I Should Have Known…
Working in adolescent psych, you learn quickly that everything comes to the nurse—whether it's a scraped knuckle, a meltdown, or something no one else quite knows what to do with. The nurse becomes the fixer, the emotional sponge, the “safe one”—at least, that's how it often felt.
He was about fifteen. I remember reviewing his chart during intake and thinking, “He doesn’t seem like one of the troubled ones.” He looked like a kid you’d see in a school hallway—quiet, guarded, too young to carry anything that heavy.
When they brought him down to the office, I happened to be there. He didn’t speak, not a word, but something in his eyes made me pause. There was a quiet chaos behind them. I stood in front of him as he sat on the exam table, trying to connect—nurse to patient, human to human—trying to figure out what he needed.
Then it happened.
Without warning, he leaned over, picked up the small machine used to test hearing, and hurled it at the wall with everything he had. The crash of it hitting the wall wasn’t what made my heart race—it was the silence that followed. I reached for the walkie to call for help, but before I could even speak into it, the chair in the corner came flying toward me.
I didn’t have time to think—just move. I turned quickly, shielding my head, my arms instinctively raising in defense. The angle of my turn saved my upper body, but the chair slammed into my leg. I felt it buckle. Pain shot up and through me, but I stayed standing.
Two male techs rushed in, finally, and helped deescalate. They managed to safely restrain him and remove him from the room.
What came next was a blur—but I remember every detail.
911 is called. The doctor is notified. Papers are signed. And then the sirens. State troopers whirling in. An ambulance. A fire truck. All converging on what had, just moments earlier, been a standard intake.
And then, the part no one prepares you for: the aftermath.
It’s up to me to debrief with the other teens on the unit—some shaken, some wide-eyed, some quietly trying to process what they just witnessed. I check in with my coworkers, who are rattled but trying to stay composed. And then comes the call to the patient’s family, the ones who had just dropped him off for much-needed help. They entrusted him to our care, and within moments, it had all spiraled. What was supposed to be the beginning of healing now felt like betrayal and confusion.
And me? I walked out of that office with a throbbing leg, adrenaline still buzzing through my system, and the weight of what had just happened settling in. By the time I got home that night, the bruises had already started to form—deep purple, aching reminders of a situation that could’ve ended very differently.
I iced my leg. Took some ibuprofen. Told myself it was just part of the job.
But the truth? I should have known.
I should have known this wasn’t sustainable. That this wasn’t normal. That the physical bruises were warning signs—but the emotional ones had already been there.
But I didn’t take the hint. Not then.
