calm him down but quickly ended up calling security to help place him in restraints.  As the officers searched him for weapons, they discovered two dime bags and a switchblade in his front pocket, around $900 cash in the back pocket, and a crack pipe stuffed up his sleeve.  Now, three of the four limbs gave us no trouble, but we had the hardest time trying to figure out how to secure the thin metal pole that made up his prosthetic.  The restraint wouldn't close tightly enough to clamp it down, so he ended up having enough slack to move it a few inches off the bed.  

The result was a solid hour of nonstop growling accompanied by the steady beat of a fake leg slammed against the metal stretcher.  Eventually the APRN got fed up and started pushing Narcan until Chewie agreed to knock it off, lest he completely lose his high and then really have something to cry about.

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