Tip Your Waitress. Try The Veal.

Welcome To The Jungle

Way-too-pollyanna CNO, after too many years in a carpeted office, and too little time at the bedside in the last decade, still pumping happygas, and making her once-a-decade visit to the night shift ER, when she hears Moaning Myrtle, doing what she does best: sounding like a cross between an ambulance siren in Hell, and ghost on a serious meth bender.

"OOOOOOooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOooooooOOOOOoooOOOoOooOOOOoOOOOoOOOOOoOOOOOooooooOOOOO!"

"Good heavens! Its that one of your psych patients?!?"

Night shift ER charge nurse, 10 years past "over it", 2 years from retirement, not buying the b.s. anymore, and celebrating about the 20th week of being drastically understaffed all night:

"No Jane. That's the sound the staff makes as the life is slowly crushed out of them."

Correct Diagnosis, 99.8% Of The Time

A Badge, A Gun, And Maybe 70 IQ Points

We didn't plan on this post. It just happened. We don't hate the police. We don't love them. We mostly understand they have a thankless, dirty job most days, and try to work with them. And realize that some of them are really good guys, and some of them are asswipes, and we give them the benefit of the doubt unless and until they prove to be the latter. Pretty much like we expect they do in their jobs too.

We point out for the record that the entire reason this blog has illustrations and memes homemade by your host in shop class in the first place began specifically with the douchebadge actions of a couple of overwhelmingly @$$holish cops in Salt Lake City, when they arrested an ER nurse for refusing to violate the Constitution, state law, hospital policy, written police procedure, professional medical ethics, and common sense, by refusing to violate an unconscious patient's civil rights at the demand of those same badged and sworn @$$holes, long-since fired and demoted for that particular jackassery.

We bring this up because as we had just finished our last shift for the week, and were minding our own business and driving home this morning, when we noticed someone running barefoot up the street, in (some of) their scanty clothes, and still wearing what looked like a hospital wristband, moving at a respectable rate of speed away from the hospital for early in the AM.

We pulled over up the street, and called the front desk security officer on duty from our car.

"Are we perchance missing anyone who may have run out of the hospital in some of their clothes?"

"What color clothes?"

We described them.

"Bingo! That's one of the psych patients who just ran out the door!"

So, we proceeded to follow the patient at a discreet distance, so as not to spook them, and notified 9-1-1 we had eyeballs on an escaped mental patient, on a legal hold (meaning they are either a danger to themself, others, or simply too cray-cray to manage their daily affairs), and kept them in sight to direct the local constables to apprehend them, and return them to medical care as quickly, simply, and safely as possible.

We gave the po-po dispatch a stellar description, exact location, and followed the pt. for two measured miles on foot for most of an hour, giving them a play-by-play, until said patient ducked into a residential block around a corner with multiple possible routes out, before we got to that corner. We lost our quarry at that point, but the constabulary's minions quickly found the patient walking nearby, made contact, and detained them.

Whereupon they ascertained that the person was the exact patient we had described and followed, confirmed name and birthdate with hospital staff, and confirmed that the patient was indeed on a psych eval hold before escaping our care.

And then the stupid motherfuckers, the pride of county law enforcement, for reasons known but to God and the hamsters in their otherwise empty heads, let the escaped psych patient go free. 

Absolutely. M*****f***ing. F-R-E-E.

Guys who wouldn't let you talk your way out of a ticket with your dying grandmother bleeding out her ass in the front seat, turned loose a half-dressed bona fide certified lunatic, identified to them by name.

Who knows: maybe the patient used Jedi mind tricks.

Sleep tight, America. Professionals are on the case. 

Top. Men.

It's not bad enough that these assclowns bring us every douchebag waste of skin drunk, junkie, or whackjob within 20 miles, even when they shouldn't, but that now, the one time we specifically ask the stupid bastards to bring one very specific whackjob back to the ER, and they detain that exact person, they turn them loose on society, because reasons, and a badged and sworn 70 point IQ.

So, Deputy Doofus, and Deputy Stumblefuck, this question is for you:

You had one job...

Like sounding the depths of the Marianas Trench, We're beginning to realize that the answer to that question cannot be ascertained with existing instrumentation.

And, full disclosure here, there are screw-ups aplenty to go around, starting with who was supposed to be watching the Nutjob in question when they scampered out the hospital door to become a law enforcement problem, and how said Nutjob got their grubby mitts on some of their own clothes, which should have been removed and secured far out of reach and not anywhere close to them. The upcoming struggle sessions fisking that series of cock-ups are going to leave a mark or two.

But like soccer, the person who touched it last is at fault, so if patient Screwloose kills themself, or anyone else, or some harm comes to them as a result of being now at liberty, the lion's share of liability now belongs overwhelmingly to the County's Finest Knuckleheads, who had a chance to fix that small problem, but instead created an even bigger one.

And also, we generally try to expedite law enforcement custody patients getting in and out ASAP, on the theory that the best place for law enforcement is not sitting around the ER waiting for us to get things done, but rather on patrol, doing their job.

No points for guessing who's going to make sure and drag out those visits henceforth as long as humanly possible for some good amount of time, and who may even let their brethren in blue know why they're now being assured of going dead last, until suitable obsequious mea culpas are delivered appropriately from the agency responsible for this grand slam of cock-ups.

In the meantime, dickheads, this one's for you:

And While We're Up:

These are the guys some folks are worried are coming to take away your guns??

Sheee-yit, most days some of them are lucky if they don't put their shoes and socks on, in that order.

Why ENA Sucks - This Week

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