I responded to a Code Strong call for an incident occurring in one of the units I cover as a chaplain. I arrived to find a dozen or so nurses, technicians, managers, and security officers outside a patient’s room. You could hear, all the way down the hall, the voice of a young woman screaming, ‘Let me go! Let me go! Get me out of this! I want to die.’ Other patients on that unit who were able to were walking with their IV poles to get off of the unit, explaining to the nurses, ‘I can’t deal with this. I just need a walk.’ I talked to the RNs of that unit, with whom I’ve worked for a year, and asked how they were doing; one had been punched, another scratched, with a kind of mask of ‘well, that’s just how things go’ on their faces. When I finally got into the room, I saw the source of the event: a young woman lying in her hospital bed, now restrained by hand and foot, screaming and writhing around. My eyes first went to the four security officers standing there; I noted the patient’s safety sitter and also several other nurses standing by the open door. Everyone was tense, following the patient's lead. At the head of the bed, however calm and not appearing to be rankled by any of this, kneeling down by the patient’s head, was a nurse not from this unit, Jordan.

Jordan spoke softly to the patient, “You’re autistic?” The patient nodded. “And this is a lot of stimulation, isn’t it?” She nodded again. In the midst of the fraught tension among everyone present, Jordan took charge, asking them to close the door to block out the extra noise coming from the hall and to close the blinds to reduce the midday light entering the patient's eyes. The patient was still screaming, still agitated, and breathing too rapidly, and I asked if she wanted to pray. She nodded, indicating yes, and requested that I lead. I recited the Lord’s Prayer, with Jordan, the security officers, and everyone else in the room joining in. The patient instantly calmed down. I remained in that room as Jordan continued to provide incredible, personal, and compassionate care to this patient: he listened to her talk about her outbursts; he understood her aversion to touch; he worked towards negotiating her behavior, leading to the removal of the leg restraints; he inquired about the sleep medications she usually takes, communicating this to the care team outside the room; he asked about her dog blanket and listened with genuine care about the patient’s love for her now-deceased dog, and the grief that led her to her suicide attempts.

Jordan explained to the patient that he had to leave, that he would be discussing her care with the other staff, and then he left the room. The patient asked me to stay, and we continued our pastoral care visit afterward. For some reason, whenever I reflect on this incident, I am brought to tears each time. Partly, this may be due to the gravity of the patient’s situation: her frustration with her neurodivergence, the struggles with mental health and suicidal ideation, and the dysfunction of the institutions meant to help her. However, when I examine it and seek the source of these tears, I find that they are not primarily tears of pity for the patient’s plight or anger at some injustice; rather, these are tears inspired by witnessing the compassionate care that I saw this nurse provide. I have worked in pastoral care at this hospital for a year, and each day I have seen remarkable care from the nurses here. But none of that has stayed with me in the way that Jordan’s care did. In that room, on that unit, Jordan did not view her as a problem. He saw her as a person and acted accordingly. From that perspective, everything de-escalated.