Why Nurses Should Rule The World, Part 21

Editors' Choice, Emergency Services, Health & Body, Lazy/Unhelpful, Main Character Energy, Nurses, Retail, USA | Right | August 3, 2024

A customer has a pretty bad epileptic fit and at the front of the store. I paged a customer emergency over the PA. At my store if someone pages a customer emergency every manager in the store comes to help with it. They made a wall around the man made up of the store manager and two floor managers.

We’re in a heavily medical area and a couple off duty nurses abandoned their groceries at checkout and ran over to triage. One nurse had a bunch of exam gloves, and one had a stethoscope with her. The store manager called 911 and the nurses took charge of the situation until the paramedics could arrive.

The circle of managers was blocking front end access to one door. The register I was on was maybe thirty feet from the nearest manager. I was ringing people up and telling them to go the opposite way and exit through the far door.

Most of my customers were great. Most…

Customer: “You’re blocking the door!”

Me: “Please exit through the far door, sir.”

Customer: “No, that’s too far!”

Me: “This exit is blocked due to a medical emergency.”

Customer: “It’s not an emergency to me!”

Me: “That’s not how it works, sir.”

Customer: “Well you can’t stop me.”

This customer is about to make a beeline for the nearest exit, which would involve stepping OVER the collapsed customer. One of the nurses looks up from the patient and glares at the customer. She has heard the whole thing.

Nurse: “Back the f*** up or it will be a medical emergency for you too!”

He wisely did as he was told thanks to the nurse saying what I couldn’t.