A fire starter in the ward

Confused, agitated old ladies can be the scariest group of people in the hospital. Yeap, they're way ahead of the league compared to radiologists. I knew of one who was in delirium and smashed down a fire door, single-handedly. But this other one whom I had to deal with recently is by far the scariest.

With a lighter in her hand, she set the draw strings of her gown on fire (and I thank our NHS board for making their gown draw strings non-inflammable). Needless to say, all staff and patients around were getting quite fearful that something catastrophic might happen. It wasn't too helpful either that the patient beside this confused, wee old lady was on oxygen. So a few of us rugby tackled the old lady and managed to snatch the lighter out of her hand while quickly dosing her with the highest Haloperidol dose we could find in the ward.


... ... ...


Ok, I exaggerated. The second part about the rugby tackling isn't true. The first part about the lighter is. Plus many other things she did that terrified us quite a bit. But I thank whoever it was who came up with the brilliant idea of inventing sedatives. With much coaxing and help from her family, we did manage to give her some eventually.

My work colleague said we might turn up for work one day and find this elderly patient spiking her hair and singing Prodigy's famous techno Ah Beng song 'I Am A Fire Starter'. Ah...you never know. All in a day's work.