Image: Fancy Photography | Veer
You’ve finished your shift and stayed late to chart. It’s after midnight and you’re walking to your car or the bus stop. It seems like you’re all alone. You hear footsteps behind you. They’re fast and coming closer—it sounds like the person is running. Suddenly, a jogger runs by you and turns the corner, leaving you with your heart beating fast. Do you know what you would have done—should have done—if someone actually had attacked you?
Like many frontline workers, nurses can be exposed to physical danger in numerous ways. A home healthcare nurse doesn’t always know the type of home she’ll be entering. A clinic nurse doesn’t know if the patients will become angry or get out of control, and sometimes relatives in hospitals can get out of control, too. Nurses also come and go from healthcare facilities at odd hours of the day and night, increasing safety issues.
So what do nurses need to know about personal safety? Actually, there are two important tenets: 1) Avoid being a victim and 2) know what to do if you are attacked.
Avoid becoming a victim
Violence at work
If you think your workplace is unsafe
What to do if you’re attacked
This article is so true. I recently got back into Home Health, and entered a home with a “difficult” client. Out of the blue, he threatened me with a butcher knife he had grabbed off of a nearby table, screaming at me for no appearent reason. Only moments earlier, we were having a good conversation about his daughter, while I did my job. Needless to say, I’ve never felt so terrified in my life, considering he was literally only two feet from me and was threatening to throw the knife to cut me. I grabbed my car keys and couldn’t get out of there fast enough, leaving my gloves and other supplies at the home. This occured almost 2 weeks ago now, but it replays in my head constently. Makes me think Self Defense should be a required pre-requisite for any nurse.
While working in the OR at the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC, they presented a program to us called “Looking Forward to Being Attacked” which concentrated on all the points you presented and more. I would recommend it.