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Nurse Lives Matter
So this just happened:
A nurse caring for a burn patient involved in a car crash in July refused to draw blood on her intubated, sedated patient for a police officer investigating the crash. Per hospital policy agreed upon with the Salt Lake City PD, patients must have a warrant for their arrest, be under arrest, or give consent in order to have blood drawn — this patient had none of the above.
When this nurse, with hospital administration on the phone, refused the blood draw the detective became unhinged. She was dragged out of the hospital and handcuffed for “interfering” in the investigation. U. of Utah and Public Safety officers were present at the time of the incident and did not intervene. After the arrest, the detective wonders aloud to another officer how this event will affect his off-duty job transporting patients for an ambulance company.
“I’ll bring them all the transients and take good patients elsewhere,” he says. The detective continues to be on duty for the police department while an internal investigation is conducted.
Y’all. Wow. I’m at a loss, truly. Healthcare professionals expect abuse from patients and the occasional administrator, but never police. There has long been an understanding between police officers and nurses, one of mutual respect. That’s how I’ve gotten out of ever getting a ticket. I realize this is an isolated incident, but it’s still terrifying to think that I could be arrested by some hothead officer for following hospital policy and advocating for my patient.
What makes it extra scary is the lack of intervention by hospital police. Working in the ED, I interact closely with our public safety officers and feel as though they support me 100 percent. I cannot imagine the guys I work with letting something like this happen, but who knows. I pray I’m never in the position to find out.
Any nurses out there ever experienced anything like this?
Nursing is one of the hardest professions I know of. We are verbally and physically abused by patients and their families; we are expected to provide flawless care with high patient ratios and often times little auxiliary support; we stand up to doctors when they enter incorrect orders or make poor decisions for our patients; we don’t have time to eat, pee, or complete the mountains of CYA charting we are expected to complete. It is a tough road to travel. If you know a nurse, tell them how much you appreciate all that they do to care for our society.
Published in General
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No way, I’ve always been super nice to my nurses and they loved working with me. :)
Dealing with belligerent people sucks all around. Same with police officers (and lawyers and judges and social workers and GAL’s and … and …) who think they have more power than they actually do, and then who react strongly when you tell them they don’t, in fact, have that power.
Even if they had a warrant or whatever, you can’t arrest her for not drawing the blood. What would be the reason for arrest? You just complain to her boss and get someone else to do it and then she faces her boss.
Actually, she was telling the cop that he couldn’t do the blood draw.
Agreed. I can’t see any reason that should not have been the course of action. The only hesitation I have is that I’m not the most creative or brightest, and just because I can’t think of a scenario doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist. At the very least I’d like to hear the cop’s explanation before figuring out who is right wrong and to what extent punishment is deserved.
She was protecting her unconscious patient, which she had both a right and a duty to do.
Sue the cop. Sue the police force. Sue the police officers who stood by and watched.
Then petition to have the police officer arrested. A badge is not a license to assault. He wanted to assault the patient and he did assault the nurse.
I do not like cops in general, though some are not horrible, and the more garbage like this I see, the less I am sympathetic to them.
Bull. He is on private property and issuing orders. He has no right. He was wrong and should be punished. He assulted that Nurse. Period. It is so clear. If nothing happens, it is one more example of the corruption of the police across the nation.
Well, that’s a scary program even without this incident.
A friend of mine just posted this on FB after she and I were discussing this case. Here’s another post about a cop arresting a nurse for refusing to obtain a blood sample before the patient had been triaged.
http://abc7chicago.com/archive/7025469/
Don’t hate the lawyers. Hate the juries. The lawyers don’t decide anything. It’s the judge and the jury that do the deciding.
And yet he, too, did nothing. I hope this nurse soooo becomes a millionaire over this. And requires the PD to get an extra 17 hours per annum on “how not to be a D-Bag, actively or passively.”
Really? Assault on a comatose man is legal now, without a warrant? I think that’s wrong in every jurisdiction I’m aware of. With a warrant, all is possible. Without, not so much.
I couldn’t agree more. He could have said, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m gonna have to arrest you. Please come quietly.” He would still have been wrong, because he couldn’t order her to draw blood, but to go from a conversation about legalities to what can only be described as a violent attack is just madness. I can only imagine the officer in question was under great stress, probably on an empty stomach, and just lost his cool in what should be a career-affecting mistake. I do hope the hospital backs up their nurse to the nines, since it would appear (at least from that short clip) that she did everything right.
I wonder if the hospital’s attorneys have watched the longer (19:22 minute) version of this episode. Officer Payne (ie the dirt-bag) later threatens retaliation against the hospital. He has a second job working on an ambulance team. He said out loud that “I’ll bring ’em all the transients and take the good patients elsewhere.”
You also get to see and hear the idiot Lt that ordered all this come and mangle all the actual law when talking at the nurse in the back of the unmarked cruiser.
Cool side note: Nurse Wubbels, whose maiden name is Alex Shaffer, was a two-time Olympian in alpine skiing, competing in the 1998 and 2002 Winter Olympics
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865687903/Stop-I7ve-done-nothing-wrong-Nurse-shares-police-video-of-crazy-arrest-by-SL-officer.html Sorry if I screwed up the link insertion.
Not really. Anything system you replaced it will will be as bad if not worse in its abuse of those it claims power over. Also the current system will not stand down without a fight. The transition period will most likely hurt more people to a worse degree than the current system in place.
Doesn’t matter. The power to arrest is serious. Doing it with callous disregard for the law should be a crime. Anybody who is a detective should know better. If he doesn’t know better he should be fired for incompetence. If he does know better he’s no more entitled to do it because he had a bad day than I would be to kick his butt at a traffic stop because I had a bad day.
Not even a little hesitation to find out what the cop would have to say for himself? Not even a little hesitation to find out whether he did have a right? The video is all you need?
He didn’t have the right to obtain the sample, and he certainly didn’t have the right to respond as he did.
Who gave her this right and duty? How was she protecting her unconscious patient? Was anything the officer requesting endangering the patients life?
Yes. Yes it is.
Well, that question just perverts a couple hundred years of American jurisprudence.
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
I think this comes under the “secure in their persons” category.
The police do not have the authority to search anyone, including comatose people, without a warrant. Inserting a needle into a non-consenting person is assault.
I agree, but what should other people at the scene have done? Fight with the cop?
It appeared to me that the officer reacted to the administrator on the phone saying “you’re making a huge mistake by threatening a nurse…”; that’s when he grabbed for the phone and the nurse’s hand.
Legally they could have, but that would be a very unwise thing to do. The other officers there should have intervened, because they have a lot more credibility with the criminal assaulting the nurse, and their actions could have prevented this.
However, even the police have no obligation to stop crimes. Their role is supposed to be to react to crimes after they are committed.
Honestly Ed, if you cannot see this video and the officer absolutely losing his mind as reason enough for him to never work as a cop again then you have a crazy view of police power.
Has @jackdunphy or @dougwatt weighed in yet?
He’ll explain that the poor police officer was over worked and it’s all the fault of the police department that is overly politicized.
Honestly, I don’t think the video shows the officer absolutely losing his mind. I think it shows him overreacting, possibly to such an extent that he should lose his job but I’d like some more info before making that determination. I’m not sure there is a case for assault; if he was acting in his capacity (even if he was wrong about the point of law) then at best he needs reprimand or retraining or termination but I think the bar for assault here would be pretty high and I think it should be that way. As I said, I’d like to hear what the cop has to say for himself before crucifying him; I’d like to hear more about the circumstances before declaring with certainty who had what rights just based on this video. If you think that’s crazy then so be it.
Exactly my line of thinking. This all goes back to the culture that we have allowed where police, even in non-violent situations let themselves act as judge and jury, and then proceed to act in a completely irresponsible fashion. The citizens of that city should not permit this and that police officer should be held accountable for his actions.
It’s almost like the lawyers are onto something. :D
The only thing that context can provide is whether he’s unfit to be a line officer or whether he’s unfit to be in the police force, period. No private employee in this country could threaten to batter a person, batter a person defending the first, and illegally imprison the defender without severe career, civil, and probably criminal penalties.
Let us give him every benefit of the doubt — that he was a model police officer in every respect without a single complaint for his entire career who simply snapped after a day of freak hellish circumstances. He still should not be representing the police department to the citizenry. Maybe justice would be to let him work pushing paper in the bowels of the department where he will never again see the light of day, but he should never be issued a badge if he is capable of disrespecting it so thoroughly, much less a gun and a pair of handcuffs. And that’s the best case scenario.
I really hope this nurse finds a good lawyers and sues the crap out of the officer and the department for such flagrant abuse under color of law.