nursing the heart

25 years old, in jail for god knows what, cops bring him in with a lac to his forehead from banging it on the wall repeatedly. He is already handcuffed so we put him in an isolation room, with sliding glass doors. Because he is in custody we take everything but the bed out of the room. 

Patient is screaming the whole time he doesn’t want to be there (same bro) with blood everywhere from the head lac. 

5min later, I hear this sickening crash, I’m pretty sure someone has just run head first into the glass doors, because mate I’ve done that before those curtains are assholes, so rounding the corner I see blood all over the glass door, patient still screaming he wants out but is now banging his head on the glass. 

It takes 4 security guards to hold this guy down, he is absolutely losing his shit, screaming and flailing and has no idea whats going on. Calling out for his mom, for Neil (???), for a sandwich, doesn’t know what day it is or just refuses to answer we can’t tell, pupils 4mm and sluggish but thats how it was when they brought him in, so security cuffs him to the bed so he can’t hit the wall. 

Fastforward 10 minutes and he has dislocated/broken his wrist trying to get out of the bed and to the door, he has puke and stool everywhere, refused to take the ativan so we gave midaz, but that didn’t touch him. 

This guy screamed from 2-7, we maxed out what we could give him for benzos and he was extraordinarily agitated and wouldn’t settle and was only in the beginning stages of withdrawals. It was terrifying, but the thing that got me was after screaming about how we took the 20′s (from his underwear??) he was quiet for a minute, I thought ‘shit the midaz finally caught up with him and now were gonna need to intubate’ but he then screams

“I don’t want to do this anymore, I don’t want to be on drugs anymore, I want this to stop, I want to be clean, please someone help me”

And thats what got me. This guy was 25, had his whole life ahead of him, but got caught up in drugs and it was going to kill him, and he wanted out, but withdrawals were so bad that it was easier to keep using. 

Fuck telling kids don’t do drugs. Show them what its like to try to stop, how all your friends die from OD, how you are one phonecall-not-made away from death yourself, how you get to be tied to a bed in the ER and your nurses need to apologize to other patients because you can’t stop screaming and just shit yourself and puked the cookie I gave you and your body is on fire. 

Don’t just tell them not to do it, because that doesn’t work, show them what its like to try to stop, because sometimes fear works better than facts. 

So, possibly one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. I mean you know how you hear the “women want him, men want to *be* him” stuff in old movies? Well I’m a man and by *god* I wanted to be this guy. Anyway!

I’m having dinner with my girlfriend at the time, and behind us are a couple on a date. It is.. not going well. Guy was being rather creepy and making some pretty inappropriate comments, the girl doesn’t look at all comfortable.

The girl finishes her appetiser really quickly, my guess is she wanted to get it over with. Guy proceeds to comment on it and says “well, least I know you can swallow right?”. Loudly.

Girl goes red and tells him that isn’t appropriate, he literally waves his hand in a “shoo” type motion and says “oh calm down I was going to find out in a few hours anyway”.

I missed her exact reply as she moved to a hushed tone, but it was fairly obvious what was being said - fuck no, fuck off, fuck this. He responded with “sweetheart I picked you up, I know where you live”. She lost the colour in her face and said nothing.

No. No. Fuck no. I’m one of those “get involved” type of people and there is no way I’m sitting here watching this go down. I get up. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m 23, fighting fit and happy to put that motherfucker through a wall. I may have had a slight temper in my youth. But anyway.

I was halfway out of my chair when a hand came down on my shoulder and I look up to this mid-50s but super fit guy who says “Easy.. I’ve got this one son”. Absolute, total confidence in his voice.. so seeing as my current plan amounted to “stab him in the neck” and I’m already thinking maybe that’s not the best idea, I sit down.

He walks over, grabs a nearby chair, flips it around and sits down with the couple. Then.. he pulls out his police ID and puts it on the table. Now the guy doesn’t have any colour in his face.

Cop: “So, I’m quietly celebrating my daughters birthday with my family when I distinctly hear you threaten this young lady, would you care to explain yourself?”

Guy: “I, ah, well, um, you see..”

Cop: “That’s what I thought. Now see, we take a *very* dim view of that kind of thing, so right now I’m deciding if I want to have some of my buddies come pick you up.”

Guy: “oh no well that…”

Cop: “But that would disrupt everyone’s dinner, so how about you hand me your ID, because I wouldn’t want you running off on me, then you go see one of the staff here and settle your bill.. the full bill now, this young lady shouldn’t go hungry on account of your poor behaviour. Or we can go with the first option, I’ll leave it up to you.”

Guy: “No no! That’s perfectly fine!” \*hands over ID, gets up and walks very quickly in the direction of the counter\*

Cop: \*while writing down the guys details\* “Sorry about that miss, I hope I’m not intruding it just seemed like you could use some help. Oh and don’t worry, if you want to pursue this further I’ll have some of the boys pick him up on his way home, we can definitely take this further.”

Girl: “No, thank you so much, I wanted to run out 30 minutes ago but he drove me here”.

Cop: \*shifts from hardarse cop to comforting father figure in about half a second\* “Well I’m here with my daughter, she’s about your age, perhaps you’d like to finish your meal with us? We can run you home afterwards if you’d like, unless you’d prefer to call someone else?”

Girl: “Oh.. that would be really nice.. thankyou so much!”

\*guy returns, so does the hardarse cop\*

Guy: “Uh so, I’ve paid the bill, if I could have my ID back..”.

Cop: “There you go.. now I have your details right here so I *highly* recommend you don’t go near or contact this young lady ever again.”

Guy: “Yes yes of course, I’m so sorry!”

The guy pretty much fled the restaurant, the girl went and sat with the cop and his family and by the time we left they were still sitting around talking and laughing about random crap.

Art By IG: @vskafandre