It’s made headlines around the world – “Hero nurse arrested for refusing to give patient’s blood to police”.
Video footage of a Utah nurse went viral as she was arrested for trying to stop police from taking blood from an unconscious patient without consent.
The nurse, Alex Wubbels, explained that hospital policy prevented her from drawing a patient’s blood as the patient was required to give consent for a blood sample or be under arrest. Otherwise, she said, a police needed a warrant.
As the video shows, the nurse was later dragged outside and arrested for not complying with the police – even though she did nothing wrong and was in the right for refusing them.
Further investigation is currently underway for the incident, and with all the media attention, Wubbels has been commended for her behaviour.
This Utah nurse, like so many others in her line of work, went above and beyond what was expected of them and showed great strength of character.
There have been many other nurses throughout history who have showed the same spirited initiative and resourcefulness.
Founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale is the one of the most famous nurses in history.
After training in Germany, France, Egypt, Nightingale rose to notoriety for her contributions during the Crimean War, where she organised the tended to wounded soldiers.
In 1854, Nightingale received a letter from the Secretary of War, Sidney Herbert, asking her to organize a corps of nurses to tend to the sick and fallen soldiers in the Crimea.
Given full control of the operation, she quickly assembled a team of almost three dozen nurses from a variety of religious orders and sailed with them to the Crimea just a few days later.
She care for hundreds of soldiers, who were so moved by her compassion that they began calling her “the Lady with the Lamp”, while others called her “the Angel of the Crimea.” Her work reduced the hospital’s death rate by two-thirds.
Nightingale’s lasting contribution has been her role in founding the modern nursing profession. She set an example of compassion, commitment to patient care and diligent and thoughtful hospital administration.
Vivian Bullwinkle was the sole survivor of the Bangka Island massacre in 1942, where Japanese soldiers shot the survivors of a shipwreck, south of Singapore.
On the 12th February, she was among 65 nurses evacuated during the fall of Singapore aboard SS Vyner Brooke, which sunk four days later after being torpedoed at sea by Japanese bombers.
She drifted at sea before she and 21 other nurses made it ashore to Bangka Island with other survivors.
The nurses began tending the wounded and the group decided to surrender to the Japanese.
The following day at gunpoint all the nurses were forced to wade into the sea and they were machine gunned from behind.
Bullwinkle was shot through the abdomen, but the bullet miraculously missed vital organs.
Despite being wounded, she eventually floated ashore and hid in the jungle where she eventually surrendered to the Japanese, becoming prisoners of war in Sumatra until 1945.
Bullwinkel went on to testify before a War Crimes tribunal, later retiring from the Australian Army as a lieutenant colonel.
Kirsty Boden was an Australian nurse who had been working in UK, when the London attack happened earlier this year.
She worked a Guy’s Hospital in central London, about 300 metres away from London Bridge, as a staff nurse in theatre recovery.
Boden was hailed as a hero after she was killed while running to help victims of the attack that targeted London Bridge and the Borough Market.
Dame Eileen Sills, chief nurse at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, said Kirsty was “an outstanding and hugely valued” person to work with.
“Kirsty was described by her colleagues as ‘one in a million’ who always went the extra mile for the patients in her care”.
Boden on one of two Australians killed in the London Attack.
Nurses who care are all heroes in their own way, whether they save one person or hundred or people, whether they get publicly recognised or not, whether they survive a massacre or lose their life to tragedy. Nurses make a difference.
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