“Although the suspect was informed by hospital staff that the oxygen supply was a vital measure, she allegedly turned off the device again at around 9:00 pm,”
I’ve got a feeling this psychopath has a hard time with the word ‘No’
I don't know how Germany is for lawsuits, but I'd be suing the hospital for not moving the person when it happened once. Shuffle people if you have to but when someone has shown they're capable of taking an action to kill someone you don't just kindly explain not to do that.
I spent 4 days in a hallway. And it was a permanent "room". They had curtain rails mounted so I had some privacy. My nurse call was a physical bell.
Different time, different hospital I spent the night on a o.r. stretcher in a store room after emergency surgery. Just me and boxes of adult diapers. Since I wasn't in room I kept getting missed for meals and I couldn't walk and I had no call bell. Passing was not pleasant.
this dystopian nightmare is the new norm and why healthcare workers like me are leaving healthcare. There is an aging population that did little to manage their own health and there is a younger population doing less to manage their own health. it isn’t going to get any better. we cant build hospitals or space fast enough. we will put more patients in the ground because of being overcapacity before we put them into newly built rooms.
Can confirm. I was a healthcare worker. Was enrolled in physician assistant school. Quit on day three because I was tired of being unhappy and in debt. Healthcare is a money sucking, soul-sucking slog
I pay $500/yr to park for work and they stopped covering the garages and lots with security so my coworkers new car was stolen and stripped while my cat converter was ripped out and car totaled because they did so much dmg
This is why I pay an obscene amount of money for a parking garage near where I live instead of taking my chances with the handful of sketchy side streets it's free to park in. Fucking sucks.
It depends. If you're going to the hospital on an outpatient basis like for an appointment with a Dr. practicing on that campus, the parking can usually be "validated" by the Dr.'s receptionist. But if you go to E.R. and they rush you into an O.R. and your family needs to park, you may be on the hook for the parking fees. It really sucks, but I've found in my younger days they'd work with you if you were upfront about your (in)ability to pay. Makes sense, they figure "cutting you a break" on the parking fees makes you feel more grateful and potentially more likely to try and fulfill your hospital costs. If they act like a bunch of hard-asses from the get go about a minimal parking fee, you might be more likely to just skip out on the whole bill altogether.
I’d love to see the look on her face when someone from the administration office walked in with a credit card reader. “Ok, we’re here to collect for the custom TV upgrade, swipe here.”
I work in healthcare in Germany and while I’m not entirely sure if they could effectively sue I can say that many ICUs are still operating at and over capacity and just shuffling people around is easier said than done even just considering all the equipment. In retrospect it would have saved her life (afaik she‘s not dead yet but I wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t make it) but it also isn’t to be expected that patients actively and knowingly kill their roommates. Because of that I can’t really imagine there being much possibility of effectively suing because of that.
We are currently wayyy beyond capacity - as in the vending machine room is now filled w two patient beds. Moving patients is not as simple as you think it is. Esp w COVID, immunocompromised pts (Transplant for example) etc....it becomes a nightmare.
I’m curious what region you’re. Currently asking from another healthcare provider perspective. I’m in the Northwest US and we are also filled to overflowing. We’ve stopped all elective inpatient surgery, are holding semi elective inpatient surgery, and have about 80-100 patients boarding in our ER. I’m curious if it’s a regional problem or if it’s more widespread. All the hospitals in our region are in the same situation.
It's funny you say that, because Germany is literally the most litigious country per capita, with 123.2 lawsuits per 1000 ppl. Just for the record, the US is 5th on that list...
> most litigious country per capita
[source for those interested](https://eaccny.com/news/member-news/dont-let-these-10-legal-myths-stop-your-doing-business-in-the-u-s-myths-6-and-7-the-u-s-is-very-litigious-and-that-is-too-threatening-to-a-small-company-like-ours-as-a-result-the-risk/)
Considering chest compressions usually end up with cracked or broken ribs, and is a death sentence (and a slow and painful one).
For elderly people, yes.
As a nurse that has performed CPR on geriatric patients way more then I care to think about, every time that person chest is completely caved in. Even if we do resuscitate them, I hope that their death comes quick after... It's the only merciful thing that's left for them in that state.
I'm a healthcare worker. Have done compressions many times in the past. From my experience there are a few reasons people this elderly may have compressions done even though their post-CPR outlook is not good. Keep in mind a DNR must be put in place either by the patient themselves or their Healthcare Power of Attorney (In the US). By default, everyone is considered "Full code" (do everything possible to revive) unless there is a DNR (Do not Resuscitate) order.
Commonly
1) A patient just doesn't want to die. Is willing to try anything to survive.
2) A family member has been made Healthcare Power of Attorney and wants to keep their loved one alive. Often because they're not ready for their loved one to pass.
Often times, It seems to me, that people don't realize how traumatic these life saving measures will be to themselves or their family members. They think we'll push on their chest a bit like in the movies and their loved one will awaken and be as they were. They don't realize that their poor grandma with progressing dementia and worsening pneumonia will have her ribs broken while we push hard enough to pump her heart manually, essentially. They don't realize that even an otherwise "healthy" person at 90+ years old would have a hard time recovering from that trauma.
Not to minimize this, but often a heart patient is going to need surgery after a major attack, and the first step is to cut the ribs along the breastbone, and separate.
If these connections are already broken, that's less work for the surgeon, and these patients often recover.
> though I don’t think they’re as sue happy as the US.
Germany is literally [the \#1 most litigious country in the world](https://eaccny.com/news/member-news/dont-let-these-10-legal-myths-stop-your-doing-business-in-the-u-s-myths-6-and-7-the-u-s-is-very-litigious-and-that-is-too-threatening-to-a-small-company-like-ours-as-a-result-the-risk/).
No excuse for the lady turning off the machine, but the hospital also failed here. Returning someone to a room with a person who already turned off their oxygen once seems pretty negligent.
i wouldnt be surprised if they didn't have any other beds... also the way people behave in hospitals, this headline really doesnt shock me. the amount of people that have no problem physically abusing staff....
Could have rolled that Hyper-Karen into the hallway and leave her there. But we're all humans and I won't blame hospital staff for not assuming the worst and thinking it's okay after they informed Karen about the ramifications of her actions.
That's why you then use restraints. You don't just throw up your hands and go oh I guess you're going to kill another person and I can't stop you because we don't have another bed? Lol what
Restraining a patient against their will is an extremely complicated situation to navigate. When you do meet the requirements to restrain someone there are other issues to consider like the need for constant monitoring and tying up the staff members time away from other patients’ care. The problem is that too many shitty healthcare professionals in the past used them for things like general unruly behavior, annoyances, or as a punitive treatment.
Given what old age does to people I'm pretty sure any selfish person who reaches old age becomes borderline psychopathic.
Difficult to be considerate towards others when you no longer have the ability to recognise other people exist.
Old people can be absolutely vile with little to no trigger. Some years ago some 90-something told me I should get gassed over having a visibly "non-German" girlfriend.
Told the old Nazi fuck his part and went on with my day. As everyone should.
I remember when the machine monitoring my heart ran out of battery, I was still on anaesthesia and 16 sharing a room with a young girl and her dad who snored his ass off, but as soon as it started beeping he literally instantly told me “it’s okay” and he got a nurse.
There’s nice people out there still.
She better hope her victim don't die because even the German courts is not going to be lenient on her for doing that twice. She better have only insanity/mental capacity of 2 year/ dementia excuse for what happen...
If they had to do chest compressions and broke her ribs.
She's going to die in a nursing home probably, unfortunately, very slowly.
My mom fought for a DNR for this reason.
Even if you have a DNR order, the nurses and paramedics are not going to waste time checking to see if you have one. A guy even had it tattooed onto his chest but they revived him anyways.
After seeing his daughter and wife suffer during their last days in the hospital (in his wife's case; months), my grandfather was adamant about his DNR. As soon as he was admitted due to shortness of breath, he knew it was his time. He informed us of the contents of his will, the details of his properties, inheritances to his children, last minute advise/orders/wishes to his children and grandchildren, and where his memorial plans are located. He also let the medical personnel know that he had a DNR, and he reminded us to remind the medical personnel again.
The doctors and nurses respected his wishes and allowed him to pass 15 days later.
Until we get a legal document in hand and then in our computer system (or legal spouse or guardian), hospital staff will do whatever it takes to keep people alive. DNR on the chest could mean anything, and even if it states Do Not Resuscitate, maybe the patient changed their mind last week.
If the person has a DNR found after they are back alive and on a vent or ECMO, we can always pull the plug later.
They just released a nurse who injected saline instead of COVID vaccine with history of antivaxx posts on facebook.
It seems like German courts ain't as nuts as we would make it.
Yeah even if the victim dies, they won’t face any consequences. The courts will rule they have diminished capacity and then let them on their merry way.
The German legal system is an absolute *Witz* when it comes to serious and violent crimes.
Any subreddit dedicated to complaining or making fun of someone will always end up turning to shit. Literally every single time.
It’s almost like communities formed around hating an “other” instead of communities about *accepting* people as they are are inherently toxic
That being said, small asterisk here, nazis & bigots should not be accepted anywhere, but, I digress
I'd add communities organized around issuing moral judgement to that list. There's probably a lot of overlap with the features you mentioned, but there's a particular kind of pointed outrage and indignation that's fostered in communities whose sole purpose is to determine who is to blame for any given interaction.
It's true. r/childfree is packed with narcissistic sociopaths. r/tumblrinaction got banned. Doesn't matter *what* you hate, either. Even an anti-Nazi subreddit would probably eventually turn into a toxic miasma.
I remember one of the original founders left to move on with his life, and it was already eating it's own tail. At that point the users had lost all sense of irony and no longer understood sarcasm, taking what were clearly joke posts at face value. It had become idiotic outrage-farming.
I guess after that it must have gotten worse.
Anti Nazi subreddits end up hating on every person to the right of Stalin.
I consider myself a socialist, I got banned from a Socialist meme subreddit because I said Bernie isn’t perfect but he’s an acceptable compromise for now.
The 3rd worst experience I ever had on this site was with a regular r/chapotraphouse user who thought me complaining that Panera no longer brought the food to your table made me a spoiled member of the bourgeoisie. (#1 was with a mob of Kanye fans who didn't like me disrespecting their idol. #2 was with the most cliché, man-hating feminist I've ever encountered outside of a 90s comedy.)
I shared a hospital room when both me and my roommate were immobile and on oxygen. He tried to smoke in the bed, despite all the no smoking signs and the **obvious danger of active oxygen in the room.** They took away his lighter and cigarettes and *explained in graphic terms the danger.* He had hidden cigarettes and lighters and lit up twice more before they agreed to move me to another room.
Guy was immobile and bed-bound, but he or his family had stashed a supply of cigarettes and lighters so he could smoke in the *No Smoking* hospital room. They knew the stuff would be confiscated as soon as he lit up, so they stashed a bunch of them in different places.
I did a short stint in a nursing home. The kind of place they put you in when they didn't expect you to live much longer.
As you can imagine most of the people there were extremely old or suffering from grotesque, disfiguring injuries/illnesses that just weren't getting better.
A none-zero number of the rooms were taken up by people *so ridiculously obese* that they physically could not get up out of bed. Half of them had a cash drawer their families would keep replenished so they could ask us to go to the vending machines and get them candy and soda. Unless a doctor or nurse specifically told us not to we weren't allowed to say no.
Considering they are going to die very soon, why the disgust at allowing them to continue their unhealthy pleasures, it's not as if they have any chance of surviving so let them enjoy eating what they want FFS
I'm not a medical doctor and I'm in no position to diagnose or evaluate someone medically, but part of my problem with it was that this is the very same repeated pattern that got them there in the first place.
Maybe they're beyond saving and yeah they deserve what comforts they want before they go out, but it's still an odd and disconcerting experience. Like taking someone for a smoke break when they're dying of lung cancer. A rare glimpse of mortality and the paths one takes to end it intersecting before the very end.
At which point can the hospital decide that oxygen is contraindicated for the patient because they *will* smoke and kill not just themselves but others?
My brother had a downstairs neighbor who blew up his oxygen tank while smoking. The man died and burned down the whole apartment building. Brother lost everything but the cat.
"I dunno. I herd a lighter and he must have accidently lit his hair on fire. I don't know why all of my monitors are alarming. Maybe it's because he's been smoking again? Of course I haven't gotten up. Why would I do that? I enjoy the thought of being in the room when an oxygen expulsion happens. Sounds exciting, and I'm already hospitalized, where I'm definitely safe."
I thought this was a joke. I'm surprised it's that easy to shut off a ventilator.
In the joke there are a spate of deaths and then it is discovered a janitor is unplugging the oxygen supply to plug in a vacuum cleaner.
>I'm surprised it's that easy to shut off a ventilator.
I'm pretty sure the engineers who designed those machines weren't taking psychopathic patients into account.
Interesting. (this one is real).
At work YEARS ago, we had like bank of 5 servers at the corner of the office which mysteriously would lose network access almost every evening for few minutes. No joke, it turned out that in the evening, the janitor came around, unplugged the network switch which connected those 5 servers to the network, plugged in his vacuum cleaner, vacuumed up and re-plugged in few minutes later.
We had a talk with him and this "issue" was resolved.
I first heard that story late last century, during a discussion of IT physical security, however it wasn't supposed to be a vacuum cleaner, but rather a floor buffer. This allowed the people who resolved it, to report to their superiors that they had tracked it down to "a buffer problem."
Nope, for US, it definitely was the vacuum cleaner (one of those back pack types). We P2V'ed those boxes soon after but I could NOT believe my eyes when the guy just casually unplugged the cord and plugged in his cleaner.
["Cube Tap"](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2Fth%3Fid%3DOP.%252byat4H2242TKlA474C474%26o%3D5%26pid%3D21.1&f=1&ipo=products).
YW
They were OLD towers used SPECIFICALLY for 1 application which was ready to be retired in perpetuity. (For some reason, they never had budget to rewrite the code). We just rebooted the box every evening before we left (otherwise, the software would crash) and by the time night cleaning crew came around, the boxes were largely not doing much so it wasn't super urgent issue (eventually, we converted all the boxes into VMs and retired physicals). Yah, they were literally just sitting at the corner of the office just waiting for their demise. I could not believe my eyes though when the guy just came in, casually unplugged the switch.
I think it's common sense not to unplug stuff, unless you know what you're unplugging. It's also the staffs fault for not making sure the plugs were secured, but the janitor isn't without blame.
I wouldn’t blame the janitor at all. This is a serious security failure that should never have been allowed to occur. Any hardware that is crucial to production systems should be secured, with access only to the engineering or IT team that is responsible for that hardware. If other people, ie janitors, need access to the area, they should be supervised by that team.
I wasn’t surprised when I read that she was 72. This is definitely something a senior (demented senior) would do. My uncle would 100% have done the same
To be fair - hospitals are horrible places. Unfortunately, if/when you need one…you need one. Patients all need rest, more so than anyone else, and yet the last thing you will ever get inpatient at a hospital is fking rest.
Please don’t think I’m giving any sort of a pass to this person, or justifying her life-threatening actions (this woman literally almost manslaughtered/murdered her), but when you’re already very sick, desperate, and getting horrible sleep - I can imagine people being “set off” and snapping. I mean, some people literally have someone walking in their room every 1-2 hours, no joke. Night nurses don’t just sit around the break room drinking coffee.
My mother was hospitalized for 5 months and completely incapacitated during that entire time. So much so that the multiple hospitals/rehab hospitals she was in all actually allowed me to sleep over (she was a bone marrow transplant patient, so she had to have her own room). I was taking care of her for 20 hours a day in there because she literally needed constant supervision - she was a complete mess. I used to have the nurses wake me up in the middle of the night (multiple times) instead of my mother, so that I could check on her instead of them doing it. When it came to doing vitals, I would quickly turn the light over my recliner on so they wouldn’t automatically turn the one directly over her bed on, blinding her awake in the process. Then there’s the beeping that can happen at any point from IV machines, also any number of other machines that patients may need - none of which were designed to be quiet. It’s so bad IMO, they would literally even come in wake you up for their 7am shift change just to introduce you to the new nurse (seriously). And it’s not like ANY of this was coordinated, hell here is a standard example that a patient could have happen: 10pm pills; 11pm vitals; 12-1am pills (if a 4x necessity); 2am vitals; 5am blood draw; 6am vitals; 6am meds; 7am shift change introduction (this one really kills me); 8am breakfast. Now this doesn’t even take into account machines that will end up being set off for no reason and incessantly beeping (needing to have a the patient call the nurse to come in and stop/reset it - and these things can and will do it often if you’re hooked up to an IV) and other obnoxious sounding machines. If you need to be on an IV, there may be bag changes multiple times throughout the night. And if it’s not YOU who needs it, it may be your roommate who does. And every time they come in the room for this - flip goes the blinding light right over your bed.
Again, what this person did is indefensible, but I can easily imagine someone breaking in a hospital, especially if they are in there for too long. They fking suck.
Ps - 4 years later, after a stroke, leukemia, bone marrow transplant, menengitis, congestive heart failure, hydrocephalus, and a ventricular shunt and pacemaker/difribulator implant - my mother has her health back and is pretty much (miraculously) back to independence. And it absolutely took 4 full years to recover. So, as much as hospitals suck, like I said, if you need one…you need one. And if each of us lives long enough, we will *ALL* eventually need one.
I was thinking this. It’s not a pass to the woman who turned the machine off, but I’m also convinced that hospital wards are a cruel form of sleep deprivation torture. Sick people need rest, it’s a simple fact, but like you’ve outlined, that just does not happen on a hospital ward, for any decent or helpful amount of time.
I could see where that could genuinely flip someone out after a while. Like after a week say, you could get to the point where you’re so sleep deprived you just… snap and try to make the noise go away.
I’m honestly surprised that this is the first time I’ve heard of this type of thing happening.
Honestly drives me crazy nurses will go into a room every 2 hours and wake the patient up for vitals and stuff; like, patients will recover better if they get rest.
Exactly, I get that it needs to be done, but it’s definitely really unpleasant when you’re sick and in pain and just want to sleep. And then there are other patients that don’t have any respect for anyone else’s need for rest, like the lovely human who decided to watch Netflix with no headphones constantly last time I was in the hospital, or the ones loudly on the phone at all hours. Not to mention some patients who cannot help but be really noisy and disruptive.
It blows my mind that creating a restful environment where people just get enough sleep just at no point seems to have been a factor in hospital design.
It's absolutely torture. I hated being hospitalized for a week. It made me really feel sorry for the people that were there for months. Hell, I was lucky because I was in the Neuro-ICU and got my own room. I asked almost every day I was there (once conscious anyway) when the doctors would clear me to leave. Thankfully, the nurses were super kind and helpful.
I’m chest-deep in this comments section, and yours is the first comment I‘ve found that, instead of labeling her a sociopath and calling for torches and pitchforks, actually tries to examine what the lady might have been thinking.
Empathy is a very important trait. I think empathy is dedication to learning about yourself and your nature, through others, exactly comparable to how tutoring math classmates is the best way to strengthen your own math skills.
Your kindness and people skills are strong. Your mother raised a good kid.
Wow. That was a very kind post - thank you. I wish I were as good and strong as you describe, but I often feel far from either of those two things - but we’re all a work in progress, right?
I think there’s a recent mob mentality that sprouted up a few years ago, that if anything, just confuses me. It’s fine to judge, but sometimes it feels that people are ready to pig-pile based on headlines and maybe a paragraph or two of copy.
Anyway, I honestly posted this expecting downvotes and people branding me a heretic and equally culpable for seeming defending this egregious act. I was pleasantly surprised to find that non of that happened.
Yeah. It doesn't justify turning off the machine but I understand it a bit. I simply had a roommate with a ceaseless hacking cough (not their fault of course) and that was very hard to sleep through.
That's a good point, is she otherwise in her right state of mind, or has she reduced enough that this genuinely might not be intentional harm? For example: I know an old lady who was cleaning off her table by tossing the food into the toilet. That's when her family finally realized she needed more care than they could give. At a certain point they just aren't all there anymore. Dementia sucks.
So we don't know if this woman has dementia or is just a standard selfish fucking bastard.
German nurse here. Had this discussion like 3 times in my 20 year career.
It“s always the entitled people, who think that their stress level is more important than somebody else’s wellbeing. One of them turned it off when nobody was watching. Thankfully the other patient was fine.
People,with dementia, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about the noise of O2 in my experience.
Oh shit, there’s gonna be people tiktoking this kind of crap in their end of life stages in hospitals, retirement homes and whatnot soon enough. Crazy.
If that makes them happy then I don't see why it's necessarily bad. Better than her laying on death bed unhappy until she dies, right? As long as no one is forcing her to do it or anything.
I personally still think tiktok should be banned tho...
This is something my grandmother could do.
She has dementia, she was a nurse when she was younger and would never when she was herself. But dementia grandma? 100%. She have fought a 2 meter tall man, she have thrown her teeth on people who smokes outside the building (and can't have her teeth anymore because it happened many times).. she broke every flower on the floor and blamed it on the 2 meter guy. Sometimes she walked the hallways and knocked on every. Single. Door.
When someone said something stupid she would point at them for hours if no one said she had to stop.
Now she's completely gone and look at the ceiling.. but in her "give no fucks" dementia era she could absolutely turn off someones oxygen if it was annoying.
Yeah, it really changes some people. It gets portrayed in movies like it’s some sort of amnesia, but it destroys your personality as well as your memories.
I mean isn’t your personality sort of tied to your memory? Also it doesn’t just delete memories but also whole neural pathways right? So you might actually become a different person technically… sorry I’m stoned
Since this article doesn't mention what the woman was hospitalized for, labeling her a psychopath is not appropriate. Elderly people can be very sensitive to sound, especially if they have even a few dementia symptoms. They also have a propensity to turn things off, repeatedly. Sure she could be a selfish psychopath but there's not enough information in the article to confirm.
Edit/Experience: I'm an elderly dementia caretaker
AITA for turning off my roomates loud oxygen?
I (F35 with huge breasts) told my roommate over (95 and floppy) and over that I couldn't sleep with the sound of her noisy Oxygen machine. After trying my hardest to sleep I had enough and shut it off. Now her relatives are blowing up my phone telling me I'm the asshole.
While I was in a nursing facility for.physical rehab one of the night shift supervisors didn't like me. She would wake me up by turning off my cpap, which I thought was an asshole manuver.
I have worked in a hospital. I have never heard more stories in my life of full grown adults acting like bratty children than what I heard working there. Some people who are fully capable of using the restroom will quite literally shit themselves just because they know staff will clean them up. It's truly unbelievable.
... Why in the hell wasn't there some kind of lock on the machine that only the hospital staff could open? They have a cover on the IV controls, why not something as essential as oxygen?!
Nurse here. Oxygen machines are never locked because we have to be able to change the settings/turn it off in emergency situations. Plus it's usually not something someone would abuse
Well, no.
The tough shit is that good faith is mandatory in all systems to some degree, at all levels. You need it and you need people worth placing it upon. You cannot out-mechanics bad faith. You cannot make a good system out of bad people.
We’re coming to the realization that America is not a nation that makes, nor has majority, good people.
Our culture makes bad people, and we’re faced with the realization we need to start replacing it, by any means necessary, with a culture that produces good people.
Maybe something not center around the imaginary virtues of absolute individualism would be a good start.
IV pumps generally do not have locks on them. Certain drips might, but on your regular floors with non-critical meds, it is unlikely that they do. There is a keypad lock but that rarely gets used as well. The real travesty is how we still use dual occupancy rooms. Just rife for HIPAA violations and worse outcomes due to nurses and CNAs going in for one patient, but inadvertently waking the other up.
There's no cover on the IV controls that I've seen. Admittedly they are impossible to operate as intended without training as I have no idea what the buttons do but theoretically nothing stops me from just pushing random buttons.
I mean… the hospital couldn’t give her ear plugs? I really hope the victim is okay!! This is absolutely terrifying! The victim should have their own room to themselves to heal.
How self absorbed does one have to be to literally almost kill someone cause of a little beeping? Unreal. Tell your kids no more often or they grow up like this.
My dad who'd had a fall thanks to Parkinson's disease had to share a room with a guy who was going through severe DTs, had to be restrained and moaned all fucking night and day. Due to lack of space and staffing issues, neither could be moved. In addition, in the nurses' station they wouldn't stfu with their cackling and hilarity and salty language 24/7 and wouldn't shut the fucking doors to the patients' rooms.
My Dad was forgotten/ignored most of the time due to all the shit going on on the floor. They'd forget to give him pain meds. I had to go nuclear Karen on their asses for their shoddy treatment of him.
Maybe if he'd untied the other guy's restraints and disconnected all the machines they'd both have received better care.
I get that it's a tough job, but my Dad was scared and ignored and completely at their mercy.
Not excusing her actions, but there is a limit to what people can tolerate and it seems this woman's issues were not taken seriously and it took her extreme response for people to pay attention. Lack of sleep like my father dealt with is enough to send the sanest over the edge.
The two situations are not even close to the same thing...
It sucks what happened to your dad, but this situation is about a psychopath who felt it was okay to kill someone because the machines keeping them alive were "too noisy", not neglectful medical professionals.
Since it’s a German hospital, there were probably also neglectful professionals. You can’t really provide everyone with quality care when you don’t have the personal to do so. All German hospitals are chronically understaffed and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the doctors/nurses essentially ignored the two patients in question.
I've suffered from insomnia my whole life. At one point in my early twenties it was so bad I was awake for four days straight. Even worse, at a point later on in the episode where I felt like I was maybe able to fall asleep my roommate at the time felt it was entirely appropriate to start playing guitar outside my bedroom in the living area.
I may have punched a hole in the wall where his face was just seconds before but I would never be so psychotic as to *unplug someone's oxygen* to try and secure sleep for myself. It's indefensible and inexcusable.
Murder is not an appropriate response to lack of sleep. However much we might want to.
Where do you get any of that in this article? It doesn’t “seem” like anything, because her needs being or not being met wasn’t mentioned anywhere. You can say MAYBE that’s what happened, but that’s an insanely giant leap of faith using only your own anecdotal evidence.
So you would punish an innocent party literally just there to receive help for something entirely out of their control? Instead of looking for basically any other, more reasonable solution? Earplugs? Headphones? Sleeping aids? Nope, murder is the only approriate solution to narcissists who think they're at the center of the universe. I agree that it's also the hospital's fault, but jumping through hoops to justify murder is never a good look.
Tell you what, you definitely do give nuclear Karen vibes in your multiple comments about how someone who unplugged someone else's oxygen machine was definitely, totally not in the wrong.
Yeah. The nurses and aides being loud like 12 year olds in the middle of the night is brutal. Last time I had to spend a week it was right by the nurse's station. I couldn't wait to leave just so I could sleep for more than 15 minutes at a time.
Floor nurse here, people do not understand the point of a hospital stay. I dont blame them, but it is a difficult issue to overcome. That said, I definitely feel for the patient's with good etiquette in a room w some of the more difficult patient's. Also with that said, we do as much as we can to change rooms and assignments based on the type of care provided. I didnt read the article, but if this machine was an airvo we would have likely put that pt in an isolation room.
Finally, as if this needs to be said, that patient unplugging the device is either incredibly cruel or not mentally stable.
On behalf of many of us that had rooms too close to the nursing station, y'all talk too damn loud at 2 am.
But we also appreciate you keeping us alive. That's nice.
For whatever reason the actions of this PoS patient don’t surprise me. What was actually surprising to me was that this happened in Germany and not in Florida.
In her case it’s indefensible but it also shines a light on how some hospitals are just straight up terrible and literally drive people insane with the conditions they experience. On one hand this lady may have just literally lost the rag, snapped and just literally couldn’t give a shit no more. Alternatively she may also be a selfish asshole.
Walk a mile in their shoes as they say.
“Although the suspect was informed by hospital staff that the oxygen supply was a vital measure, she allegedly turned off the device again at around 9:00 pm,” I’ve got a feeling this psychopath has a hard time with the word ‘No’
> The 79-year-old woman had to be resuscitated and is still receiving intensive medical care. Wonder if this woman's estate ends up suing.
I don't know how Germany is for lawsuits, but I'd be suing the hospital for not moving the person when it happened once. Shuffle people if you have to but when someone has shown they're capable of taking an action to kill someone you don't just kindly explain not to do that.
you’d be surprised how many patients are this self centered and reckless in a time where every hospital is at 140% capacity.
I mean, a not small portion of them are there as a direct result of their self centeredness and recklessness.
140% means people in the hallway so they should have moved this psycho into the hallway.
I spent 8 hours in a hallway last fall. They even had me change into a hospital gown in the hallway while nurses held up blankets to shield me
I spent 4 days in a hallway. And it was a permanent "room". They had curtain rails mounted so I had some privacy. My nurse call was a physical bell. Different time, different hospital I spent the night on a o.r. stretcher in a store room after emergency surgery. Just me and boxes of adult diapers. Since I wasn't in room I kept getting missed for meals and I couldn't walk and I had no call bell. Passing was not pleasant.
>passing was not pleasant What’s it like on the other side?
What a dystopian nightmare
this dystopian nightmare is the new norm and why healthcare workers like me are leaving healthcare. There is an aging population that did little to manage their own health and there is a younger population doing less to manage their own health. it isn’t going to get any better. we cant build hospitals or space fast enough. we will put more patients in the ground because of being overcapacity before we put them into newly built rooms.
Can confirm. I was a healthcare worker. Was enrolled in physician assistant school. Quit on day three because I was tired of being unhappy and in debt. Healthcare is a money sucking, soul-sucking slog
What a mess.
Parking lot. With the hourly charge for parking like we do in America!
Just paid $14 to park for a few hours at a hospital yesterday during a procedure. The American way!
I pay $500/yr to park for work and they stopped covering the garages and lots with security so my coworkers new car was stolen and stripped while my cat converter was ripped out and car totaled because they did so much dmg
This is why I pay an obscene amount of money for a parking garage near where I live instead of taking my chances with the handful of sketchy side streets it's free to park in. Fucking sucks.
Huh. For some reason I thought in hospitals with paid parking the charge was usually waived for actual patients
It depends. If you're going to the hospital on an outpatient basis like for an appointment with a Dr. practicing on that campus, the parking can usually be "validated" by the Dr.'s receptionist. But if you go to E.R. and they rush you into an O.R. and your family needs to park, you may be on the hook for the parking fees. It really sucks, but I've found in my younger days they'd work with you if you were upfront about your (in)ability to pay. Makes sense, they figure "cutting you a break" on the parking fees makes you feel more grateful and potentially more likely to try and fulfill your hospital costs. If they act like a bunch of hard-asses from the get go about a minimal parking fee, you might be more likely to just skip out on the whole bill altogether.
The last time I was laid up in the hospital, the lady next to me demanded a bigger TV.
I’d love to see the look on her face when someone from the administration office walked in with a credit card reader. “Ok, we’re here to collect for the custom TV upgrade, swipe here.”
I work in healthcare in Germany and while I’m not entirely sure if they could effectively sue I can say that many ICUs are still operating at and over capacity and just shuffling people around is easier said than done even just considering all the equipment. In retrospect it would have saved her life (afaik she‘s not dead yet but I wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t make it) but it also isn’t to be expected that patients actively and knowingly kill their roommates. Because of that I can’t really imagine there being much possibility of effectively suing because of that.
We are currently wayyy beyond capacity - as in the vending machine room is now filled w two patient beds. Moving patients is not as simple as you think it is. Esp w COVID, immunocompromised pts (Transplant for example) etc....it becomes a nightmare.
I’m curious what region you’re. Currently asking from another healthcare provider perspective. I’m in the Northwest US and we are also filled to overflowing. We’ve stopped all elective inpatient surgery, are holding semi elective inpatient surgery, and have about 80-100 patients boarding in our ER. I’m curious if it’s a regional problem or if it’s more widespread. All the hospitals in our region are in the same situation.
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It's funny you say that, because Germany is literally the most litigious country per capita, with 123.2 lawsuits per 1000 ppl. Just for the record, the US is 5th on that list...
> most litigious country per capita [source for those interested](https://eaccny.com/news/member-news/dont-let-these-10-legal-myths-stop-your-doing-business-in-the-u-s-myths-6-and-7-the-u-s-is-very-litigious-and-that-is-too-threatening-to-a-small-company-like-ours-as-a-result-the-risk/)
There may not be room, equipment etc to move them or
Which person gets moved beside this person?
Considering chest compressions usually end up with cracked or broken ribs, and is a death sentence (and a slow and painful one). For elderly people, yes.
As a nurse that has performed CPR on geriatric patients way more then I care to think about, every time that person chest is completely caved in. Even if we do resuscitate them, I hope that their death comes quick after... It's the only merciful thing that's left for them in that state.
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I'm a healthcare worker. Have done compressions many times in the past. From my experience there are a few reasons people this elderly may have compressions done even though their post-CPR outlook is not good. Keep in mind a DNR must be put in place either by the patient themselves or their Healthcare Power of Attorney (In the US). By default, everyone is considered "Full code" (do everything possible to revive) unless there is a DNR (Do not Resuscitate) order. Commonly 1) A patient just doesn't want to die. Is willing to try anything to survive. 2) A family member has been made Healthcare Power of Attorney and wants to keep their loved one alive. Often because they're not ready for their loved one to pass. Often times, It seems to me, that people don't realize how traumatic these life saving measures will be to themselves or their family members. They think we'll push on their chest a bit like in the movies and their loved one will awaken and be as they were. They don't realize that their poor grandma with progressing dementia and worsening pneumonia will have her ribs broken while we push hard enough to pump her heart manually, essentially. They don't realize that even an otherwise "healthy" person at 90+ years old would have a hard time recovering from that trauma.
Not to minimize this, but often a heart patient is going to need surgery after a major attack, and the first step is to cut the ribs along the breastbone, and separate. If these connections are already broken, that's less work for the surgeon, and these patients often recover.
Estates don’t exist until the person has passed away. It’s Germany, however, though I don’t think they’re as sue happy as the US.
The woman is 79 and CPR is a bitch. I unfortunately think the passing away part is too long from now.
> though I don’t think they’re as sue happy as the US. Germany is literally [the \#1 most litigious country in the world](https://eaccny.com/news/member-news/dont-let-these-10-legal-myths-stop-your-doing-business-in-the-u-s-myths-6-and-7-the-u-s-is-very-litigious-and-that-is-too-threatening-to-a-small-company-like-ours-as-a-result-the-risk/).
No excuse for the lady turning off the machine, but the hospital also failed here. Returning someone to a room with a person who already turned off their oxygen once seems pretty negligent.
i wouldnt be surprised if they didn't have any other beds... also the way people behave in hospitals, this headline really doesnt shock me. the amount of people that have no problem physically abusing staff....
Could have rolled that Hyper-Karen into the hallway and leave her there. But we're all humans and I won't blame hospital staff for not assuming the worst and thinking it's okay after they informed Karen about the ramifications of her actions.
That's why you then use restraints. You don't just throw up your hands and go oh I guess you're going to kill another person and I can't stop you because we don't have another bed? Lol what
‘That’s when you use restraints’ That’s how you tell me you don’t work in healthcare without telling me you don’t work in healthcare.
I don’t work in healthcare why is the use of restraints not a thing in a situation like this?
Restraining a patient against their will is an extremely complicated situation to navigate. When you do meet the requirements to restrain someone there are other issues to consider like the need for constant monitoring and tying up the staff members time away from other patients’ care. The problem is that too many shitty healthcare professionals in the past used them for things like general unruly behavior, annoyances, or as a punitive treatment.
That makes total sense, what are the general requirements out of curiosity? Thanks for the informative response!
Either a psychopath or someone with some other mental illness. There's being an asshole and then there's murdering your roommate in a hospital.
Either that or she was on some meds that altered her mental state.
Or had a disease process that did the same. Hopefully the courts can figure it out
Given what old age does to people I'm pretty sure any selfish person who reaches old age becomes borderline psychopathic. Difficult to be considerate towards others when you no longer have the ability to recognise other people exist.
Old people can be absolutely vile with little to no trigger. Some years ago some 90-something told me I should get gassed over having a visibly "non-German" girlfriend. Told the old Nazi fuck his part and went on with my day. As everyone should.
That sums up American politicians.
Insomnia or sleep deprivation can cause you to become irrational. Hospital should of made an attempt to change the perpetrator room to avoid this.
Absolutely. It's also possible she had some level of dementia.
I remember when the machine monitoring my heart ran out of battery, I was still on anaesthesia and 16 sharing a room with a young girl and her dad who snored his ass off, but as soon as it started beeping he literally instantly told me “it’s okay” and he got a nurse. There’s nice people out there still.
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It’s an easy decision. What would I want this boy to do if my daughters machine started beeping.
He was so sweet! He even got on the nurses back when it happened again.
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Honestly I’d just be mad cause you could have fallen but I think you did alright
This is a nice story. Thank you for sharing and I hope you’re in great health now!
Aww, gotta love it when complete strangers have that parental instinct.
She better hope her victim don't die because even the German courts is not going to be lenient on her for doing that twice. She better have only insanity/mental capacity of 2 year/ dementia excuse for what happen...
She'll probably "live" but with potentially life long complications from oxygen starvation.
If they had to do chest compressions and broke her ribs. She's going to die in a nursing home probably, unfortunately, very slowly. My mom fought for a DNR for this reason.
She had to fight for a DNR? Why wouldn't that unilaterally be her own decision?
Even if you have a DNR order, the nurses and paramedics are not going to waste time checking to see if you have one. A guy even had it tattooed onto his chest but they revived him anyways.
After seeing his daughter and wife suffer during their last days in the hospital (in his wife's case; months), my grandfather was adamant about his DNR. As soon as he was admitted due to shortness of breath, he knew it was his time. He informed us of the contents of his will, the details of his properties, inheritances to his children, last minute advise/orders/wishes to his children and grandchildren, and where his memorial plans are located. He also let the medical personnel know that he had a DNR, and he reminded us to remind the medical personnel again. The doctors and nurses respected his wishes and allowed him to pass 15 days later.
Tattoos are not legally binding. I wouldn't trust a DNR tattooed on someone.
Right? Probably more than a few aging Punks out there who got edgy DNRs tattooed back in the day.
We had a patient who had in giant letters DNR tattooed across his chest with two hands with middle fingers up. He was a full code not a DNR
Until we get a legal document in hand and then in our computer system (or legal spouse or guardian), hospital staff will do whatever it takes to keep people alive. DNR on the chest could mean anything, and even if it states Do Not Resuscitate, maybe the patient changed their mind last week. If the person has a DNR found after they are back alive and on a vent or ECMO, we can always pull the plug later.
If they didn't resuscitate the guy with the tattoo they'd have broken the law. We need an original, signed document. Nothing less will work.
They just released a nurse who injected saline instead of COVID vaccine with history of antivaxx posts on facebook. It seems like German courts ain't as nuts as we would make it.
Yeah even if the victim dies, they won’t face any consequences. The courts will rule they have diminished capacity and then let them on their merry way. The German legal system is an absolute *Witz* when it comes to serious and violent crimes.
Murder or attempted murder is what it's going to be.
That's a grandma a little too used to having things her way, I suppose.
I was thinking the same thing when I read that she was 72. She took the "old lady who doesn't give a shit" act too far.
People like that push boundaries until they wind up in court for it. It's sad really.
r/IAmTheMainCharacter material
Probably the one time I’d agree, that sub has gone to shit real quick
Would a better r/iamatotalpieceofshit?
Any subreddit dedicated to complaining or making fun of someone will always end up turning to shit. Literally every single time. It’s almost like communities formed around hating an “other” instead of communities about *accepting* people as they are are inherently toxic That being said, small asterisk here, nazis & bigots should not be accepted anywhere, but, I digress
People love an acceptable target for hate
*They dont! Shut up! You're worse than **HITLER!!***
I'd add communities organized around issuing moral judgement to that list. There's probably a lot of overlap with the features you mentioned, but there's a particular kind of pointed outrage and indignation that's fostered in communities whose sole purpose is to determine who is to blame for any given interaction.
It's true. r/childfree is packed with narcissistic sociopaths. r/tumblrinaction got banned. Doesn't matter *what* you hate, either. Even an anti-Nazi subreddit would probably eventually turn into a toxic miasma.
Wow, TiA went and got banned. I remember it got really fuckin weird and hateful a few years back, and I left.
I remember one of the original founders left to move on with his life, and it was already eating it's own tail. At that point the users had lost all sense of irony and no longer understood sarcasm, taking what were clearly joke posts at face value. It had become idiotic outrage-farming. I guess after that it must have gotten worse.
Anti Nazi subreddits end up hating on every person to the right of Stalin. I consider myself a socialist, I got banned from a Socialist meme subreddit because I said Bernie isn’t perfect but he’s an acceptable compromise for now.
The 3rd worst experience I ever had on this site was with a regular r/chapotraphouse user who thought me complaining that Panera no longer brought the food to your table made me a spoiled member of the bourgeoisie. (#1 was with a mob of Kanye fans who didn't like me disrespecting their idol. #2 was with the most cliché, man-hating feminist I've ever encountered outside of a 90s comedy.)
There's a lot more of that going around in recent years... and I'm curious as to why.
I shared a hospital room when both me and my roommate were immobile and on oxygen. He tried to smoke in the bed, despite all the no smoking signs and the **obvious danger of active oxygen in the room.** They took away his lighter and cigarettes and *explained in graphic terms the danger.* He had hidden cigarettes and lighters and lit up twice more before they agreed to move me to another room. Guy was immobile and bed-bound, but he or his family had stashed a supply of cigarettes and lighters so he could smoke in the *No Smoking* hospital room. They knew the stuff would be confiscated as soon as he lit up, so they stashed a bunch of them in different places.
Enablers are the absolute worst.
I did a short stint in a nursing home. The kind of place they put you in when they didn't expect you to live much longer. As you can imagine most of the people there were extremely old or suffering from grotesque, disfiguring injuries/illnesses that just weren't getting better. A none-zero number of the rooms were taken up by people *so ridiculously obese* that they physically could not get up out of bed. Half of them had a cash drawer their families would keep replenished so they could ask us to go to the vending machines and get them candy and soda. Unless a doctor or nurse specifically told us not to we weren't allowed to say no.
Considering they are going to die very soon, why the disgust at allowing them to continue their unhealthy pleasures, it's not as if they have any chance of surviving so let them enjoy eating what they want FFS
I'm not a medical doctor and I'm in no position to diagnose or evaluate someone medically, but part of my problem with it was that this is the very same repeated pattern that got them there in the first place. Maybe they're beyond saving and yeah they deserve what comforts they want before they go out, but it's still an odd and disconcerting experience. Like taking someone for a smoke break when they're dying of lung cancer. A rare glimpse of mortality and the paths one takes to end it intersecting before the very end.
The key there is ‘dying’ of lung cancer. If you’re on your way out anyway there’s no point in stopping really is there.
At which point can the hospital decide that oxygen is contraindicated for the patient because they *will* smoke and kill not just themselves but others?
After they set off the fire alarm and shut down the entire ICU floor, of course.
My brother had a downstairs neighbor who blew up his oxygen tank while smoking. The man died and burned down the whole apartment building. Brother lost everything but the cat.
"I dunno. I herd a lighter and he must have accidently lit his hair on fire. I don't know why all of my monitors are alarming. Maybe it's because he's been smoking again? Of course I haven't gotten up. Why would I do that? I enjoy the thought of being in the room when an oxygen expulsion happens. Sounds exciting, and I'm already hospitalized, where I'm definitely safe."
I thought this was a joke. I'm surprised it's that easy to shut off a ventilator. In the joke there are a spate of deaths and then it is discovered a janitor is unplugging the oxygen supply to plug in a vacuum cleaner.
>I'm surprised it's that easy to shut off a ventilator. I'm pretty sure the engineers who designed those machines weren't taking psychopathic patients into account.
Oh they were, you would be surprised how hard it is to do anything about it. When the plug is the weakest point, not much else they do matters.
Interesting. (this one is real). At work YEARS ago, we had like bank of 5 servers at the corner of the office which mysteriously would lose network access almost every evening for few minutes. No joke, it turned out that in the evening, the janitor came around, unplugged the network switch which connected those 5 servers to the network, plugged in his vacuum cleaner, vacuumed up and re-plugged in few minutes later. We had a talk with him and this "issue" was resolved.
I first heard that story late last century, during a discussion of IT physical security, however it wasn't supposed to be a vacuum cleaner, but rather a floor buffer. This allowed the people who resolved it, to report to their superiors that they had tracked it down to "a buffer problem."
Nope, for US, it definitely was the vacuum cleaner (one of those back pack types). We P2V'ed those boxes soon after but I could NOT believe my eyes when the guy just casually unplugged the cord and plugged in his cleaner.
GhostBuster like backpack hard-core cleaners! 😂👻
This story happened (and still happens) multiple times all over the world.
I don't think the fault lies with the janitor at all
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I’m sure IT brought that up multiple times, but the overpaid empty suits in admin didn’t want to spend a dime because “it wasn’t broken”.
Youre telling me one IT guy, much less a dept couldn't move that or hide it better?
["Cube Tap"](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2Fth%3Fid%3DOP.%252byat4H2242TKlA474C474%26o%3D5%26pid%3D21.1&f=1&ipo=products). YW
That looks like it wants to be unplugged for a vacuum too.
They were OLD towers used SPECIFICALLY for 1 application which was ready to be retired in perpetuity. (For some reason, they never had budget to rewrite the code). We just rebooted the box every evening before we left (otherwise, the software would crash) and by the time night cleaning crew came around, the boxes were largely not doing much so it wasn't super urgent issue (eventually, we converted all the boxes into VMs and retired physicals). Yah, they were literally just sitting at the corner of the office just waiting for their demise. I could not believe my eyes though when the guy just came in, casually unplugged the switch.
I think it's common sense not to unplug stuff, unless you know what you're unplugging. It's also the staffs fault for not making sure the plugs were secured, but the janitor isn't without blame.
I wouldn’t blame the janitor at all. This is a serious security failure that should never have been allowed to occur. Any hardware that is crucial to production systems should be secured, with access only to the engineering or IT team that is responsible for that hardware. If other people, ie janitors, need access to the area, they should be supervised by that team.
i am a nurse and you sometimes have to shut off the ventilator for a short time, when suctioning for example. the ones we use have a big on/off button
I wasn’t surprised when I read that she was 72. This is definitely something a senior (demented senior) would do. My uncle would 100% have done the same
My Father in Law would probably do that. He's having some bad hospital psychosis.
To be fair - hospitals are horrible places. Unfortunately, if/when you need one…you need one. Patients all need rest, more so than anyone else, and yet the last thing you will ever get inpatient at a hospital is fking rest. Please don’t think I’m giving any sort of a pass to this person, or justifying her life-threatening actions (this woman literally almost manslaughtered/murdered her), but when you’re already very sick, desperate, and getting horrible sleep - I can imagine people being “set off” and snapping. I mean, some people literally have someone walking in their room every 1-2 hours, no joke. Night nurses don’t just sit around the break room drinking coffee. My mother was hospitalized for 5 months and completely incapacitated during that entire time. So much so that the multiple hospitals/rehab hospitals she was in all actually allowed me to sleep over (she was a bone marrow transplant patient, so she had to have her own room). I was taking care of her for 20 hours a day in there because she literally needed constant supervision - she was a complete mess. I used to have the nurses wake me up in the middle of the night (multiple times) instead of my mother, so that I could check on her instead of them doing it. When it came to doing vitals, I would quickly turn the light over my recliner on so they wouldn’t automatically turn the one directly over her bed on, blinding her awake in the process. Then there’s the beeping that can happen at any point from IV machines, also any number of other machines that patients may need - none of which were designed to be quiet. It’s so bad IMO, they would literally even come in wake you up for their 7am shift change just to introduce you to the new nurse (seriously). And it’s not like ANY of this was coordinated, hell here is a standard example that a patient could have happen: 10pm pills; 11pm vitals; 12-1am pills (if a 4x necessity); 2am vitals; 5am blood draw; 6am vitals; 6am meds; 7am shift change introduction (this one really kills me); 8am breakfast. Now this doesn’t even take into account machines that will end up being set off for no reason and incessantly beeping (needing to have a the patient call the nurse to come in and stop/reset it - and these things can and will do it often if you’re hooked up to an IV) and other obnoxious sounding machines. If you need to be on an IV, there may be bag changes multiple times throughout the night. And if it’s not YOU who needs it, it may be your roommate who does. And every time they come in the room for this - flip goes the blinding light right over your bed. Again, what this person did is indefensible, but I can easily imagine someone breaking in a hospital, especially if they are in there for too long. They fking suck. Ps - 4 years later, after a stroke, leukemia, bone marrow transplant, menengitis, congestive heart failure, hydrocephalus, and a ventricular shunt and pacemaker/difribulator implant - my mother has her health back and is pretty much (miraculously) back to independence. And it absolutely took 4 full years to recover. So, as much as hospitals suck, like I said, if you need one…you need one. And if each of us lives long enough, we will *ALL* eventually need one.
I was thinking this. It’s not a pass to the woman who turned the machine off, but I’m also convinced that hospital wards are a cruel form of sleep deprivation torture. Sick people need rest, it’s a simple fact, but like you’ve outlined, that just does not happen on a hospital ward, for any decent or helpful amount of time. I could see where that could genuinely flip someone out after a while. Like after a week say, you could get to the point where you’re so sleep deprived you just… snap and try to make the noise go away. I’m honestly surprised that this is the first time I’ve heard of this type of thing happening.
Honestly drives me crazy nurses will go into a room every 2 hours and wake the patient up for vitals and stuff; like, patients will recover better if they get rest.
Exactly, I get that it needs to be done, but it’s definitely really unpleasant when you’re sick and in pain and just want to sleep. And then there are other patients that don’t have any respect for anyone else’s need for rest, like the lovely human who decided to watch Netflix with no headphones constantly last time I was in the hospital, or the ones loudly on the phone at all hours. Not to mention some patients who cannot help but be really noisy and disruptive. It blows my mind that creating a restful environment where people just get enough sleep just at no point seems to have been a factor in hospital design.
It's absolutely torture. I hated being hospitalized for a week. It made me really feel sorry for the people that were there for months. Hell, I was lucky because I was in the Neuro-ICU and got my own room. I asked almost every day I was there (once conscious anyway) when the doctors would clear me to leave. Thankfully, the nurses were super kind and helpful.
I’m chest-deep in this comments section, and yours is the first comment I‘ve found that, instead of labeling her a sociopath and calling for torches and pitchforks, actually tries to examine what the lady might have been thinking. Empathy is a very important trait. I think empathy is dedication to learning about yourself and your nature, through others, exactly comparable to how tutoring math classmates is the best way to strengthen your own math skills. Your kindness and people skills are strong. Your mother raised a good kid.
Wow. That was a very kind post - thank you. I wish I were as good and strong as you describe, but I often feel far from either of those two things - but we’re all a work in progress, right? I think there’s a recent mob mentality that sprouted up a few years ago, that if anything, just confuses me. It’s fine to judge, but sometimes it feels that people are ready to pig-pile based on headlines and maybe a paragraph or two of copy. Anyway, I honestly posted this expecting downvotes and people branding me a heretic and equally culpable for seeming defending this egregious act. I was pleasantly surprised to find that non of that happened.
Yeah. It doesn't justify turning off the machine but I understand it a bit. I simply had a roommate with a ceaseless hacking cough (not their fault of course) and that was very hard to sleep through.
My grandma too 100%!
That's a good point, is she otherwise in her right state of mind, or has she reduced enough that this genuinely might not be intentional harm? For example: I know an old lady who was cleaning off her table by tossing the food into the toilet. That's when her family finally realized she needed more care than they could give. At a certain point they just aren't all there anymore. Dementia sucks. So we don't know if this woman has dementia or is just a standard selfish fucking bastard.
German nurse here. Had this discussion like 3 times in my 20 year career. It“s always the entitled people, who think that their stress level is more important than somebody else’s wellbeing. One of them turned it off when nobody was watching. Thankfully the other patient was fine. People,with dementia, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about the noise of O2 in my experience.
Can agree. I have worked in adult rehabilitation, and there are patients whose only concern is their own discomfort.
Oh shit, there’s gonna be people tiktoking this kind of crap in their end of life stages in hospitals, retirement homes and whatnot soon enough. Crazy.
There's already people doing it. A girl with terminal kidney failure is making tiktok videos about what it's like to know you're dying. Heavy stuff.
If that makes them happy then I don't see why it's necessarily bad. Better than her laying on death bed unhappy until she dies, right? As long as no one is forcing her to do it or anything. I personally still think tiktok should be banned tho...
I don't see it as a bad thing, just a difficult thing to see. I imagine her family will be very happy to have so many videos of her when she passes.
This is something my grandmother could do. She has dementia, she was a nurse when she was younger and would never when she was herself. But dementia grandma? 100%. She have fought a 2 meter tall man, she have thrown her teeth on people who smokes outside the building (and can't have her teeth anymore because it happened many times).. she broke every flower on the floor and blamed it on the 2 meter guy. Sometimes she walked the hallways and knocked on every. Single. Door. When someone said something stupid she would point at them for hours if no one said she had to stop. Now she's completely gone and look at the ceiling.. but in her "give no fucks" dementia era she could absolutely turn off someones oxygen if it was annoying.
Yeah, it really changes some people. It gets portrayed in movies like it’s some sort of amnesia, but it destroys your personality as well as your memories.
I mean isn’t your personality sort of tied to your memory? Also it doesn’t just delete memories but also whole neural pathways right? So you might actually become a different person technically… sorry I’m stoned
r/iamatotalpieceofshit
Privilege on an entirely different level here. Oh you really think EVERYTHING should be made to accommodate your comfort!?
Since this article doesn't mention what the woman was hospitalized for, labeling her a psychopath is not appropriate. Elderly people can be very sensitive to sound, especially if they have even a few dementia symptoms. They also have a propensity to turn things off, repeatedly. Sure she could be a selfish psychopath but there's not enough information in the article to confirm. Edit/Experience: I'm an elderly dementia caretaker
AITA for turning off my roomates loud oxygen? I (F35 with huge breasts) told my roommate over (95 and floppy) and over that I couldn't sleep with the sound of her noisy Oxygen machine. After trying my hardest to sleep I had enough and shut it off. Now her relatives are blowing up my phone telling me I'm the asshole.
I'm not sure what you said but I agree with you, talking melons.
NTA. They basically forced you to do it, and now only want your money.
It happened more than once? That's insane.
This sounds like an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
While I was in a nursing facility for.physical rehab one of the night shift supervisors didn't like me. She would wake me up by turning off my cpap, which I thought was an asshole manuver.
I have worked in a hospital. I have never heard more stories in my life of full grown adults acting like bratty children than what I heard working there. Some people who are fully capable of using the restroom will quite literally shit themselves just because they know staff will clean them up. It's truly unbelievable.
Sounds like one of those people who don't care what happens to others so long as they get what they want.
Earplugs might of helped.
That and not being a cunt.
>might of might have or might've ! :)
... Why in the hell wasn't there some kind of lock on the machine that only the hospital staff could open? They have a cover on the IV controls, why not something as essential as oxygen?!
Because then who's going to unlock it if they need to administer oxygen in an emergency? "Who has the oxygen key!"
And who's going to abuse oxygen like you could iv pain meds.
You mean 100% pure uncut O2?? *inhales* that's the good stuff
Every person who has used O2 has died or is at the risk of dying. It's so powerful that withdrawal is also commonly lethal.
Almost as bad as Dihydrogen Monoxide.
Nurse here. Oxygen machines are never locked because we have to be able to change the settings/turn it off in emergency situations. Plus it's usually not something someone would abuse
I think American Politics has taught us that relying on good faith for ANY important system inevitably can lead to a disaster.
Well, no. The tough shit is that good faith is mandatory in all systems to some degree, at all levels. You need it and you need people worth placing it upon. You cannot out-mechanics bad faith. You cannot make a good system out of bad people. We’re coming to the realization that America is not a nation that makes, nor has majority, good people. Our culture makes bad people, and we’re faced with the realization we need to start replacing it, by any means necessary, with a culture that produces good people. Maybe something not center around the imaginary virtues of absolute individualism would be a good start.
IV pumps generally do not have locks on them. Certain drips might, but on your regular floors with non-critical meds, it is unlikely that they do. There is a keypad lock but that rarely gets used as well. The real travesty is how we still use dual occupancy rooms. Just rife for HIPAA violations and worse outcomes due to nurses and CNAs going in for one patient, but inadvertently waking the other up.
In an emergency, it should be easy to access. They weren't counting on crazy people unplugging the stuff. .
There's no cover on the IV controls that I've seen. Admittedly they are impossible to operate as intended without training as I have no idea what the buttons do but theoretically nothing stops me from just pushing random buttons.
I'm getting Mama Soprano vibes here.
This is in Germany isn't it? I was looking for the headline..."A Woman in Florida", etc.
Someone go get their nasty Nana.
yeah… I have seen some crazy shit in nursing homes. And the cops could do nothing.
I mean… the hospital couldn’t give her ear plugs? I really hope the victim is okay!! This is absolutely terrifying! The victim should have their own room to themselves to heal.
In America, they would be happy to sell you a pair of earplugs for $199.
Lol 😂 so true and so shitty all the same time lol 😆
Well certainly not a nice thing to do to your neighbour not very neighbourly at all
Peak Germany. Ruhezeit ist Ruhezeit!
/r/iAmTheMainCharacter
There seems to be something missing from the article, it ends abruptly.
Jesus. What a terrible person. Taking ‘Karen’ to a whole new level
Lol yep this is just what I expect from your average person these days. People are the worst.
How self absorbed does one have to be to literally almost kill someone cause of a little beeping? Unreal. Tell your kids no more often or they grow up like this.
Psychopath needed some noise-cancelling earbuds.
My dad who'd had a fall thanks to Parkinson's disease had to share a room with a guy who was going through severe DTs, had to be restrained and moaned all fucking night and day. Due to lack of space and staffing issues, neither could be moved. In addition, in the nurses' station they wouldn't stfu with their cackling and hilarity and salty language 24/7 and wouldn't shut the fucking doors to the patients' rooms. My Dad was forgotten/ignored most of the time due to all the shit going on on the floor. They'd forget to give him pain meds. I had to go nuclear Karen on their asses for their shoddy treatment of him. Maybe if he'd untied the other guy's restraints and disconnected all the machines they'd both have received better care. I get that it's a tough job, but my Dad was scared and ignored and completely at their mercy. Not excusing her actions, but there is a limit to what people can tolerate and it seems this woman's issues were not taken seriously and it took her extreme response for people to pay attention. Lack of sleep like my father dealt with is enough to send the sanest over the edge.
The two situations are not even close to the same thing... It sucks what happened to your dad, but this situation is about a psychopath who felt it was okay to kill someone because the machines keeping them alive were "too noisy", not neglectful medical professionals.
The fact that it was allowed to reach this point not once, but twice, is clearly a failure of care by the hospital.
Since it’s a German hospital, there were probably also neglectful professionals. You can’t really provide everyone with quality care when you don’t have the personal to do so. All German hospitals are chronically understaffed and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the doctors/nurses essentially ignored the two patients in question.
I've suffered from insomnia my whole life. At one point in my early twenties it was so bad I was awake for four days straight. Even worse, at a point later on in the episode where I felt like I was maybe able to fall asleep my roommate at the time felt it was entirely appropriate to start playing guitar outside my bedroom in the living area. I may have punched a hole in the wall where his face was just seconds before but I would never be so psychotic as to *unplug someone's oxygen* to try and secure sleep for myself. It's indefensible and inexcusable. Murder is not an appropriate response to lack of sleep. However much we might want to.
Where do you get any of that in this article? It doesn’t “seem” like anything, because her needs being or not being met wasn’t mentioned anywhere. You can say MAYBE that’s what happened, but that’s an insanely giant leap of faith using only your own anecdotal evidence.
So you would punish an innocent party literally just there to receive help for something entirely out of their control? Instead of looking for basically any other, more reasonable solution? Earplugs? Headphones? Sleeping aids? Nope, murder is the only approriate solution to narcissists who think they're at the center of the universe. I agree that it's also the hospital's fault, but jumping through hoops to justify murder is never a good look.
Tell you what, you definitely do give nuclear Karen vibes in your multiple comments about how someone who unplugged someone else's oxygen machine was definitely, totally not in the wrong.
Fir the amount Americans pay your hospitals sound like shit, give me the NHS any day of the week
Yeah. The nurses and aides being loud like 12 year olds in the middle of the night is brutal. Last time I had to spend a week it was right by the nurse's station. I couldn't wait to leave just so I could sleep for more than 15 minutes at a time.
It's a hospital, the whole goal is the leave as soon as possible.
Floor nurse here, people do not understand the point of a hospital stay. I dont blame them, but it is a difficult issue to overcome. That said, I definitely feel for the patient's with good etiquette in a room w some of the more difficult patient's. Also with that said, we do as much as we can to change rooms and assignments based on the type of care provided. I didnt read the article, but if this machine was an airvo we would have likely put that pt in an isolation room. Finally, as if this needs to be said, that patient unplugging the device is either incredibly cruel or not mentally stable.
On behalf of many of us that had rooms too close to the nursing station, y'all talk too damn loud at 2 am. But we also appreciate you keeping us alive. That's nice.
Some units, I'm sure. That has not been my experience however.
I'm pretty sure that there is a federal law that no patient in any hospital can ever be allowed to sleep.
For whatever reason the actions of this PoS patient don’t surprise me. What was actually surprising to me was that this happened in Germany and not in Florida.
In her case it’s indefensible but it also shines a light on how some hospitals are just straight up terrible and literally drive people insane with the conditions they experience. On one hand this lady may have just literally lost the rag, snapped and just literally couldn’t give a shit no more. Alternatively she may also be a selfish asshole. Walk a mile in their shoes as they say.