I Have a Knife!
I had just returned to the Emergency dept waiting room and was opening the door to the office when I heard someone at triage announce loudly "I have a knife and I am going to hurt myself if I don't get help."
I look up and see a soaking wet ( its raining out) homeless guy clutching a large knife to his chest. I approach him and he retreats to a corner of the room, still holding the knife to his chest. A male tech and I have him cornered and start to talk to him, calling him by his name as he is known to us from numerous past visits. He repeats that he will hurt himself if he doesn't get help, adding that he has been off his meds for a while. We negotiate with him and he eventually drops the knife. I grab it off the floor and secure it in the office and we escort him back to a waiting psych room. As he is changing and they are getting vitals, he explains that a friend had come into some money so they spent all night drinking and smoking crack.
Someone had called 911, as the police showed up. I turn the knife over to the cop. Its a large sheath type knife that would make Rambo proud. The patient claims he found the knife under an overpass in town.
He was tired, wet, homeless, and hungry and didn't want to wait in the waiting room all night, as most drunks who come in for detox do. The staff makes the drunks wait until they get tired of waiting and leave. Unless they are so obnoxious, they have to bring them in back. Its not uncommon to have a drunk sitting in the waiting room wet himself all over the floor. This guy was able to get a direct admit to a warm room with his little drama.
Someone later told me the story on this guy. He was a normal kid, but his parents always compared him to his overachieving sports star older brother. They used to berate him with "Why cant you be like him?" He finally snapped one day and tried to burn the parents house down, and its been all downhill since. The person telling the story ended with "Its amazing how bad parents can fuck their kids up, isn't it?"
I played back the video of the incident recorded on the waiting room camera. It was funny so see the other people bail out of the area as this was happening. All but one poor woman who was so sick in her chair, I don't think she cared what happened.
I look up and see a soaking wet ( its raining out) homeless guy clutching a large knife to his chest. I approach him and he retreats to a corner of the room, still holding the knife to his chest. A male tech and I have him cornered and start to talk to him, calling him by his name as he is known to us from numerous past visits. He repeats that he will hurt himself if he doesn't get help, adding that he has been off his meds for a while. We negotiate with him and he eventually drops the knife. I grab it off the floor and secure it in the office and we escort him back to a waiting psych room. As he is changing and they are getting vitals, he explains that a friend had come into some money so they spent all night drinking and smoking crack.
Someone had called 911, as the police showed up. I turn the knife over to the cop. Its a large sheath type knife that would make Rambo proud. The patient claims he found the knife under an overpass in town.
He was tired, wet, homeless, and hungry and didn't want to wait in the waiting room all night, as most drunks who come in for detox do. The staff makes the drunks wait until they get tired of waiting and leave. Unless they are so obnoxious, they have to bring them in back. Its not uncommon to have a drunk sitting in the waiting room wet himself all over the floor. This guy was able to get a direct admit to a warm room with his little drama.
Someone later told me the story on this guy. He was a normal kid, but his parents always compared him to his overachieving sports star older brother. They used to berate him with "Why cant you be like him?" He finally snapped one day and tried to burn the parents house down, and its been all downhill since. The person telling the story ended with "Its amazing how bad parents can fuck their kids up, isn't it?"
I played back the video of the incident recorded on the waiting room camera. It was funny so see the other people bail out of the area as this was happening. All but one poor woman who was so sick in her chair, I don't think she cared what happened.
