As a nurse, you always try to remain neutral towards difficult people and simply treat them with compassion, perhaps listen to their story if you have time, and try to help them get back on their feet. But I remember one man from my time as an ER nurse who made my blood boil.
I was working the late shift on a Friday night when a man was brought in by ambulance after a serious car accident. He was on his way home from work after a long day when a drunk driver lost control of his vehicle, crossed a lane, and crashed sideways into his van, which then tipped over, went into a spin, and slammed into a guardrail. The poor man was trapped inside the van for 40 minutes, and when he was finally taken to the hospital, he was suspected of having a broken neck, a broken arm, and chest trauma. The man was strapped to a backboard and was literally fighting for his life.
Then another man was brought in with a shoulder injury and a facial abrasion, but he wasn’t in danger and was taken to the minor injuries area where I was working. He was rude, aggressive, and under the influence of drugs and alcohol, complaining that he wasn’t being attended to quickly enough! Of course, he was the drunk who had caused the terrible accident in which another man was now fighting for his life and facing paralysis or even death.
The drunk man grew increasingly loud, shouting and cursing at someone to attend to him. Opposite him sat an elderly man with dementia who had fallen and was waiting to be examined, but all the doctors were busy tending to the main cause of the accident, whom they now discovered was bleeding from the chest.
The aggressive drunk continued his insults, and when he saw that I was taking care of the old man opposite him, he shouted: “Just put a pillow over his face, it’s disgusting!!!”
That made me so angry that I couldn’t hold back any longer. I went over to him, bent down, and whispered in his ear…
“I know you’re not feeling well, but let me tell you what’s disgusting! You drove tonight while drunk and under the influence of drugs, and you ruined another person’s life. A man who had a hard day at work and just wanted to go home to his family, and now he’s fighting for his life in this room… Sir, YOU are disgusting!”