Pranks committed by me

By Cyril Ernest

From my very young days I have always been a prankster. Here are some of my exploits.

The year was 1972 and I was an intern in one of the New York Hospitals.An elderly Jamaican nurse related to me the story of how she had tricked a girl re the Fallopian tube. I remembered this incident and one night an elderly patient was admitted under my care in florid pulmonary edema. In those days one of the treatments meted out was rotating tourniquets to decrease the venous return to the heart. I immediately told one of the nurses to go get me a Fallopian tube. She was a recent grad and without questioning she went in search of a Fallopian tube. In the meantime I treated the patient and she got better. This nurse later returned to the floor with the nursing supervisor who was very angry and she admonished me saying that if I needed a Fallopian tube to go to the Ob/Gyn surgical floor. This particular nurse was so angry at me that she did not speak to me for the 5 years I was at this hospital. Late in the 80’s I saw an article mentioned about a Fallopian tube request in one of the medical journals.

There was another incident where I was working in the ICU.As I walked out of the ICU, I noticed a walking cane on the table near the Secretary. I asked the Sec. whether I could have it and she willingly gave it to me. I used this cane and I feigned injury and I walked with a limp to the elevator on the 5th. Floor. As I was walking out, the head nurse of the ICU saw me limping and she insisted on wheeling me down by wheel chair much against my protests.She wheeled me down to the 1st. Floor and through the ER where my car was parked.I told the nurse to hold on quickly left the cane on the wheel chair and ran to my car yards away. This nurse shouting obscenities at me flung the cane at me. However By this time I had made my escape.

I took a lot of fun in disrupting the lives of the monitor techs in the ICU/CCU.I used to go behind the curtains and shake the EKG leads on the patients to mimick V.tach and the tech would get so excited and call a code.Pandemonium would break out in the ICU/CCU immediately and I was gone by this time.

Another time, I used an alarm which a kindly nurse had given me which she had purchased at a shop which could be attached to the toilet seat and if somebody were to use it , the loudest alarm would sound. In the ICU I attached this alarm to the toilet seat and an elderly nurse, a long time employee used the bathroom. Lo and behold there was a loud alarm that sounded and this nurse came out all flustered. Later on I found out that she had heart problems. Luckily nothing happened.

Next time I admitted a patient from the ER with chest pain. He was a motor mechanic.
In passing I mentioned to one of the nurses that he was a famous Phiilosopher. Oh gosh, you should have seen the array of personnel who came visiting the ICU to see this famous person.

One other time I showed a nurse a contraption purported to be rattle snake eggs.This very gullible nurse wanted to see it. So I showed her this contraption which did make a noise when she opened the envelope. She yelled out the loudest shriek in the ICU at this disturbing the entire ICU.

Another incident was on the day after the inspection by the JCAHO. You know in days gone by, the JCAHO inspection used to be a big deal and the entire hospital would be cleaned and kept spic and span for this inspection. The inspectors had come and gone and the next day when I went to the floor it was as usual with paper towels strewn all over and the drawers pulled and half closed etc. So I went to the next floor and told the charge nurse to call the ICU and just mention three words - THEY ARE BACK. Oh, you should have seen the pandemonium that ensued, trying to clean up the mess.
Unfortunately nowadays, we cannot have such fun.

So many other incidents of similar frivolity have occurred that are too numerous to document.