By Jordyn Redwood
I’m used to seeing police
officers on a daily basis—not that I’m in jail or a frequent traffic law
violator, but as an ER nurse, we cross paths every day. ER personnel and law
enforcement work hand in hand on many issues.
In the first chapter of my debut
novel, Proof, one of these
circumstances brings Dr. Lilly Reeves and Detective Nathan Long together. A
victim he needs to interview has been critically injured in a car accident.
Lilly wants to save her life. Nathan wants information in case she dies.
Ahhh, conflict, the lifeblood of
any suspense novel.
What are the most common
instances where law enforcement and ER personnel work together?
1. To report a crime. As
medical personnel, we are obligated to report injuries that involve crime. Now,
often times, the patient is not necessarily forthright with what has happened
to them. So, to cover ourselves, we report injuries that involve guns and
knives with clear intent to hurt or kill. So, cutting your finger while slicing
vegetable isn’t going to cut it—pun intended. Nor is a child accidentally
shooting another child with a BB gun. Now, if the story is suspiciously veiled
as in my abusive boyfriend didn’t mean
to stab me in the chest during his drunken rage—well we’ll report that anyway.
Other crimes we report. Dog bites
if serious bodily injury has occurred. Child abuse—but not always directly to
law enforcement. Often times, we go through our hospital social work team to
report and hotline these injuries. If we think the child needs to be removed
immediately—this would be more of an instance to involve the police.
2. If we need help. Many
hospitals do not have armed (as in bullets) security anymore. At a neighboring
institution, violence against medical personnel got so bad that they started a
cooperative effort to staff police in the evening hours. It used to be that
medical people just “had to take it” when a patient was violent against them.
Now, it is much more common to see charges being brought against these
individuals.
Hospital security can only go so far—if things are bad we will
call 911. Obviously, an armed intruder, suspicious package, called in bomb
threat and missing individual would require law enforcement.
3. To retrieve someone. I
am generally not allowed to physically restrain someone and hold them against
their will. There are very fine lines here. Is the patient medically competent
to make a decision? That’s one of our first questions. Our restraining someone
and keeping them in the hospital if they have a medical condition influencing
competence, say a head injury, will be easier to defend. But say a teen was
brought by their mother for concern for suicide and he just flat out walks out
(this is called elopement) of the ED. We will call law enforcement to try and
bring him back. They will likely put the patient on an M1 hold—or involuntary
commitment—for psychiatric evaluation, so they can justify restraining them and
bringing them back to the ED.
What other instances do you see
ER personnel and law enforcement working together?
Maybe Mark can add the instances
when they need us!
*************
About Jordyn Redwood: She is a pediatric ER
nurse by day, suspense novelist by night. She hosts Redwood’s Medical Edge, a blog devoted to helping
contemporary and historical authors write medically accurate fiction. Her debut
novel, Proof, has been endorsed by the likes of Dr. Richard
Mabry, Lynette Eason, and Mike Dellosso to name a few. You can connect with
Jordyn via her website at www.jordynredwood.net.
About PROOF: Dr. Lilly Reeves is a
young, accomplished ER physician with her whole life ahead of her. But that
life instantly changes when she becomes the fifth victim of a serial rapist.
Believing it's the only way to recover her reputation and secure peace for
herself, Lilly sets out to find--and punish--her assailant. Sporting a
mysterious tattoo and unusually colored eyes, the rapist should be easy to
identify. He even leaves what police would consider solid evidence. But when
Lilly believes she has found him, DNA testing clears him as a suspect. How can
she prove he is guilty, if science says he is not?