We’ve all done it. You check your pockets when you get home from a long shift and bam, there it is. Something you didn’t mean to bring home with you. What is the most surprising thing you have accidentally taken home with you from work? Check out what your fellow nurses shared and add yours in the comments section below.
All old timers have left with the narc keys!! Admit or not. I’ve taken my house supervisor phone home ( twice)! Drove 30 minutes home, fed my chickens, dropped scrub pants and heard the thunk!! Yep an extra hour of driving after a 13 hour shift should have cured me.
- Brittony N.
After ending up at home with a vial of a partial dose of a narcotic (can’t remember if it was morphine or Ativan), I started doing a pocket check at my locker before leaving the unit. That scared the bejeesus out of me. I work L&D now and don’t carry meds in my pocket as much anymore. But I end up coming home with the occasional cytotec that couldn’t be placed that I have to return. Still try to remember my pocket checks at the end of every shift.
- Shawna C.
The only things I’ve really taken home aren’t that interesting. A check and correct stamp, a red pen that belongs to the cupboard and a bunch of random clean gloves. Oh and 30 cm min volume extension tubing.
- Courtney L.
I worked nights. Counted with day shift nurse. Some how I put the narc key back in my pocket of my vest. Got home hung my vest up in its place. Took a shower and went to bed. At 6 PM that evening the DON called and asked if I had the keys. The day shift nurse hadn't noticed that she didn't have the keys until then.
I asked if I was in trouble. She said, “No I know you would have come in with them if I had known. But I didn't get called until change of shift!"
This was in an alzheimer unit.
- Connie J.
Wasn’t me, but one nurse put a whole chart in her backpack and took it home. Figured it out the next day when she came to work.
- Alissa C.
My mother, an RN & an avid gardener, used to bring home empty IVF bags & tubing in the 1970's. She's string her hanging plants up on the patio to IVF's at a slow rate after filling the bags with plain water or water with fertilizer. The ferns especially loved that in the S. FLA heat!
- Robi K.
Surprisingly the worst I’ve taken home was an entire bottle of glucometer strips and some empty urine/blood tubes 🤣
- Martina F.
My husband 😳 he followed me home one day and hasn’t left in 17 years.
- Deena K.
Worked nights. One morning 1/2 way home and found the keys in my coat pocket when I adjusted the coat. Turned right around and headed back to the hospital and gave them to the nurse I had done the count with. She hadn’t realized she didn’t take them then. I must have through them back in my pocket after counting. Note to self: always empty pockets before leaving the unit for the shift.
A tube of KY Jelly. In the mid 70s, KY jelly was a common stocked item that was available for all to use for suppositories, enemas and rectal temps.
My stroke patient’s glass eye. I removed it pre-op…
Went to dinner after work. Dinner interrupted by the Code Pager Going off. OOPS!!! Had to call back to the Unit. They’d already heard it going off from the RT’s pager. Fortunately did not get a ticket hightailing the pager back to work.
PCA keys, work phone, half a syringe of morphine.
I did the narc key thing several times in the old days. The worst was driving home after a Night Shift, then having to turn around and crawl back thru rush hour traffic into town, knowing that some patient was waiting for their pain meds!
A surgeon’s wedding ring! She didn’t have a pin to fasten it to her scrubs so she tossed it to me when she was in a rush to scrub in. I was on the train home when I felt the ring safety pinned into my pocket. Luckily we lived in the same neighborhood.
Once, after a long day in PACU I grabbed my coat and headed home. A few days later I got a call from the unit clerk asking me if I took the wrong jacket. Apparently two of us had similar coats and I never noticed that I had someone else’s with her wallet and car keys in the pocket. Poor gal had to have a locksmith come out before they figured out it was me!
The narcotic keys, but I had to come all the way back–70 miles!
Had a friend who commented that when he found the narc keys in his pocket, he just threw them out the window while he was driving home….The manager called and asked if he had them, he honestly replied “no”…