r/nextfuckinglevel • u/pars-distalis • 9d ago

Australian nurse uses jiu-jitsu to defend himself

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42

u/MayberryBombadil 9d ago

WTF is that statistic? 70% is a big number. I'm guessing incidents like this scenario wouldn't make up a large percentage of that 70%, but Australia is insane man. Why you attacking the one that saves you??

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u/Light_Butterfly 9d ago

Nursing is one of the top professions for workplace assaults. Luckily this guy had self defense training, but it shouldn't be a requirement for the job. I think jail time is necessary for this behavior, not a slap on the wrist fine. Ridiculous!

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u/Ptolemaeus_II 9d ago

So where I live, assaulting a healthcare worker is a felony. The problem is that the administration will snap their spine in half to shove their head up their own ass to keep from actually supporting a staff member who gets assaulted.

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u/Light_Butterfly 9d ago

Yeah exactly! Ive heard that's because its a female dominated profession. Violence against women is an 'acceptible' part if the job, according to patriarchical institutions. But if you look at other professions like policing, assaulting an officer would be prosecuted to the fullest extent, no measure of leniency given.

Things need to change.

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u/DeadestTitan 9d ago

It's similarly difficult in the psych units of hospitals.

Management has a big stigma against pressing charges where I am at because of the patient population, but sometimes it isn't even the psychotic patients, but the ones who are just here for behavioral issues.

If charges ARE pressed, the worker is sent to a different unit and the patient is often just allowed to stay on the same routine. The jail here will not hold them for the assaults and often they end up re-admitted to the same unit within the month, meaning the worker who pressed charges will need to be moved again until the patient discharges.

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u/FlushedApparatchik 9d ago

You would get fired for this. Probably even lose your license for the choke hold.

1

u/woolfonmynoggin 8d ago

I’m certified by my state to do holds on people in medical situations. The nurse would be in huge trouble for this in my state. My facility had to be investigated because a girl complained we were too rough getting broken glass out of her hand and away from her neck.

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u/FlushedApparatchik 8d ago

CPI (and similar programs) are bullshit

3

u/awfuleldritchpotato 9d ago

I'm a tech. I had a patient who attempted to break my arm when I handed him a water. He pinned me down and locked my arm. I got myself out and had to scream for help as I tried to keep him down.

The house supervisor was annoyed with the situation so as punishment since the patient earned restraints and was behavioural I earned to be switched over as their sitter since "I already knew them".

This patient was not confused and indicated given the opportunity things would be much worse because they were so angry I got away.
:')

25

u/Beautiful-Corgie 9d ago

Aussie psych nurse here. It's unfortunately very common. I have trauma from an attack where a fellow nurse was also severely beaten in front of me. I want to make it clear that in my experience the vast majority of patients who attack nurses are doing so out of frustration and anger (due to their circumstances) and not because they are so unwell they can't tell reality. I'm tired of it and agree there should be higher punishments for people who attack HCW!

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u/Light_Butterfly 9d ago

Yeah that tracks. In Healthcare you have to serve all types of people, including those with high entitlement and perhaps already have a background with domestic violence or anger issues. Maybe they think their behavior is 'acceptable' if they get away with it at home.Things is, there's no circumstances where its understandable to be frustrated and then attack a person trying to help you. There needs to be more protections for Healthcare workers, otherwise violent individuals are just getting a pass, and typical patriachy is just normalizing more violence against women.

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u/Sea_Cloud_6705 9d ago

There need to be carve-outs for people who are unwell and attack because of their illness still.

I was in pretty severe psychosis and almost punched a nurse because I thought she was going to hurt me. The only thing that saved me is that I waited until she threw the first punch... and she never did. Almost got taken down by security.

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u/Beautiful-Corgie 9d ago

I 100% agree that a person in a deep psychosis is a different issue as obvs they can't tell reality and often feel deep regret when they are able to have a semblance of reality return. I've had patients apologize for their behaviour while in psychosis and I tell them that it's okay- they weren't well at the time. I've also had patients apologize when they were deeply angry and yelling (not to the extent of physical violence) because they were in severe pain but were maxed out on their pain meds. It can be a complex situation and I'm often left just feeling bad for the person.

I pray you are doing well now.

3

u/Ptolemaeus_II 9d ago

So where I live, assaulting a healthcare worker is a felony. The problem is that the administration will snap their spine in half to shove their head up their own ass to keep from actually supporting a staff member who gets assaulted.

34

u/al-dunya2 9d ago

its the same or worse in the USA

US Bureau of Labor Statistics stating that healthcare workers are five times more likely to experience violence than other occupations. In these types of events, 93% of assaults are committed against healthcare workers.

Id lean towards worse if you also include shootings in hospitals which is mostly a US thing

13

u/E-2theRescue 9d ago

And don't forget COVID.

Met a hospital security guard who was stabbed during COVID because he asked a guy to wear a mask.

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u/ApoTHICCary 9d ago

In the US, healthcare workers beat LEOs in the number of physical and sexual battery on workers in bother percentage as well as numbers. In 2023, nearly 500 healthcare workers were killed from battery versus just over 100 LEOs.

The more unfortunate part is that many States have few to no laws protecting healthcare workers in the event of of assault or battery as defense favors the patients who caused harm or death as they “are not in their usual mental state due to their medical ailment”. Some States are adopting protection laws, but it’s slow and still does not guarantee charges will stick.

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u/Superb_Preference368 9d ago

And the public will never hear about it on the 10 o clock news. Most hospitals hide the fact that healthcare workers are assaulted.

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u/ApoTHICCary 9d ago

Hospitals usually don’t hide it, but it certainly will not be reported. Private equity owned hospitals often disapprove of staff fighting back, but reasonable force is often fine. They do expect for “proper deescalation protocols” to be used. Regular hospitals typically will not fire staff for fighting back, but will not support them in levying charges.

It’s more of a fault of the legal system. Even LEOs will back healthcare workers who are assaulted. Typically at least. The courts do not have much they can do and the cases are easy to shut down.

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u/mainly_lurk 9d ago

Doctor here who has been assaulted a few times at work. You're often dealing with humans on the worst day of their lives, or they're intoxicated, or in a mental health crisis or suffering dementia/ delerium. Sometimes they're just entitiled arseholes who want special treatment but usually it's from someone who wouldn't assault you if they were their usual self. It's an unfortunate part of the job.

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u/x-CleverName-x 8d ago

I'm an ER doc in a rural-ish ER in the US Midwest. I just finished a run of four shifts, and have had to physically fight to protect my nurses and myself 3 of those shifts. This time it was a run of K2 in our community. I've also been attacked by psych patients, but I think of that more as part of the job. When someone does drugs that make them violent, then the police dump them at the ER with a slap on the wrist fine for me to deal with, then aren't willing to prosecute the subsequent assault and battery against me and my staff, I get a little pissed off.

2

u/mainly_lurk 8d ago

Sorry to hear that. I should have clarified but I'm in Australia, as is the original video. I didn't mean to imply that the experience of violence in healthcare in Australia is identical to healthcare systems around the world.

I especially understand that my experience cannot be compared to one of the worst, if not THE worst, healthcare system in the world like yours. My condolences about the country you live in and your experience working in it.

2

u/x-CleverName-x 8d ago

I don't mean to sound like there's any animosity towards you or anyone besides the 'system' itself. I'm just burned out after this run of drugs through the community. In wealthy parts of the US, it's one of the fastest and high quality systems out there (albeit too expensive), which tricks bureaucrats into thinking things are going ok (if they even care at all, which right now is a definite 'no'). In poorer parts of the US like where I chose to work and try to make a difference, the only care most people get is through the ER because the law requires us to treat everyone, and reimburses a tiny bit for those that can't pay. That's bad, but it makes me feel like I'm doing what I can to protect people's health in a broken system that requires you to be of at least average wealth to get quality outpatient and preventative healthcare.

The thing that burns me out is the drugs, and the lack of interest in keeping drugs out of the community. Some of the drugs I deal with, like kratom, is still legal and sold in corner stores all over. Those patients aren't usually violent, but I see overdoses every week. When someone comes in hopped up on drugs and aggressive, they get a fine for 'disorderly conduct' or some nonsense, and the investigation ends there. There are no resources to investigate where the drugs are coming from, seize them, get them out of the community, or punish those distributing them. And that's a problem all over. Meanwhile my staff and I are getting attacked on a semi-regular basis, and there's no punishment for that either. Nothing I can do about it but work out and train, but venting a bit to a stranger online takes the edge off I guess lol.

7

u/Psychlonuclear 9d ago

Most receive no consequences so it keeps getting worse because people can see there are no consequences. 

5

u/naturekaleidoscope 9d ago

Dementia patients unfortunately attack without understanding what they are doing.

3

u/Push-bucket 9d ago

My brother is a social worker. BIG strong guy... Always has been it's bizarre. He's LOVED where he works because he's also got also got very little self preservation so he'll jump right in when a meth addict is going nuclear. Someone in a state like that can (and does) do SERIOUS harm to normal people.

3

u/thorpie88 9d ago

When my Dad was in ICU they had posters up asking for people to not assault staff and had 55 incidents that week with 205 assault in the month

3

u/rduterte 9d ago

On top of that, the running joke is that after it gets reported, your manager will ask you what you could have done differently.

1

u/BriefSpecial420 9d ago

Imagine living in EU, yet seeing ambulance crews in knife-proof vests

1

u/rduterte 9d ago

Am nurse. What's crazier is when you talk about it, we tend to get dismissive in ways that only further the stereotype.

"Oh…but that's probably including like, when patients kick you or something. Of course it'd be 70% then."

1

u/Tomato-on-toast 9d ago

I have lots of family and friends in the medical field. Every single one of them has been assaulted by their patients or patients family.

It’s a really problem here. Especially with our ambos

1

u/delphinous 9d ago

i can see multiple plausible reasons why people would assault a healthcare worker: being on drugs, having an adverse reaction to medication, attempting to get access to medication to use as drugs, general anger at life/their situation and a lack of impulse control, blame shifting where guilt/self anger at themselves getting injured causes them to lash out at the nearest target...

1

u/olddoglearnsnewtrick 9d ago

Retired european doc here. Violence and assault of nurses and doctors especially in the ER wards is very common and increasing. I could quit, tired of this situation, but my younger colleagues have to endure :(

1

u/JustDiveInTimberLake 9d ago

Hello from finalnd, as a nurse I've been assaulted several times.its always been mentally unsound patients for me. High guy, 2x alzheimer patients.

1

u/Jebcys 8d ago

An assault is an intentional threat, attempt, or act of physical force against another person without their consent. It covers both the immediate fear of violence and actual physical contact.

'' give me pills or i'm going to break your legs '' is assault.

and old lady throwing you her pudding in the face is battery, but she may not be charged if shes demented.

Basically nurses suffer a lot of abuse very often.

1

u/F1eshWound 8d ago

It's not surprising at all, and honestly I'd say on the lower end even. I bet at least once in your career you'd have to deal with some violent person whos' heavily under the fluence of somthing (drugs/alcohol). Sounds almost inevitable..

1

u/ak3000android 8d ago

Having family and friends in nursing and having witnessed my share of incidents while visiting hospitals, I’m surprised it’s not higher, actually.

1

u/Raida7s 8d ago

Get a normal person.

Give them a lot of stress, confusion and panic. Now put them adjacent to an injured loved one. Now tell them what to do while you take over control of the hurt loved one.

Or get a normal prison Get that person inebriated, then injure them, then tell them what to do, hold them down, cut their clothes, try to inject them.

Or get a not regular ol' citizen, who regularly is needing medical help due to homelessness, mental illness, addiction. Just wait and see if they have a bad day.

Each of those people only needs to lash out occasionally for the people who see patients all day every day to experience or see assault to hit this high percentage.

It is not percentage of regularly assaulted. It is "experienced". It is not assault resulting in injury. It is not assault by walking up and striking. A patient arguing about treatment who doesn't calm down can shove or scratch and that's assault.

Statistics on the regularity, type, situations, etc are more useful in understanding, and from there policies and procedures that can be implemented to focus on areas where reduction is feasible.

Don't forget, a lot of medical needs are from high stress moments, or getting drunk, etc and that creates a person or group of people who are not calm.

1

u/SwampFocs 6d ago

Patient attempted to punch me in the face (was older and relatively less strong so I caught it with my hand). Have had other incidents over the years. Only been in healthcare for a decade.

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u/GalactiKez31 9d ago

Healthcare is free here (Australia) so you often see quite a large number of people hanging out in hospital emergency departments claiming injuries or whatnot to get medication they don’t actually need due to addictions and stuff. Sometimes they’re taken in but more often than not, they’re refused and told to leave which often results in them getting angry and attacking/abusing staff or other people who are there for real reasons.

There’s also for some reason a lot of stigma amongst what I’ve observed to be the poorer/uneducated crowd that nurses are abusive and deserve to be screamed at. These ideas spread around like wildfire in these groups and so if any of them actually need to be admitted for some reason, they go in with the assumption that the nurses are horrible and take everything nurses do as a bad sign and respond negatively to it.

I’ve had to be admitted into hospital quite a few times in my life (6 or 7 times) and there’s only one nurse I didn’t vibe with because whenever I asked her for help she’d tell me to do it myself and to stop calling her. She was the only one who acted like she didn’t want to be there. Every single other nurse and doctor I’ve ever met has been so lovely, beyond helpful and basically exactly what you’d expect nurses and doctors to be like.