Cringe & Facepalm

I am lucky to live within walking distance to a local elementary school. This school has a fabulous field and play structure for kids, but also has a preschool play area. My son is almost two and it's the perfect playground for him, the toys are his size, it's fully fenced so he can't escape onto the busy street, there are lots of pinecones, etc.

Because it is a school property, we can only go play there when school isn't in session. So Sunday afternoon we took a little walk to the playground. It's not long, only 15 minutes, but I'm in my 3rd trimester of pregnancy so I was looking forward to sitting down for a bit when we got there.

As I was walking up I noticed a few adults and a giant dog playing in the park. I figured I just hadn't seen the little ones playing yet. And no big deal, I've taken my dog to that park too, it's great that it's fully fenced. When I walked up to the gate I was slightly annoyed to see that the women inside had put their coats over the gate and made it impossible to enter without moving their things.

Then she hit me with this, "Can you just give us 20 minutes?" It is now clear to me that there are no toher children, just the ladies and the dog.

Me: "...Ok..."

Me: "For your dog? To play in the park for kids?"

Lady: "There isn't a sign that says we can't. Take it up with the elementary school."

Me: "...Ok."

I walked away and we went on a 40 minute stroller walk instead. My son cried as we left. I hope she heard. I was so tired that I fell asleep on the couch at 6:45 PM, which may or may not be related.

Edited post: just got off the phone with one of the officers on scene. Guy was charged with three different counts. I am not versed in law, please do not ask me about any clarification on the charges. I have no idea how someone can be charged for two different types of assault. Just relaying what I was told.

Aggravated assault on medical personnel (class D felony) Assault in third degree (misdemeanor) Disturbing peace (misdemeanor)

Sorry for the long post, but I promise, it’s a good one. For some context, I work at a busy medical clinic that is its own standalone entity, no hospital attached to the clinic. We have 50+ rooms being used at any given time and have an urgent care that allows for walk-in appointments. Yesterday, I was asked if I would be able to stay after my normal shift to cover urgent care as the PA working had a sick kid. Not a problem, I do this all the time and am happy with the OT and knowing its either incredibly busy in urgent care until doors close, or its completely dead. Yesterday, we saw basically no one after 4p.m. (we are open until 10p.m)

All that changes when 45 seconds prior to closing, in comes boomer, boomer's husband, son-in-law, and two grandchildren. I hear, "glad we made it! Looks like you guys were just about to go home." Front desk staff checks boomer into the computer and then hands her an iPad to do her intake forms as she was a brand new patient for our clinic. Cue the stereotypical "back in my day" BS I head multiple times daily about how the iPad is so difficult to fill out for anyone who isn't a child.

In the interest of getting home sooner, I decided to get her back into a room, get tests started, and help her with the iPad. Going through the intake questions everything seemed fine. A few minutes go by when boomer's husband starts yelling, and I mean SCREAMING, at the top of his lungs at me that their wheelchair "didn't have the leg rests like the hospital's wheelchairs did. Why don't you have those wheelchairs here????" No problem. I can help with that, literally part of my job. I showed them how to use the wheelchair, got her leg supported, and continued asking questions. Then, boomer AND husband start screaming telling me the clinic is too cold, that I should have offered her a warmed blanket, coffee, and some kind of item to eat prior to bringing her back to the room. Like this is a restaurant or 5 star resort.

At this point I was flabbergasted, I've spent 15 minutes in the room with the patient helping with the iPad, explaining "a friend who you treated like family and had cancer has no medical relevance to your medical history," and trying to keep the rest of the family comfortable as their wife, mother-in-law, and grandmother was being treated. I looked at them and said, "we don't have any warmed blankets as this is not an emergency room or surgical center, but I can try to find a few gowns or towels we can use as blankets." Nope. Continued screaming and complaining. However, the tone had shifted from "this clinic is bad" to "you're the issue," meaning the screaming started to be directed towards me. As a healthcare provider, I have fairly thick skin and am able to shrug most things off with no problem. I generally will just leave the room for a few minutes to let the situation calm down and then return with a "kill'em with kindness" attitude. I left, ordered the tests I wanted to be run, and went and ended up finding a few blankets we had from a previous shipping mix-up. I walk back into the room, smile on my face, ready to give them the good news that nothing seems to be abnormal on any of the tests and she will be completely fine in a few days.

Oh boy was I wrong, in more ways than I could have thought. I open the door and feel like I was clothes-lined. I stumble backwards, supporting myself with the door, look up and see husband going in for another punch. A total of three punches connected with my face before son-in-law was able to hold husband back enough for me to leave the room. We have panic buttons placed around the clinic and I told one of the clinic staff to call the police and push the panic button. Told them under no circumstances do you enter that room.

Few minutes go by and you hear sirens approaching, shortly followed by three police officers coming into the clinic. I explain the situation to the police, explain I am not looking to press charges, I just want husband removed from the location so I can treat his wife. Police understand and say they will remove husband and have him trespassed from the property. Husband must have heard this through the door because he SWUNG the door open, smacking his grandchildren who were sitting behind the door, quietly the whole time. The police saw this, grabbed husband and detained him in cuffs immediately. They then explain he could be charged with two counts of aggravated assault and a count of aggravated assault on a juvenile. He turns ghostly white, turns to me and says "I ONLY hit you three times, you're just overreacting. Why did you need to call the police? I did nothing wrong!!"

Now our policy is quite black and white in regards to unruly patients, especially since we are an outpatient clinic and not an emergency room. Absolutely zero, and I mean ZERO tolerance of verbal, physical, or sexual abuse of any staff member or patient by any patient, family, or guests will be tolerated. I mean, I was punched three times by a dude I wasn't even treating, close to 30 minutes now past closing time after a 10 hour shift. IDK what constitutes calling the police to this dude, but I feel this was warranted. Once husband had been removed from the room, I returned to the patient, now in tears because her husband was just taken away by police. She is yelling at me that I "should have known he was just having fun and joking." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I ended up giving the son-in-law the directions for her care that I had written on her discharge sheet, checked out her grandchildren (no injuries other than a very small abrasion on one of their arms), and escorted them out of the clinic.

Seriously could not have made this shit up. After being assaulted by her husband, I was the one in the wrong for calling the cops? Nah. That ain't right. Normally love my job, but last night was a tough one.

Edit: wow, didn’t realize how not pressing charges lets them get off my bad guys. I will chat with my bosses tomorrow and see how I can press charges. Sorry guys, I’ll get that changed right quick

Second edit: just got off the phone with the officer on scene. Guy was charged with three different counts and arrested last night. Currently being held in jail. I am not versed in law, please do not ask me about any clarification on the charges. I have no idea how someone can be charged for two different types of assault. Just relaying what I was told.

Aggravated assault on medical personnel (class D felony) Assault in third degree (misdemeanor) Disturbing peace (misdemeanor)

Third edit: spoke with my clinic manager, the Dr. I work for, Director of clinic operation, VP of safety, chief legal counsel, secondary legal counsel, COO, and CEO for about 2 hours today (two days after the incident). We are going to be implementing a new policy regarding workplace incidents. This includes a new form that will be present in the incident reporting forms that details any officer/officers on site, charges possible, parties involved, and injuries reported. This is in addition to the standard incident report and is meant for possible litigation in the future. Hopefully decreasing the chance of someone getting off without penalty with this sort of action. I was told I will be covered and represented by the companies counsel, who are going to be pressing civil charges against the family in question.

Also, brought up needing to do a wellness check on the family, and the patient specifically. Was told “this will be looked into and followed up on.”

This happened yesterday and isn’t too long of a story, but I thought it was hilarious.

There’s a small bar/restaurant in our town that my wife and I go to all the time when we both have the day off. It’s a fairly small building with a few tables in addition to actual bar seating. When we went in, there was one table occupied by what looked like a family of varying ages, including the hero boomer of the story, and a couple people sitting at the bar. My wife and I sat by ourselves at a small table near the bar, talked with the owner for a bit and ordered our food and drinks. Even when it’s busy, it’s typically a really calm place.

While we’re drinking and talking, we hear the front door open and immediately you hear a phone at full volume blasting some sort of car video. We both look over and it’s a boomer staring down at his phone while he slowly makes his way over to a bar stool. The video he had on was louder than the music playing inside the bar. He sits down and proceeds to stare blankly at his phone while it blares the sound of tire screeching and engines revving. He pauses it for a moment when the owner asks what he’s drinking, and without saying what he wants, asks if the owner is a fan of rally cars. The owner was trying to be nice and said he didn’t know much about them but thought they were cool and asked again what he was drinking. Boomer unpauses his obscenely loud video and tries showing the owner, who is still waiting for him to say what he wants. This went on for an uncomfortably long time.

At this point, everyone in the bar was looking at him like “What are you doing?” And out of nowhere you hear a voice yell “WOULD YOU TURN THAT SHIT OFF!” I look over and it’s the older woman sitting with what I assume were her kids, who looked a bit embarrassed she said that. Old man boomer tries ignoring it and starts rattling off some fun facts about what he’s watching when the women yells, “HE DOESN’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOUR VIDEO, JUST ORDER YOUR SHIT AND TURN YOUR VOLUME DOWN!” Clearly a bit defeated, he ordered his drink and then you could just hear the (now very quiet) sound of rally cars coming from his phone.

My parents, both in their late sixties, and my mom's friend, who is seventy, went out for breakfast last Sunday to my mom's favorite diner. While there, a family with a small child, around 18 months old, was present. The child was being noisy, which prompted my mom's friend to loudly criticize the parents, suggesting they teach the child some "fucking manners". My mom felt her friend's outburst appeared racially motivated as the family was Spanish, whereas she and her friend are white. This incident sparked a reaction from everyone in the diner, leading them to confront my mom's friend. The diner's owner, who is also Spanish, then kicked them out of the restaurant. It's worth noting that the diner is inexpensive and a place where one might expect young children. Additionally, my mom noticed that the child definitely has Down syndrome.

My mom ended her 57 year friendship with her friend because of this.

Edit1: This is probably the one case someone means from Spain when I say this. I'm an anthropologist and as of this month have a degree in Ethnic Studies.