'Wash Your Stinking Hands': See ER Nurse's Plea For Flu Season

MILTON, FL — "Wash your stinking hands." That's the message from a Florida ER nurse as hospitals are swarmed with flu patients during a particularly bad flu season.

Katherine Lockler, of Milton, Florida, posted a video to Facebook last week as she was leaving a 12-hour night shift. In the video, Lockler talks about the dos and don'ts during flu season and some common virus-spreading behavior she has witnessed in the hospital — and that she advises against.

"So we are in the middle of something called flu season," Lockler says. "I'm sure you all are very aware of what that is ... but it is a really terrible flu season."

The latest data released by the federal Center for Disease Control and Prevention shows that the flu season has sent more than 14,000 people to the hospital and is blamed for at least 53 pediatric deaths. The flu is widespread in all but two states: Hawaii and Oregon. One of every 14 visits to the doctors and clinics were for symptoms of the flu. That's the highest level since the swine flu pandemic in 2009.

Lockler explains flu is contacted through your eyes, your nose or your mouth — and it's spreading like wildfire, she says in the video.

"I don't know if I mentioned already but it's been a long night shift," she says, before sharing some experiences she has personally witnessed in the hospital. Lockler changed the names and topics of the experiences to protect the "not so innocent," as she calls them.

"If you have a team member from your softball team who is sick or injured, you do not bring the entire softball team in to check on them because guess what you just got maybe 15 new vectors or carriers of the flu," Lockler says. In one instance, she saw each of a sick player's team members walk in during her shift, but not once did they use the hand sanitizer.

Lockler, who works at multiple emergency rooms in northwest Florida, told USA Today in an interview that she intended to send the message from a healthcare professional's perspective. She said the biggest problem for her was seeing people come in to the ER and be exposed to the flu virus but fail to take proper steps to disinfect themselves before going back out into the world.

Lockler says the emergency room where she works is currently a "cesspool of flunky flu."

"So please don't bring your team in, please don't bring your healthy children, especially your newborn babies, into the emergency room," Lockler says, adding that if you don't have a true emergency, this isn't a good time to visit the ER.

"Wash your stinking hands so you don't get all your babies sick," Lockler says.

She demonstrated in the video how you can sneeze into your elbow so the germs don't get on your hands.

"My sleeve got the germs, my hands didn't," Lockler says.

She notes many people don't practice safe sneezing techniques in the emergency room. They sneeze into their hands and don't use the hand sanitizer that is conveniently placed everywhere in the ER.

She also reminds people to be patient in the ER if they have a long wait.

Her final message to people going to the hospital is to thank the ER nurses, the regular nurses and the doctors treating patients.

"We don't get lunch breaks, we're exhausted, we're getting yelled at," she says, but we're still coming in and doing it every time."

Lockler was not immediately available for an interview with Patch.

You can watch the full video below:

SEE ALSO: Aggressive Flu Strain Continues Grip On US

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Image via Screenshot, used with permission