ER Drunk Guy

Last night at work, we got a 911 phone call from a guy who said, "I've had too much to drink...mumbles mumbles" click...

The techs were able to track where the phone call, and away they went in the ambulance to go get him.

We anxiously awaited the arrival of some drunken idiot, or worse some unconscious idiot...but when they returned- the guy came walking in all on his own, was totally sober, and coherent.

He apparently didn't know who had made the phone call. There were several people at his dorm room drinking, but they all had left.

So we didn't really know what to do. At first I thought we needed to send the ambulance out to go find the drunk guy, but the nurse and the techs talked me out of it. They said it would be like going door to door trying to find a drunk guy to bring in. How would we ever know which drunk guy it was that actually made the call?

In the end, we took the guy back to his room, and kind of forgot it happened. The nurse assured me this is the way it was to be handled....apparently she was wrong. I got a good talking to this morning, and again this evening...

I thought the whole thing was kind of dumb, and to be honest I agreed with the techs who didn't want to go door to door. We can only do so much! If we went to the place where the phone call came from and no one in need of medical attention was there, is it really our obligation to hunt down some drunk guy to treat?

Overall the night was pretty exciting, with a seizure patient and a croup patient, and some patient with knee pain for several weeks who suddenly at 3am decided that was the moment she had to be treated. So she got up at 3am, yes 3am, and got dressed, braved the 20 degree weather, and came to the ER. It was quite the emergency and I gave her some ibuprofen. Thank god she came in, otherwise she would have woken up totally fine in the morning and been well rested!

At least I have tonight off, but it is back to the salt mine tomorrow night, and the night after that.
We leave for Hawaii in one week! Yeah! But, I take my test in one week- boo!