A Wet Leg

Always make sure that the patient's bed is locked before trying to get the patient into bed. The beds have wheels and will take off if anyone leans against the bed. I learned this lesson the hard way.

A coworker asked me to help her get a patient back into the bed. The patient was sitting on a bedside commode facing the bed. She was a big lady and needed help standing up. We got on each side of her, grabbed her under the arms and on the count of three, hoisted her up. We had planned to pivot her, so that she could sit down on the bed, but her knees buckled. She was going down. In one last desperate attempt to keep her from falling on the floor, I pushed her onto the bed, head first. That's when the bed took off.

From the waist up, she was lying on the bed. I grabbed a leg to try and push the rest of her in bed, but ended up pushing her and the bed across the floor like a wheelbarrow. My coworker finally got on the other side of the bed and locked it. With the bed locked and each of us holding a leg, we were able to get her in bed.

The worst part was afterwards when I noticed that my leg was wet. She had peed on my leg. She also peed on my coworker's leg. O.R. was closed, so we were unable to borrow replacement scrubs. At least pee dries quickly.