Faint Not

An unusual incident occurred in my days of student training at Penn State. I have kept it a secret for many years. It happened while in my obstetrics rotation. One of the doctors decided to do a saddle block on a young woman in labor. The other student nurse with me was in her early forties while I was twenty-three.

The doctor eased a long, thin metal tube inside the woman’s vaginal canal, until its end touched the tip of her cervix. Then he picked up a long needled syringe. The needle was at least ten inches long. The needle made the rasping, grating sound of metal on metal as it slid along the metal tube.

I noticed a slight movement out of the corner of my eye. The sound had been too much for the nurse standing beside me and caused her to faint. Fortunately she was standing between me and a nearby wall. As her knees began to buckle, I shifted all of my weight hardly moving at all, against her and pressed her tightly against the wall keeping her upright.

When students are in nurses’ training, there is little that is more embarrassing than for a student nurse to faint. It was a humiliation for a student to have “passed out.’ It’s not a black mark against your credentials in your training, but you can be certain you will be teased about it for a long, long time.

I turned my attention back to the procedure at hand and watched as the doctor completed the nerve block. He’d just removed the needle from the metal tube, when I felt a stirring of the dead weight on my shoulder. The wilted nursing student began to rouse. She shook her head, once, twice, then reclaimed her weight. As she straightened up, I leaned away from her and she stood back onto her feet.

A few seconds later, she leaned close to me and whispered into my ear, “Thank you.” I can’t remember her name, so your secret is still safe with me.