Oh! To Be Restrained!

Remember when you were in high school and some group came in and put on one of those classes about car wrecks and tried to scare you into submission regarding wearing your seatbelt and following traffic laws to keep you safe? Yeah?

Well, that's me now.

I do a class every quarter for our local court system called Trauma Nurses Talk Tough. It was originally founded and developed by a group of nurses at my former workplace - Legacy Emanuel Hospital in Portland, Oregon. It's an amazing program. The studies/analysis/review on it have shown that it truly does make an impact on some of the kiddos that go through it. There are different programs designed for each age group of kids ranging from Kindergarten through Senior Year. It also has specifically arranged classes for high risk drivers, seatbelt violaters, etc.

One of the main points I hit on in the older age groups is wearing your seatbelt properly. So many people do not know how to properly wear a seatbelt. They think if you just have it clicked and somewhat arranged over the front of your body, then all is well.

You people are wrong!

A guy I took care of in the ER once told me he never wears a seatbelt because "Dude, they cause more harm than they prevent. My buddy broke his back wearing a seatbelt and now I don't wear one. I don't want my damn back broken."

Let us discuss.......

Improperly worn seatbelts cause injuries. Improperly worn.........dude.

Officer Smith also talks about this on a recent blog post of his. It is not OK to put the shoulder portion of the belt under your arm or behind your back. It's not fun for a person to deal with the effects of broken ribs, a pneumothorax, lacerated liver, lacerated spleen, ruptured bowel, broken back, etc. These are just a few of the injuries you can receive from wearing your seatbelt improperly.

Another important point: Do not sleep with your head against the seatbelt and do not recline your seat and sleep in a car. Reclining seats are stupid. Shall I repeat this for my hard of hearing readers? Reclining your seat in a car is STUPID! I don't know why car manufacturers even give us the ability to recline. If you are reclining in your seat and have your seatbelt on, you can slip UNDER the seat belt in a crash and have horrible injuries from this (or even dun, dun, dun.......die). You can also get your head caught up in the seat belt in this position (and also when you are sleeping, laying your head against the seatbelt) and have a neck fracture resulting in paralysis.

This my friends, is not fun.

If the lap belt is not properly positioned you can also have major injuries. Many people like to wear it up over their belly. This is a big No No! Abdominal injuries, paralysis, and groin lacerations - oh my! The lap belt should be properly positioned across your hips. If you are pregnant, then under your belly and across your hips/pelvis area.

They have also found that kids raised in a rural environment are more likely to fall asleep at the wheel when they hit driving age. Why, you ask? Funny you should ask that, because I happen to have the answer. Amazing how life works, isn't it?

Rural families often drive long distances to get anywhere. Ask me how I know this......Our town is 2 hours from anywhere. So back to the topic......Rural families often drive foreeeeeeeever to get to their next destination. Mom and Pop encourage the kiddos to "take a little nap" during the drive. Thus, kids learn at a young age to sleep in a car and become accustomed to that. They think this leads to the body being more apt to fall asleep at the wheel because it is not trained to maintain alertness when driving. Kinda weird how things work, huh?

So sit upright, make sure you are alert, seatbelt properly across your shoulder, lap belt properly across your hips and you have a much better chance of not receiving injuries in a crash.

Oh and one more thing! 10 and 2 o'clock hand position no longer applies. Try 9 and 3 o'clock. The former position is shown to have more injuries now related from the expelling of the gas with airbags. Burns and fractures of hands/wrists. Reeducate yourselves to the 9 and 3 position to decrease those injuries.

OK Class.......Lecture over. There will be pop quiz on this. Get out your papers and pens.

Oh Pish Posh Applesauce

What a whiner! I re-read my last post and even I thought I was a big ole' crybaby. Buck up Julie! Toughen up and quit crying in your beer. I get irritated with people at work when they verbalize shit like that, and look at me - I did the same.

Well bend me over and whack my fanny with a wet noodle.

Wait, maybe I should save that one for my man. It could be fun.......right? NOT THAT I'M COMPARING YOUR WILLY TO A WET NOODLE DAVID! Seriously. Truly. I'm not. Um hmm. Nope, not at all.

I was slammed in the ER on Saturday. Lot's of little things, nothing really big or eventful which is surprising for a holiday weekend. Didn't even have a wreck until this evening. Weird, isn't it? Is the moon traveling out on a different track or something? Spinning a bit off course? Who knows. But apparently the man in the moon isn't talkin'.

My man is gone for the weekend, water skiing without me. Can you believe the gall of that man? He leaves me behind and goes and has fun in the water without me?!? Pashaw I say. Pashaw.

Of course, it COULDN'T have had anything to do with the fact that I had to work all weekend. Nah...... couldn't be that.

Ramblings....

I worked on Mother's Day and we were busy as hell. Truly though, is hell busy? Are they all down there slaving away and constantly busy? Or is it just sluggish monotonous work? Hopefully I won't find out, though I'm heading down a path that will probably take me there.

12:23 PM the firestorm started, and it never stopped. When I left they were still filing through the door, limping with their broken limbs or clutching their chests. We were 2 nurses short and one of the nurses that was there felt it was her job to sit on her ass doing nothing. Now THAT's always a good time right there.

We're losing a couple of our nurses over the next few months but our manager doesn't know it yet. It will be interesting to see how our staffing shapes up by September. These are good nurses too and they will be sorely missed.

We're receiving email after email telling us that we need to change this or that, changing policies, implementing new QI measurements, etc. It would be great to have one week - just one week - with zero changes and zero emails telling us we suck. It would be great to hear "WAY TO GO GUYS!" every so often. I wonder what other careers there are where you get to go to work everyday and get beaten down? Hmmmm....... Anyone?

I still love my job though. I love working in the ER and I love taking care of patients. It is such a rewarding field in that aspect. I love learning about people and finding out where they come from related to life lessons.
Maybe I just need a vacation. Sign me up!

I am a blogging loser

Yes I know.


You don't have to say it.





Sigh..............................