hi. I am currently studying for my degree in nursing in the UK and have a question or advice from nurses. I was working in accident and emergency department the other weekend as a work experience part of the degree and an arrested man/teen was brought into us, he had been in a fight and had a nasty cut above his right eye. He was in police handcuffs behind his back, which looked to be tight. He complained to myself and also my other female colleage about his cuffs and said that he had been in them for over an hour. We asked the police if his cuffs could be removed and they were not happy, but we needed to do an x-ray, so they took his cuffs off and his wrists did look bruised and chaffed from the handcuffs, we just gave some advice as to relax his hands and don't struggle against the cuffs as they will tighten up etc. Anyway as soon as we had finsihed the x-ray he was cuffed again behind his back by the female officer and we continued to treat him.

I just feel that he wasn't really a danger and his cuffs could have been removed earlier? Can we as nurses obtain a key off the cops and removed his cuffs if we feel there is no danger and the police are near by?

It's not up to you, as a nurse, to decide whether he is a danger or not. He is in police custody, not nurse custody. The cuffs should be removed if they interfere with his treatment but not simply because you feel sorry for him. As far as the cuffs causing bruising and such, that's probably his problem from fighting against the cuffs.

If you uncuff them you could be charged with interfering with police and a bunch of other charges. You would feel horrible if they jumped up and took someone hostage before you knew what happened. Bruising wrists to say cuffs are too tight is one of the oldest tricks in the book, Then why would you want to uncuff them in a situation where the police weren't able to for whatever reason?

Is this the true story or is this one:

https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/other-health-wellness/arrested-handcuffs-were-put-too-tight-leaving-me-pain-days-759418.html

Wow You just posted this 3 times now which is it, One you say you are the arrested, the others you talk as if you are the nurse

Given how ludicrous the question is even for a student nurse, I would say we are being set up.