On my middle night shift this week, a grueling 14 hours with multiple assignments and emergencies and ending in a tad bit of humiliation but NO EXCUSE, I witnessed something as I pulled out of the hospital parking garage that at first I didn’t even really process. But seconds later, as I turned right, the image absolutely set my mind and heart racing.
The exit of the hospital garage is oddly narrow, and this particular morning, there were a few cars coming and going. Approaching the exit, I noticed some security guards huddled together a few feet away from the temperature screening checkpoint. As I turned right at the corner, I kept thinking: Why were there four security guards squatting like that? Were they on top of a person? Was there a code blue happening because there were no doctors or nurses there… do they need help and should I turn around and go back??? Rapid fire thoughts were rushing through my mind. At this point, I was 2 blocks from the hospital. I could still turn around. But if it was a code, wouldn’t the day team have arrived by now and wouldn’t they all be more useful than an exhausted off-shift night nurse???
But then another image came to mind. These were security guards. Four of them. Huddled around and possibly on top of a person laying on the ground. WERE THEY RESTRAINING SOMEONE???? ON THE GROUND? Were four large security guards holding down a person, probably a black man, near our hospital entrance, and was it possible this man could die this way?
In my head was just a stream of panic. Surely something like this could never happen at MY hospital in MY town… by now I was six blocks away. Freaking out and lucky I hadn’t caused a distracted accident, I pulled over and had an idea. I called a colleague on the day shift, the nurse who was acting as our Rapid Response Nurse (RRT) that day and who I had trained personally a few years earlier. I knew she was ballsy enough to get a guy out from under security and skilled enough to save his life is she had to.
She understood immediately and told me she’d get back to me.
I took a few centering deep breaths, knowing I’d taken the fastest action I could based on where I was. But vowing that I would not keep driving next time my brain even hinted to me that something wasn’t right. I need to stop immediately in these situations. I owe it to my fellow humans, to people of color especially who find themselves unfairly targeted in a society plagued by both overt and institutional racism that extends through through every level— from basic human rights and healthcare to policing to employment policies to the way the government as a whole is run.
And I especially owe it to those I work with, if these events are happening where I’m employed. Healthcare needs to be better. We need to set an example for how people should be treated. And personally speaking for our security guards, I want them to feel enabled to find new ways of dealing with people that is less dangerous. Security guards (or officers as they’re called at my hospital) exist in that space also occupied by police where the culture can lean toward a violent military style. But is this necessary? Is this right??? Should this be the first line tactic if most of the people dealt with are 1) agitated & aggressive patients, 2) homeless people living around or seeking inappropriate care at the hospital or 3) family members on drugs or alcohol who abuse medical staff? I think not.
I arrived home that morning to find a text from the nurse that I’d called for help. She told me that when she’d gotten there, the guy wasn’t on the ground anymore. He was sitting in the back of a cop car. “Being arrested, don’t know what for…” her brief note read. I felt a small bit of relief that he’d survived his encounter with being restrained on the ground. But now I also felt another twinge of sadness. I wondered if he was just a homeless person who had been bugging the temperature screeners. Maybe a schizophrenic off his meds? Maybe never on them. I wondered if being arrested was really necessary. I texted this in response. But the message I got in return made me sad: maybe there was a restraining order against him. Maybe, but in this case I’ll never know. Maybe I’m too soft, but I think there are other ways to wait for the police to arrive than with a person restrained on the ground.
