I had an article forwarded to me today about crazy ER stories. Highlights include a man who would probably take seven years to starve to death having a turkey sandwich lodged in one of his fat rolls to a fossil of a guy who was so old that he would literally crumble apart if you touched him. Focus: What's the craziest ER story you've heard? What stupid/crazy things have you done to end up in the ER?
If I had a cut like that I probably would have just ignored it and gone drinking. I've done as much in the past. I've been in the ER only twice, and it was for a broken metacarpal. You see, I was extremely pissed off, and this door looked at me funny. A metal door. Yeah. The knuckle above my right pinky disappeared and after ignoring it all day long I eventually decided to go to the ER and they straightened me out. I ran into a girl on my track team who had managed to shatter her shin somehow in the last 100 meters of a 3000 meter race. It was sort of embarrassing explaining why I was there, but fuck it, that door had it coming. Then there was the time I broke my left wrist, that time it was totally an accident and not my fault at all. You see, at my university bike travel is the preferred method of transportation, to the point where bicycles have the right of way even over pedestrians and skateboarders. I used to take great pleasure going excessively fast during the busiest hours and weaving through cross traffic with the wind running through my hair and the feeling of being a jet fighter pilot overwhelming my senses. It's pretty obvious what was going to happen next. That's right. I was going slowly in a straight line all alone at 8 AM, my chain came off my gearing, I coasted to a stop, but the chain caught in the spokes of the rear wheel, and I was catapulted into asphalt. I tore the shit out of both hands and both knees (through jeans!). I got up, my hands were both raw as ground beef, and I couldn't feel anything through most of my hands, but there was intense pain from deep within the flesh of my hands. I managed to rechain my bike using hands as functional as iron hooks, ride to class, and sit through 3 hours of classes, and 2 hours of studying while in constant debilitating agony. Eventually I decided maybe something was seriously wrong and went to the ER. I had broken the center bone in my left palm in a clean diagonal, the "Largest break in that bone I [the wrist specialist] have ever seen". Yeah.
Focus: When I was 18 I did something eerily similar to what Chater did (see the above pic). I was at a beach party, and was having some drinks with my friends and rather than leaving the beach via the long, winding, up-hill path - I followed my friends to a side beach exit which involved climbing over an eight foot chain-linked fence and leaping to safety on the soft-grassy landing. Well I've never been the best fence-climber, but the four beers in my system enabled me to reach the top of the fence rather easily. But once I reached the top, my jeans got stuck on a part of the fence wire. I sat on top of the fence, trying to loosen my jeans from the fence for about two minutes. Finally I was free, but my balance was shitty, and I started my downard descent a little earlier than I had originally planned for. Foolishly I tried to grab the top of the fence to stop my fall, and in the process I sliced my left hand open directly underneath my pinky finger. It didn't really hurt that bad, but I knew that once the alcohol/adrenaline wore off that it would hurt like a bitch. So I took my shirt off and used it to cover up my hand. My buddy drove me home, and then I went into my parent's bedroom and the following conversation took place at 1 AM: ME: Uhh, Dad. I cut my hand open tonight climbing a fence. DAD: (Muffled aknowledgement of my presence, but was still fast asleep.) ME: Can you drive me to emergency? I can see the inside of my hand and it really hurts. DAD: Opens his eyes to see my blood-stained shirt, and bleeding hand and lunges out of bed as fast as any 60-year-old can. Two hours later, I was at the ER watching the doctor stitch my hand up, all while lecturing me about under-aged drinking. All-in-all my Dad was pretty cool about the whole thing. The only real parting wisdom that he left with me was, " (My LAST name)'s have never been, and never will be fence climbers. And at least you didn't drive home." The doc said that had the cut been one-inch longer I could have had permanent nerve damage and severe arthritis in my left-hand. To this day, I'm surprised at how quickly it all healed.
My Worst ER experience doesn't really have to do with the severity of the injury, but rather the incompetence of the doctors that helped me. When I was in 4th or 5th grade, I was playing on the playground with some friends after school. To keep the story short, lets just say that running up one of those smooth plastic playground slides in socks was a pretty dumb fucking idea (God only knows why I wasn't wearing shoes). My feet went out from underneath me about as fast as they could and I landed with all my weight directly on my elbow. Once at the emergency room the doctors determined that it was in fact broken and set me up with a nice big cast. After a couple days I went to what I assume was an orthopedist for a check up. After performing an x-ray, they found that what the ER docs thought was a broken off piece of bone was really just a growth plate. The cast came off and, aside from one of the sickest bruises I have ever seen, I was completely fine. I did get out of a math test though. I also just remembered this one while writing all that. When I was in kindergarten, the cool thing to do was to slam the door shut behind you when we were walking into a building in single file, just to piss off the kid behind you. Well one day a girl in front of me decided to do this without noticing that I had already placed my hands on the door frame. This of course demolished my thumb, I can still remember being able to see the bone. I went to the ER and got it all bandaged up, but when it came time to check it out and re-bandage it at my pediatricians office, we find out that whatever you do to make sure that the bandages don't stick to the dried blood, the ER docs hadn't done. Poor little Fernanthonies had to sit there, trying his hardest to be brave, as my kindly old Pediatrician struggled for a good 20-30 minutes to remove the bandages without taking my thumbnail off too. I still get shivers thinking about that, and to this day my left thumbnail still looks a bit fucked up.
Not particularly crazy, but it makes me smile when I think about it. I've posted before that I've had malaria. When it presented, I was visiting my aunt and uncle in Dubai. Malaria hits really, really fast. Within an hour I was shaking, unable to get warm (it was 49*C outside that day), my back felt like broken glass from the base of my skull to my tailbone and I was all around in pretty rough shape. My aunt left work and me drove straight to the American Hospital of Dubai. Dubai is in the United Arab Emirates, which is a fairly progressive country (as far as 'progressive' goes in the Middle East). However, it is still deeply conservative and has a strong Islamic presence. Although not required, lots of women cover their head, they walk behind the men, don't socialize in the same rooms, etc. They typically take a submissive role. Anyway, my aunt new I was badly ill. She dropped me off at the door of the hospital, so that I didn't have to wait/walk while she parked the car. I went in, wrapped in a wool blanket and shivering. No one else was in line, and no one else was in the waiting room. The receptionist (or triage clerk, whatever he was) was on the phone. I stood there waiting for him to finish talking to whoever. Five minutes later, my aunt arrived. She looked around, saw the empty room, saw me standing there waiting, saw the guy on the phone, and that was it. She marched past me right up to the counter, slapped her hand on its surface and spoke loudly enough that she overrode his conversation. "She needs to see a doctor right now." So this man, who in all likelihood had never been issued a direct order from a woman in his life, hung up the phone on whoever it was, mid-sentence, and proceeded to check me in, all the while with a horrified expression on his face like he expected to wake up from a dream. Five minutes after this, I had an IV and bloodwork done, and we were waiting for results. The women in my family just rock.
This thread reminds me of this guy: NSFW Not sure what the real story is behind it, but I heard it was some sort of log in error.
Wow, I had a very similar experience. I was 17 or 18, and playing basketball in my development. Anyone who has played basketball knows what a jammed finger is. It hurts for a couple of days, but then it goes away and you're perfectly fine. One night, we're playing, and I went to block a shot and my hand exploded in pain. Specifically my thumb. I figured I jammed it pretty bad, went home and figured that would be the end of it. My mom saw it and freaked out. 'Jesus Christ, VI, it looks like a fucking sausage.' Tough guy that I was I said 'it'll be fine.' After two hours of intense pain, and on the verge of tears because aspirin wasn't touching the pain I said 'I think we need to go to the ER.' We go to the ER, they take x-rays. The 'doctor' says 'it might be broken' puts it in a splint and we go home. I then go see my regular doctor two days later who sends me to an orthapedist. The ortho says 'oh, boy, yeah, you broke that really bad' tells me the splint was a really bad idea and I had to wear a sling. A fucking sling! Because it was broken in such a way that it had to heal naturally without being moved. He also told me that if I had kept that splint on I wouldn't have had much use of my thumb once it healed. I think I wore that sling for four weeks. It fucking sucked.
When my wife was six months pregnant, she was having crippling abdominal pains so I drove her to University Hospital in London. The U.H. is known throughout the medical communit for having literally the most brialliant surgeons on the planet, but for us we were stuck with the most pathetic E.R. staff I have ever encountered. We both had to work in the morning and we arrived at midnight. After waiting ina near-empty waiting room for 2 and a half hours, we were moved to a room with a bed which was essentially ANOTHER waiting room. When we finally got to see somebody, he was a student doctor that told us the regular Doctor was too "busy" and he'd be tending to us (apparently a pregant woman hving huge pain is not high in the triage department). We said my wife "probably pulled a muscle", told her she was just having pregnancy paranoia and sent us on our merry way. Less than 18 hours later her water broke, 3 months early. She nearly gave birth in the car on the way to a different hospital (I was NOT going back to fucking U.H.). Those "paranoid abdominal pains"? Yeah, she was in fucking LABOUR. Our daughter was born at 2 pounds and spent 77 days in the hospital. Did I mention she was born on our wedding annivesary? It's kind of funny because (no bullshit) I was born on MY parent's wedding anniversary. Ever seen a two pound baby? She looks exactly like this: ...she's fine now, though. That was over a year ago and now she's overturning trash cans and tackling he cat. My craziest E.R. story, to say the least.
Please please please please please please PLEASE put yucky nasty gross photos in spoiler tags. Please. Can't deal with that stuff. Nope. Can't do it at all. Uh uh. Never ever. No. UGH.
Oh, ER stories. They can be so much fun. I used to work in a busy county hospital ER. Most of the urban legends actually happened. - I saw a teenage girl come in saying "my belly hurts." Are you pregnanat? nononono, that's impossible. Well, we need to perform a pelvic exam to make sure everything is OK. What do we find down here? Hair from the baby that's pushing out. - Object in rectum. The grand prize winner of this competition was an elderly gentleman who had a vase approximately 6 inches in diameter in there. Now, many times people give BS excuses about this, like "I was working on the roof and I fell funny." But he owned it, and for that I kind of admire him. He said "I like putting it in there, and usually I have a rope that I can pull it out with. But the rope broke." Oops. - Imaplements 2x4, metal rods, tree branches - Car wrecks. Just sad. - Shootings. The most interesting one that came through was from a few years ago. And unsurprisingly, it involves the affairs of the heart. Cholo and chola fall in love. And then out of love. She goes with another guy, whom (the details are murky as they are all dead) is from a rival gang/race/family/etc. Cholo broods. They by some stroke of fate get invited to a wedding together. All three pack heat to the wedding. The cholo sees his ex with some new guy who he does not appreciate. He decides that she is too good to be on this earth with anyone but him. So he shoots her during this wedding reception. The new guy tries to defend her and blows the cholo away. They come to the ER. The ENTIRE wedding party comes to the waiting room (like 60 people). Cops decide to lock down everything in the hospital. (I don't blame them.) And life continues, for all but two of us.
I'll just chime in on the "objects in rectum" topic mentioned above. I work in a hospital too, but in the ICU, so if you make it up to me your sex romp has gone tragically wrong. I took care of one guy after he perforated his bowel with something (as I recall, it was a cucumber, but I can't be sure). Once you get in so far, apparently it creates some sort of suction so you better have a good grasp on whatever object you are using (or a strong rope will work too, I suppose). This is your PSA for the day. If there is a funny one though, it would have to be the lady who came in with a still vibrating vibrator in her rectum. That would be an... um... interesting sensation. Edit: Oh, and if you are really bored, look through this database for awhile to give you some giggles <a class="postlink" href="http://www.sun-sentinel2.com/features/ftlaudNEISS/ftlaudNEISS08_list.php?orderby=anarrative" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.sun-sentinel2.com/features/f ... anarrative</a> An example: Treatment date 7/6/2008 Age 16 Sex Male Race White Narrative "DRY HUMPING HIS GIRLFRIEND" W/PENIS RUBBING AGAINST HER JEANS,ACTIVITY WENT ON FOR EXTENDED PERIOD,PENIS STARTED BLEEDING DX: ABRASIONS PENIS
Like Boz, I too used to work in an ER. The stories are legendary... -The overly obese woman who complained of her "tootie hurting" (we had to write this on her chart as that was hospital policy). Turns out she had inserted a tampon at some unknown time, only to forget it, and her entire reproductive system had gone septic. Emergency hysterectomy right there... -Yet another obese patient was checking into the hospital for an unknown surgery (after 5, all surgeries check in through the ER desk). We later heard that while moving folds of fat, the doctors found a sandwich that the woman has apparently started eating, then lost on her person. -I know of at least 4 teenage girls who had to come to the ER because of multiple tampon insertion. Yep. One on top of the other. They have to remove the first one with tongs. Pretty mortifying for the girl and they dude working at the front desk (that's me...). -A woman came in with her hand wrapped in a bloody towel. She was putting her kids into the mini-van, turned around to grab something, and her kid slammed the door on her left hand. Her wedding ring sliced her finger off and was the only thing holding the finger to the hand. -One Christmas eve, two ambulances arrived at the same time. One held a man who was DOA after a massive heart attack occurred while Christmas shopping with the grand kids... The other ambulance delivered a man who fell 30 feet off a construction site. Broke his pelvis and destroyed his face. I had to obtain a signature from the guy because he was still conscious. Merry Christmas, nightmares. I could do this for days.
I do not fucking get this. I hear about it all the time, but how does someone get a sandwich stuck up underneath a fold of fat? First off, I don't even want to imagine the idea that they are sitting around naked eating sandwiches. For it to disappear like that though, and stay that way, I would think they would have to lift up a fold and purposely place it there. Fuckin A...I was looking forward to lunch too.
Jesus Between this and the gross fucking disgusting scary dirty filthy bug and lizard and general yuck that is the hotel thread I am completely icked out and feel like I'm gonna barf. Thanks for that! It'll save me the lunch money I guess. When I was the Drive-Thru Girl at Dairy Queen the shake machine ate my thumb. It was cut to the bone, tendon and all. My manager, who I had a huge crush on drove me to the ER and contacted my parents. When my Mom came into the room she came close to fainting because she's one that can't deal with the sight of blood. I'm the same way. This thread sucks!
I was going running and suddenly had a sharp pain in my right ball. It was bad enough that I had to stop. Three days later it wasn't going away. So, I showed up to the ER. It was empty as all hell, so I was seen by the doc within 20 minutes of going in. I'm sure most of you know how stupid it is to have pain in your balls that occurs when you're exercising and wait for it to go away, but consider: I was seen nearly instantly in an ER in a major urban centre. That's crazy. Also, a medical resident buddy of mine says he once pulled a muffin out of a fat woman's fat folds. I thought stories like that never actually happened, but they do.
I've been to the ER a few times from work-related accidents (cut my thumb on a broken beer bottle, badly burned my hand while cleaning a grill at McDonalds), but my two worst came within the past few years. First, I had a kidney stone. At the time, however, I didn't know it was a kidney stone. I just knew that my back hurt, all the way down to my nuts, to the point where standing was even painful. My girlfriend (now wife) rushed me to the hospital, where I was told I suffer from Kidney stones. Fantastic. Fast Forward about a year, and I get another one. This one hurts even more than the first, but I know what it is, and fuck if I want to deal with that co-pay again, so I say I'll tough it out. Note to those out there: unless you have fantastic pain meds, you ain't toughing out a kidney stone. I did not have great pain meds, so off to the ER we go again. This trip was awesome. --First, the nurse asks me if I can urinate. I resist the urge to punch her in the face, before explaining that no, I cannot piss. She then says the worst word ever. Catheter. Fuck. That sucked. --Next, they inform me that the stone is too large to pass, and that it is blocking things up, so they have to insert a stent. This means surgery. Yippie! They take me to surgery. --I wake up. I know where I am and what is going on, but I can barely breathe and I am very groggy. They explain that I had a bad reaction to the anesthesia, and they're having trouble getting my oxygen saturation level back up. So while I am struggling to breathe, the nurse asks me if I can pee. Again, even in my groggy state, I wanted to hit this bitch. I mumble 'no.' She tells me that she has to use another catheter. Fantastic. I brace myself and feel it go in. Even though the haze, the pain is incredible. Then, I hear her say "I can't get it into the bladder!" She proceeds to try again and again to push it through, despite my incredible pain. Finally, the doctor says "don't be gentle, that just hurts him more. Just jam it in!" I feel the pop, and a jolt of pain, but then it stops, thank christ. It takes then two hours to get me to the point where I can breath properly again, and they take me up to my room. --My wife, who has been waiting this entire time without being told what is going on, is fucking furious. Now, I have to preface this by saying that I have been with this woman for ten years, since she was 16 years old, and I have never, ever, ever seen her this angry. She was going the fuck off on those nurses for not at least explaining what was happening to me or why, what was supposed to be a simple hour or two procedure ended up taking about 4 hours. If I hadn't just had a tube jammed up my cock, I'd have probably been a little turned on by how pissed she was. --I am given an IV of fluids, as well as pain meds. I feel good. I am spending the night there, but sleep is not an option as I have to get up every half hour to take a piss. They want to collect said urine, so I am pissing in a big jug. This sucks. To top it off, there is about two inches of black thread hanging out of my cock. If I even touch this, or it rubs against my leg the wrong way, it hurts. I will have this for at least 4 days, until they can break up the stone with sound waves (called a lithotripsy, I guess). No amount of pain meds can make this not suck. --Morning comes, and I am released to go home for the time being. I've slept extremely sporadically, having to piss every half hour. I am tired. I am groggy. I am drugged up... and apparently, my right arm has morphed into Popeye's right arm. My right forearm is swollen to twice its normal size, compared to my left arm. The morning nurse explains that they likely didn't get my IV fully into the vein, so some of the fluids they were giving me through IV were leaking into my forearm under the skin, hence the swelling. She said it would go down after a few days. Again, my wife is pissed. I am far to drugged up and tired to be angry about anything at this point. I accept that I have the right arm of a fucking cartoon character, and go home. That trip sucked. I've since returned to the ER after I threw my back out (which is sad for a guy who is only 27, I know), but that trip was awesome. They gave me morphine and Valium. I don't recall much of what happened after that, except that apparently I was walking around just fine and was in a GREAT mood. When I woke up that night, I'd felt like I was hit by a fucking bus, so I don't know HOW I was up and walking around. At least that trip didn't involve catheters.
I've been to the ER twice. The first time I was probably about 8 years old, and I had a friend over my house for a sleep over. At some point in the night I wanted to show him my playboy collection, but I had it hidden in a place that takes some getting to. In my basement we had a storage closet with wooden shelves on one side filled with canned goods and a concrete floor. Up around the top shelf there was a hole in the wall that led into a vent, and that's where I kept my stash. To get to it, I had to climb up the shelves like a ladder, and fish around in the hole for them. Well, this particular time I fell straight back off the top shelf onto my back on the floor, giving myself a slight concussion. That in itself would have been bad enough, but in my fall I knocked a big can off the top, which fell down after me and while I was lying on my back on the concrete it hit me in the face, bursting it open like a watermelon and resulting in a stitches trip to the ER. I've since been told by my friend that that tragic comedy was one of the funniest things hes ever seen, and I'm sure that had I been in his shoes I would have laughed my ass off. To this day my mom still doesn't know how I actually busted my face that night. The second time, I was having a party in college, and things were winding down. One of my friends had passed out in a chair, and I thought it would be funny to punch him really hard in the stomach... a rude awakening to be sure. My buddy "josh", who is 6'6 and well over 250 pounds of metal loving fury did not think it was funny, and chased me into the kitchen, where he cornered me and started beating the shit out of me. Another friend of mine "Dan" decided that I had had enough at some point and came over to break it up. But when he grabbed Josh, Josh swung and hit him in the face, which pissed Dan off. Dan then hit Josh so hard he did two things simultaneously, he broke his own hand, and moved josh's nose about 2 inches to the left. Ironically enough the only person who wasn't in need of a trip to the ER at this point was me, so I had to drive them there, and when we arrived, the whole hospital was filled with police. I spent the next four hours or so wandering through the ER from where Josh was waiting to get his nose fixed to where Dan was waiting for his cast, and hoping that the cops wouldn't stop me and bust me for underage drinking and/or DUI. my only explanation for why they didn't was that they probably figured that if you're in the ER, your night is already bad enough.
Like D26 my story involves a kidney stone (the first of 4 that I've had). It was my junior year of high school and I was 16 years old. I was sitting in study hall when all of a sudden if felt like a knife was jammed into my side. I tried to breathe through it for a moment then went and asked for a pass to the nurse's office. Unfortunately, I went to an enormous high school, so getting there involved 2 flights of stairs, and about 600 feet after that to get to the other building and to the office. Each step felt like the knife twisting just a little bit more. When I finally got to the nurse I basically collapsed in the doorway. She helped me into one of the cots in the back and called my mother. By the time she got there the nurse had already called an ambulance. The EMTs had no idea what was wrong with me. After all, 16 year old girls aren't really supposed to get kidney stones. They get me on a cart and wheel me out front of the school and into the ambulance. After getting to the hospital (sirens and all) I was put in an ER room to wait for a doctor. At this point the pain was such that I literally could not stop writhing around. Then the vomiting from pain started. A nurse got there just in time. It kept going until I was just throwing up bile. At this point I had been there for over an hour, and they couldn't give me pain meds because they had no idea what was wrong with me. The next hour I have no memory of because I was completely delirious from the pain. My mom recounted one of the highlights for me later: *guy comes in to take blood* Guy: Hi, my name is Joe I'm here to take your blood Me: I don't care who the fuck you are, if you're here to help with the pain that's great if not get the fuck out! Finally they decide that they need to get me in for a CAT scan. Problem is I still can't stop moving. So they give me something that dulls it just enough that I can lay still. This made me slightly more coherent. Then they take me in and inject the iodine. Mid CAT scan I realize something ... what ever they gave me to dull it wore off. The palms of my hands were almost bleeding because I was trying so hard not to move. As soon as they get me out I go straight into the fetal position. They find the problem fairly quickly. The reason it was so bad was not only because kidney stones are insanely painful, but it's stuck. My kidney is starting to back up and I basically have an ETD on my forehead if they don't stop it. As they're debating what to do and surgery the luckiest thing happens, it got unstuck and started moving again. I don't know how it happened and frankly neither did they. It still hurt like a bitch, but I was no longer in danger of dying. Then they gave me morphine. Everything after that was floating in a warm bath of happy until they finally got me home with a perscription of Perocet. I was out for about a week drugged out because I had to rest and let my kidney return to normal size. But I was alright at that point, just doped up and watching cartoons. Only one of the others landed me in the hospital, but there was no danger of death, just a lot of pain. The other two were smaller ones (in the same week) and I took a ton of motrin and curled up with a heat pack on my side for 4 hours or so until they passed. It's been 5 years since my last one *knocks on anything* and I drink water like no one's business. Keeps them in check.
While I did not go to the ER for the following, it did happen last night during Taekwondo sparring. I did have to go to the ER a couple years ago when I had a compression fracture on my T12 while dirt biking. The hour wait was nonchalant until I actually got in the triage room and they realized I was fucked up. Go desk staff. Did I mention I actually told them I had: "probably broken my back"? Spoiler
Freshman year in college, about 6 years ago, I ended up in the ER. Kids, gather 'round, let me tell you a tale... So, it was the typical Thursday night and my friends and I decided to go out to pick up chicks like the stupid freshmen we were with absolutely no game and a smidgen under the drinking age. So we pre drink and what not then head out on our conquest. What better place to do this than a frat house? At least I think it was a frat house. Anywho, we drink our asses off and try unsuccessfully to score with the girls and we decide to go to Jimmy Johns on our way back to the dorm. Bad idea. I end up getting a nasty case of food poisoning and end up puking nonstop in the hallway outside my room for a good 7 hours until the wee hours of the morning. Needless to say I need to get to the hospital and get some fluids in me. Well, the only close friend we knew with a car (freshmen can't have cars at Mich St) was already drinking. It was 9 am. But we work around that and I eventually get to the ER and they pump me with three IV's. To this day, I have never gone back to Jimmy Johns. That place is the devil. I know, it was a 'meh' story. Fuck you. You try staying up all night dry heaving into a small trash can for 7 hours and have to wait on your drunk friend to sober up for 3 more hours to take you to the hospital.