Scariest Moment!

It was 2.15 am, when I walked into ward X to insert IV cannula a patient. L, my colleague, was there with me as she did not have any jobs to do at her side of the hospital. Once completed, I heard funny noises at the other end of the ward. With the inquisitive nature that I have, I decided to walk towards the sound.

The funny noises/grunting came from a male patient whom I saw just a few hours before to insert an IV cannula. At that time, he was talking to me. However, when I called out his name at 2.3o in the morning, he didnt respond. He had his eyes opening spontaneously, but it was just staring blankly into the open space. His limbs were not shaking or stiff. hmmm...I thought he was probably having a seizure of some sort. The nurses informed me that he was admitted with alcohol excess and a probable head injury.

So I asked the nurse to do a set of observations on him. His vital signs were normal. I decided to put his bed flat down, just to make sure his airway wasn't compromised, but the grunting persisted. Then suddenly, his limbs started to shake violently, and as expected, he went into tonic-clonic seizure.

The entire seizure lasted about 30 minutes. I gave him 2 shots of lorazepam which finally stopped his seizures. He was not cyanosed during the attack, but I decided to put him on oxygen anyway. During the whole event, my cardiac arrest page went off, and I was like "Oh fuck!" Fortunately, the call was for anaesthetist only. It wasn't that I was worried about attending a cardiac arrest, I just didn't think I would be able to leave the patient.

After the seizure, his eyes were wide open and he was still not responding verbally to me. Since he was having a long fit, I decided to take some blood samples and an arterial blood gas from him. Whilst palpating for his pulse, his hands suddenly turned into fists! I thought it was a bit strange and continued to feel for a pulse. However, he suddenly sat up on his bed and stared at both me and L, with the MOST VICIOUS eyes I have ever seen in my entire life so far.

He had the eyes of a murderer. I know, it is not like I have seen a real life murderer (*touch wood), but his eyes were just full of anger, hatred and violent looking. Immediately, I stopped doing what I was planning to do, and told L to move back. Lucky L moved away quickly, as he punched out at her, nearly hitting her chest. I shouted at the nurse to call security.

I was trying to calm him down with the help of another nurse, but to no avail. He knelt on his bed, with his oxygen mask still attached, and continued to stare at me with those really malicious eyes. Horror of all horror, he moved forward with his knees towards me, and toppled down the bed, arms first. I was like, "L, I think we need to move back." L was already walking away from him, while I thought maybe I should help him up.

This patient got up almost immediately, and stared back at me. I turned around and started to walked really quickly away from him towards the entrance of the ward. L was ahead of me, and ran towards the ward opposite. I looked behind and saw that he was chasing after us. "Oh my god, he's after us. Run!" I shouted. We were outside the ward, before I saw security running up the stairs to Ward X. The patient stopped at the hallway and stared at me.

Security took hold of him and put him back into his bed. He was punching and kicking out at them too. The nurse that was with us was hiding under the table. Finally, after being pinned down by security, he flipped back into his normal self. He started talking, and demanded that he wanted to speak to a doctor, which was me, of course.

There was no way I was going near this man without further sedation. So I gave him a shot of haloperidol and that seemed to calm him down slightly. An hour later, he was still pretty agitated, but less violent. I gave him a small dose of lorazepam, and thank goodness, he fell asleep after that.

This morning, when I went back to the ward to do a few things, I overheard a patient talking to another, "That wee lassie was chased out of the ward last night." The other patient said, "She's a doctor, aye?" "Aye," replied the man. I heard them giggling softly away. I couldn't help but smile at what I heard.

I do not know why he became so violent after his seizures. It wasn't so much the fact that he punched out at us, it was his eyes that were so so scary (and the chasing part)! After the entire event, me and L were both shakened. Later in the morning, we talked about the episode again, but we started giggling. It seems quite funny now, but it certainly wasn't funny at that time. Hope I don't get haunted by his eyes!