Opening Day

John was a mountain of a man, well over six feet tall. In his younger years he had played professional football, until being sidelined with a knee injury. He aparently had led a rather colorful life, because he thought all the CNAs were prostitutes, and often told us to take our money and go, instead of trying to get him up for the day.

On this particular day, John had been pretty restless, wandering around in his wheelchair, standing up along the wall rails, etc. We were keeping an eye on him since he was prone to falls.

Around mid-afternoon, while most of the CNAs were busily filling in their books, we heard a crash behind us, and turned to see John again standing up at the rails, over an upturned wheelchair. When we approached him, and asked him how he was doing, he looked up at us and shouted, "I got it! Went down nice and easy!" We weren't sure what to make of that, so asked him what he had there, and pointed to the upturned chair.

He responded with, "I got it! I got my deer!" One of the other CNAs whispered to me that it was opening day of deer season in the area. We congratulated him on his "hit", and told him we'd take care of it, as we helped him into his chair. He readily agreed to the arrangement, but pointed over his shoulder and told us there was another one back there "about 30 yards". After taking John back up the hall, away from the scene, we went exploring on the unit, where we did indeen find another upturned chair, around the corner from where we had found him.

One interesting fact that was pointed out by a staff member. Both of the upturned chairs were brown, which was unusual, since the majority of chairs on the unit are either blue or maroon.

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