Seriously, What Are People Putting Where?

Life in the Emergency Room often means encountering scenarios that sound like urban legends, but are absolutely true. According to Sarah, you would be shocked at what people do in their free time and what objects they bring into the hospital. Sarah mentioned seeing an X-ray showing a bicycle pump inside someone’s abdomen, claiming the patient “fell on the bicycle pump”. Such incidents require surgery, and sometimes people end up needing an ostomy (colostomy bag) due to permanent damage.

People frequently try to avoid admitting the real story behind their injuries. Sarah recalled a hilarious encounter in a hospital in Georgia where the clerk accidentally displayed the chief complaint “sex toy stuck” on the public lobby board.

Then there are the intentional antics. Sarah remembers a man on suicide watch who, after being discharged for chest pain, threatened to step into traffic. To ensure he couldn’t hurt himself, staff had to remove all potential hazards from the room. When Sarah was watching him from the “fishbowl” (the glassed-in nurses station), she wondered aloud how fast she could run if he decided to eat his Styrofoam cup. No sooner did she say it than the man finished his water and began eating the cup just “to show out”.

“I’ve seen an X-ray of a bicycle pump inside of someone’s abdomen before. They fell on the bicycle pump.”

Moving to Appalachia to Combat Crisis

Sarah is a transplant to West Virginia, having grown up in Jacksonville, Florida. After starting her career in Florida, she experienced a difficult breakup with a fiancé who relapsed. Following his death, she decided to pack up and move to West Virginia specifically to “fight the opioid crisis,” which seemed like a real fitting place for that mission.

Upon arriving, she experienced the rapid escalation of the crisis firsthand, arriving the summer carfentel hit Beckley, followed immediately by the summer before COVID-19. She was blissfully ignorant of the emerging global pandemic, having not watched the news. She only realized the severity when she saw bare shelves at Walmart and respirators sitting out at work, initially thinking it was “carfentel again”. She soon learned the terrifying reality of COVID-19, which caused blood dyscrasias, leading some patients to bleed out or suffer severe clotting causing strokes.

Despite the importance of their roles, nursing pay remains a significant issue. Sarah notes that new nurses in the area are starting in the very low $20s per hour, with LPNs sometimes earning high teens. The raises are rarely huge, contributing to a huge turnover rate. She stresses that the health care system should not be built around profit, noting that health-related issues are a leading cause of bankruptcy in the country.

“I was engaged to a guy that ended up relapsing and after we split I said I’m going to go fight the opioid crisis so I moved to West Virginia because it seemed real fitting.”

Compassion and Cold Spots

Sarah, who resisted going into nursing initially, even attending culinary school, realized her calling despite the intense stress of the job. She credits her mother and aunt, both nurses, for inspiring her. One of the most important professional lessons she learned came from dating outside of a medical family. When dealing with a non-medical family facing diagnoses like cancer and Alzheimer’s, she realized she had to “dumb things down” and have “way more compassion” than she had ever had before. She recognized that to the patient, a simple jammed finger or test result is often the worst day of their life, a viewpoint easy to lose when you see these things daily.

Beyond the emotional toll, the medical field has its supernatural challenges. Health care workers are notoriously superstitious. Sarah recalled working at a Catholic hospital over 100 years old that was “10 out of 10 haunted”. They did not have a room 13 or a floor 13. They also followed a bizarre superstition: they would not bathe DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) patients after 11 p.m.. A favorite story involves an elderly lady who, before coding, kept grabbing Sarah’s hand and saying “They’re coming for me” and “They want a tongue”. The lady coded right after Sarah went in to change her and she announced, “They’re here now”.

“We have these little things that we do or don’t do. We’re like we don’t bathe people after 11, especially if they’re DNRs, because when there’s something about bathing old people after like 11 or 12 at night, they get too comfortable, they die. It’s a thing.”

Want to hear the rest of the ghost stories, find out how that bicycle pump was removed, and learn more about what it takes to be a great nurse? Dive into the full conversation below!