I lost a patient once
No, not like that. It was Thanksgiving, 1988 and I was making my 10 o'clock rounds and oh my god, Mrs. Harris has disappeared! She was a senile little old lady who couldn't walk, peed herself with some regularity and was tied to the bed in a sort of restraint vest. (That's illegal in the States nowadays)

She was nowhere to be found. I was running from bed to bed, all my other nurse friends searching franically for her. No dice. I was in tears, trying to figure out how to break it to the family I'd somehow lost their 99 year old granny when someone shouted.

I ran over and SHE WAS HANGING UNDER THE DAMN BED! I have no idea how, but she had climbed over the siderails, still tied to the bed by her vest and was hanging from the underside of the frame. She had pissed everywhere and her hair was dabbing in the pool of urine on the floor.

I had to lie on the floor, try to wipe up the piss, then scooch under the bed and catch her when my friend untied her. Then I wiggled out from under the bed with a stinky old lady in my arms, my face lashed with wee-soaked stringy hair, wiping the floor with my back.

My relief was in direct proportion to my filth.
(TDub Nunc id vides, nunc ne vides on, Sat 4 Dec 2004, 4:13, Reply)