Emergency

One evening as I worked in the emergency department at our small hospital, Joanne was working with me. Joanne was a Licensed Practical Nurse that we affectionately called Mrs. Kleen because of her overly tidy attitude. She’d just bought a new pair of nursing shoes and was wearing them for the first time. About three quarters of the way through our evening shift, she began to complain that the shoes were hurting her feet. She disappeared into a storage area, then into the nurses’ lounge. When she returned a few minutes later, she was wearing a pair of patient slippers on her feet. At the time, our hospital was issuing flimsy green foam foot coverings. Now, if you use your imagination, think of a pair of green foam slippers on her long, slender feet. It looked as though she had a pair of cucumbers at the end of her ankles instead of feet, but she stopped complaining of sore feet. It seemed to be working.

Near the end of the end of the shift, an ambulance crew delivered a young man who’d been involved in an automobile accident. The man was strapped to a gurney and cocooned in sheets and blankets. Hiding in the sheets and blankets were small pieces of glass from the automobile’s shattered windshield. The pieces looked like tiny cubed dice. When they moved the young man from the stretcher to the bed, the pieces of glass scattered across the floor at both bedsides.

We hurried to asses and treat the patient. Joanne was there helping to disrobe the man so a thorough examination could be completed. As she hustled around the bedside, the foam slippers were almost no protection from the shards of glass. They were like caltrops and Joanne began to complain about the glass hurting her feet. “Ouch, my poor feet,” she cried as she stepped on one piece of glass after another. The auto accident and shattered windshield was trying to claim another victim.

I said, “Joanne. Go back to the lounge. Change back into your shoes, before the glass really cuts you feet.”

She looked across the patient at me and said, “Those shoes hurt my feet worse than the glass does.” Okay Joanne, end of story.