ER nurse saves a man's life despite getting stopped in the hallway by an entitled Karen demanding a turkey sandwich: ‘I [don’t] have time for a customer service attitude, GET OUT OF MY WAY'

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  • Emergency room nurses rushing to save a Code Blue patient.
  • AITJ for yelling at a patient's daughter to "get out of my way" because she was blocking the hall demanding a turkey sandwich during a Code Blue?

    I (32F) have been an ER nurse for ten years now. I enjoy my job, but the level of entitlement that some individuals bring into the Emergency Room is draining my soul.
  • Last weekend, I worked one of the most brutal night shifts in the ER. We were at maximum capacity in the Emergency Room. I was assigned to one
  • section of the Emergency Room that had critical patients and less critical patients. One of my patients was a 60-year- old male who was in for a minor laceration on his
  • arm. The guy was fine, stable, just waiting for the doctor to stitch up his arm. However, his daughter, let's say her name was "Chloe" (maybe in her early 20s), was like the ultimate 5-star hotel guest.
  • In the space of two hours, Chloe stopped me at least six times while in a hurry to get from one room to another. She asked for a warm blanket, to change the TV channel, ice chips,
  • and a phone charger, among other things. I tried to oblige her whenever possible, but explained to her that my other patients were critical and that I was likely to be delayed.
  • At 2 AM, the overhead alarm blares: "Code Blue, Room 4." (For those unfamiliar with hospital speak, this means a patient's heart has stopped and they are d_ng). Room 4 was my patient.
  • I abandon my charting and run down the hallway to the room with the crash cart waiting by the door.
  • Then, out of nowhere, Chloe steps out of her dad's room and stands in the middle of the narrow hallway, phone in hand.
  • I said loudly, "Excuse me, | need to get through, emergency!" She didn't budge. She literally put her hand out with her palm facing me,
  • saying, "Yeah, I know you're busy, but my dad has been waiting for a turkey sandwich for like an hour, and his blod sugar is probably crashing. You need to get it now."
  • I was completely tunnel- visioned. The guy was d ng 20 feet away from me. I didn't have time for a customer service attitude.
  • Emergency room nurses hurrying through the hospital to save someone.
  • I yelled, "GET OUT OF MY WAY, SOMEONE IS D NG!" and physically pushed past her shoulder with the crash cart to get to my room.
  • We ended up getting the patient's pulse back after 15 minutes of CPR. When I came out, covered in sweat, the Charge Nurse asked me to come over to her. Chloe had gone to the
  • front desk and filed a huge complaint against me, saying that I "assaulted" her, screamed at her face, and was refusing her diabetic father medical care.
  • Management had to do an "incident report." My manager called me into the office yesterday and gave me a verbal warning for my "tone and bedside manner." She told me that,
  • in responding to an emergency, I still need to be "professional" with the family member. I told my manager that I'd do the exact same thing again. My husband thinks |
  • was completely justified, but the older nurses on the unit tell me that I should have simply barked "Not now!" at the sandwich girl, rather than yelling at her and making physical contact with her,
  • because now I have a strike on my work record. For context, in ten years of nursing I've never had a complaint filed against me before.
  • I'm exhausted, and I'm questioning my sanity. AITJ for how I handled the sandwich girl?
  • MixandMaxy NTA. A Code Blue literally means someone's heart has stopped. In that moment your only job is to get to the patient as fast as possible.
  • Anyone standing in the hallway arguing about a sandwich while someone is actively ding is the one in the wrong here, not you.
  • No_Reputa... When writing you up I would ask for it in writing that under no circumstances, including at the cost of someone's life, are you to touch another
  • person. You asked her to move nicely, and she refused to let you. So saying that you were out of line and you need to be professional.. That's
  • just crazy. I think I would start looking for another job at a different hospital or something. The second that they put someone's life on the line for entitlement, nope. NTJ

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