I NEED SOME HELP IN HERE!

There is nothing like your first emergent situation in a hospital. I got floated to a different floor two weeks ago because I was the only one on my floor at the time that had enough experience to float (SCARY). Because there was debate as to whether or not I would have to float to another floor or not, I was late taking report from the next nurse. I got out of report at 8pm. I like to first check on my patients the first thing out of report- to make sure they're still alive when I get them ;) . I started down the hall with my first patient and worked my way up the hall. At 8:10 I got to the 2nd patient and heard from two doors down a little voice screaming for help to get her husband off the pot. The nurses station called for a PCA (nurses assisstant) to the room, but I sensed a little bit of panic in this little old lady's voice so I rushed in there to find that the man was having all sorts of symptoms of a stroke! STROKE!! AHHH! What do I do!? Adrenaline kicked in and my hands were shaking so bad I felt like a parkinsons patient. I am used to stroke patients- AFTER they stroke. Within seconds I had help of another nurse and activated a stroke alert which is kind of like activating a code blue for those of you non medical people that need a visual. It just means a Dr and many other skilled professionals rush to the scene within minutes. I did all of the right things, thank GOD, but it was very scary. It took me about two hours to catch up on everything else I needed to get done that night and for my adrenaline to calm down.

As I was sharing this experience with another nurse, she had a story of her own to tell me. As a new nurse you are always scared of your first emergent situation. This nurse had a patient come to the floor and upon seeing him for the first time, he was complaing of chest pain. Instead of being rational and asking him more about his chestpain and ordering an EKG (checks your heart rhythms) and notifying the physician she couldn't think. She was afraid that this man was having a heart attack and everything she learned in nursing school had gone out the window. She screamed down the hall, "I NEED HELP IN HERE! I'M CALLING 911!". The nurses who ran in the room to help her hung up the phone and calmed her down. "Why are you calling 911? We ARE 911!"
I hear this and can't help but to laugh! Luckily that patient wasn't going into cardiac arrest and was just having a panic attack.