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Crisis in the Emergency Room A nurse at a major hospital was asked to relate a real-life story about an experience she had with a patient that was very mem- orable. She responded: “One day I was working in the emergency room and it was a normal, slow night. This emergency room is not located in a trauma hospital, so we do not handle that many crazy inci- dents; as a result, this patient stands out in my mind. He came in drenched in blood and he was having seizures. We got his heart rate and it was 296 beats per minute. [A normal rate is 60 to 100 beats per minute.] This was the highest heart rate I have ever seen. So, literally, eight nurses and two doctors were all working together, administering cardiac pain medicine and trying to stabilize the patient. Once we got him to stop seizing and his heart rate down, I started asking him for his informa- tion. When I asked him his age, he said seventeen. But by the looks of this patient, he was much older than seventeen, so I asked him again and, sure enough, the answer was still seven- teen. I then asked if he had taken any medication. The first answer he gave was none. But when I asked again, he said he’d taken an Ativan. Then I asked again and he said he had taken an illicit drug. Every time we asked him the question his story changed. Turns out he was almost thirty years old and had used a lot of illicit drugs before he got to the hospital.”

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Nurses