Bringing a patient to the ED just now, I noticed a trail of detritus and blood drops leading out the doors to the ambulance bay. Out of curiosity, I followed the blood drops and bloody footprints back to a room. In the hallway just outside the room, there was a half empty banana bag (a standard bag of saline with multivitamins added, making it look yellow), still attached to a 14 gauge IV catheter. Lots of blood drops on the floor in that spot.
When I rolled past the nurse's station with my patient, I casually mentioned, "Y'all know you just had an elopement, right?"
"Huh?" Four heads turned my way, including the ED doc.
"An elopment. Your obnoxious drunk from Room 6 left without permission, I'm betting. He was probably pissed, but not as pissed as y'all were at him."
"Go check," the doctor ordered, and the charge nurse scrambled that way. I chuckled and wheeled my patient to her assigned room, moved her over to the ED stretcher, and gave handoff report to her nurse.
"You saw the guy leave?" the charge nurse asked me as I rolled my stretcher back past the nurse's station.
"Never laid eyes on him," I grinned. "So, did he elope?"
"Long gone," he confirmed. "So how did you know he was an obnoxious drunk?"
"Not just an obnoxious drunk, but an obnoxious drunk that managed to piss y'all off," I corrected.
"That he did," the charge nurse chuckled. "But I'm just curious as to how you knew all that."
"Well," I answered, "Let's just say I've learned how to read the signs."
