I worked as a “float nurse” at our local County Hospital on the evening shift.  I reported to work one evening and the supervisor said, “We need you on Ward X (not the real name) this evening.”  Ward X was a psychiatric ward.  It was used for treating minor psychiatric emergencies and as a holding ward for the more acute patient waiting for transfer to a psychiatric hospital. Psychiatry was not my area of expertise but I had worked there before, knew the staff and knew the psych techs were competent and the doctors available if there was a problem.  So I said OK, not that I really had a big choice.

I walked over to the ward, rang the buzzer to be let in and greeted the staff – two male techs that I knew from a few weeks ago.  I thought this is going to be an easy night.  The ward was not full.  I  recognized and waved at a couple of the patients that I had met during my last assignment.

The evening was moving along well.  I gave medications, talked to patients and dinner was served. After dinner we got a call from a doctor that an admission was on its way.  We wrote down the orders, made up a chart and did all the little things that go with admitting a patient.  The door buzzer rang and there stood two policemen with what looked like a sick but compliant man in his late 30s.  The policemen turned him over to us, the paperwork was signed and they left.  The patient looked at us with a vacant stare, which should have been a warning and as the tech was leading him to his room to admit him, he let out a howl and knocked the tech aside and started screaming “I am going to kill you.”

Luckily the other patients were in the TV room out of reach.   It was just the two techs and I that the patient seriously disliked.  My heart pounding, I ran for the locked, glassed in nurses station followed by the two techs.  The three of us stood staring out at a wild eyed man banging on the glass screaming at us.  One tech called the police back for more help, I called the doctor for sedation. When the police arrived, the four men were able to subdue the patient on the floor and I gave him a shot to calm him.  With five people in a pile and all the arms and legs available, I only hoped that I was giving the shot to the right person.   When the four men untangled and stood up, we/they got the man off of the floor and into his room.  He slept the rest of the shift in a locked room.  We did not wake him with the hourly checks.