Forty six

Beats the hell outta me.

I pulled this patient out of a mini van curbside outside the main entrance of the ER. His chief complaint was bilateral lower leg pain secondary to falling off a ledge 10-15 feet in height. This patient landed on both feet and does not complain of pain anywhere else. Pt denies striking head on ground and has negative LOC. Pt cannot stand on his own feet and cannot ambulate so naturally I load him onto a stretcher.

I'm thinking that this pt has a good story and wheel him back to the triage nurse. The triage nurse is non-plussed and insists that I put this patient in a wheelchair and put him into a waiting room. I ask the nurse to at least order xrays on his lower extremities, hell I even say please. The nurse becomes upset with me and tells me to "just go". I would have ordered xrays but as a Tech in this hospital I don't have access to ordering diagnostic tests or anything else for that matter.

I'm not taking no for an answer and grab another more level headed nurse on the way out to the waiting room and ask her to order xrays bilat lower extremities on this patient who is in obvious distress. This nurse says "Absolutely no problem" and I wheel the patient on over to radiology.

Lo' and behold this patient has multiple lower extremity fractures which include but not limited to broken calcaneus, multiple fractures of tibia and fibula bilat and a nice small fracture of one of his femurs. Needless to say this patient is a candidate for trauma. After a call to the charge nurse to tell her what I got I grab yet another stretcher and put the patient on it and we wheel on over to the trauma bays. Naturally while I am going over to trauma I run across the triage nurse who ordered me to put the pt in a wheel chair and put him into a waiting room.

She throws a minor shit fit in front of the patient and several other folks. I get told that she's the nurse and I'm just a tech and I better follow her orders without question, now put this pt in a wheelchair and put him in the waiting room at once! She also tells me to expect a write up by the end of the day. Once she's done I tell her to go ahead and write me up because this patient has a laundry list of leg fractures and the trauma attending and the charge nurse wants this particular patient in trauma now. The discussion ends there.

The triage nurse walks off without another word and the pt and I head on over to the trauma bays. This being a dynamic urban environment the patient who has been very stoic to this point says "Fuck that bitch, thanks bruh."