Three years ago I worked in a very nice rest home as a CNA, it is called Courtyard at Jamestown assisted living facility, if anyone reading this is from Utah, it is just off university avenue right before will's pit stop. The people I helped there were near the end of their lives obviously, so we had a lot of people pass on there, but not a lot of them hung around there after they had died, so unusual occurrences were not the norm for the residents and staff. The residents got a hold of the CNA's by use of pull cords in their rooms that alerted us by a pager that would buzz and vibrate and show the room number of the person that needed help, or they had a necklace that had a button they could push to summon help. Now this is important to remember, the pull cords in the apartments had to be pulled with a fairly forceful tug to be activated and can only be reset by going into the room and pushing the little plastic switch attached to it back up.
A day prior to when this story occurred, one of our residents suddenly took a nose dive down hill and had to go to the hospital where she passed away that night, it was all very sudden, this lady Anna had been very healthy and active just a few days before. At the end of our shift, the day after she passed away, me and two other CNAs were sitting in the staff room charting, all the other CNAs had gone for the day as well as the RN and LPN that are there during the day time. So we were the only staff left in the building.
Our pagers started to buzz which in nothing out of the norm, until one of my co-workers pulled out her pager to see who needed us and realized the room that was calling was Anna's and she was dead, her face completely drained of color for a few seconds; we all thought this was a bit strange but sometimes the necklace call buttons malfunction so we figured that was probably what it was and decided just to go check her room, in case it was family that needed help moving her stuff out or some ordinary thing like that.
When we reached her room, the door was locked and the only ones with keys are the residents themselves and the nursing and housekeeping, this is important to keep in mind when reading what we found in the room. We unlocked the door and all the lights were off, then we noticed that the actual pull cord had been pulled down and that is what summoned us to that room, not a malfunctioning necklace call light.
After we got over our initial shock, we noticed that there were blankets and couch cushions strewn all across the living room and that it had not been like that when she had left for the hospital the day before (it could have been family but would you leave your mothers apartment all torn up?). At this point we were all getting a little freaked out, but someone had to reset the call light and that night I was not feeling at all like going into her room, so me and the other CNA ganged. Kristen and pushed her into the room and forced her to do it (not nice I know), she ran in and pushed the switch up and ran out almost tripping on a couch cushion in her haste to escape. We were all a little shaken and when the graveyard shift arrived, we told them what happened and they of course didn't believe us and as far as I know, nothing else ever happened in that room.
I think it was Anna just saying good bye to courtyard and the staff, she was a really fun lady who probably got a kick out of seeing us so scared.
Loading comments....
