Just Your Typical Day

This is not really a funny story but very surreal. We laugh about it today because it really was just too crazy!

I was in the Behavioural Health Unit passing meds as usual when the officer standing to my right tells me very casually to lock up my med cart and leave the tier. Because I was not focusing on her and so not really paying attention to what she said I turned to see what she wanted. She told me again that I need to lock up my med cart and leave the tier. Without waiting for an explanation I closed my cart up and started for the very heavy double set of doors that close off the tier from the rest of the building and are opened electronically by an officer who is sealed in an impermiable "bubble" above my head; it gives him the opportunity to see both tiers at teh same time if there is trouble. At the same time I looked behind me and saw a little skinny guy in just his tighty-whiteys coming at us with his hand up to his right eye and a trail of blood coming out from underneath. Because I am the first medical staff on scene I make the call to our emergency response people who use the code "109" over our radio system and let them know that we have a medical emergency in the unit. Because this inmate has a history of being violent the officers put on their kevlar gloves and take him into a large room that serves as a classroom and get him into a chair before they will let any medical staff examine him. First, they have to ensure our safety as well as the inmate's, then they have to establish whether or not this was an assult.

As our 109 person arrives I began reporting what had happened so far and she begins to ask him questions as to what had happened. We find out that he had cut his eye with a razorblade. While we are all reeling from the shock of that news and while she begins rumaging around in her bag for some gauze to cover his eye with, he begins trying to dig it out!!! We both alerted the officers and one of them began pulling his hand away from his eye and get his hands restrained behind his back and things began to settle down a little bit. By now, other officers withmore brass began arriving to survey the situation and start working on getting this eye out to the hospital. I was helping 109 get the paperwork put together, making copies of things the hospital would need when I looked over my shoulder to check something I noticed the inmate had his legs crossed one over the other and he was rubbing his eye across his knee. I shouted for the officers to stop him and two more officers had to jump on his legs to keep him from being able to raise his legs. As 109 and I are hovering over the inmate to get him to raise his head and let us look at his eye the officers were placing the inmate in shackles and we heard a tiny little whine and I thought I was hearing something. Apparently, so did 109 because she looked at me and asked, "is that him? Where did that noise come from? Is it coming from him?" Up until this point the inmate was totally non-responsive and so we were astonished to hear something coming from him! Everyone got very quiet and we all listened and heard whining again. 109 jumped in and asked, "is that you?" to the inmate and in a very tiny voice he responded, "too tight" so low we could barely make it out. He repeated it again and everyone began asking him what was tight and he finally let us know that the chain around his stomach was too tight around his waist. The officers quickly checked but the restraints were only snug and the inmate finally revealed that he was feeling smothered and wanted his shirt off, it was too hot. From there things sped up and the ambulance arrived and they had him out of his chair and covered with a blanket and tied dwon and on his way.

After he was gone, 109 and I looked at his mental health history and found that he had a history of hearing voices and claimed that people dressed in white would command him to hurt himself.