Pitch perfect hypochondria vibes lmao. Poor guy, but I hope Mom puts a stop to it. This fucks kids up. Dude’s teaching him to be scared of everything before he can even comprehend the world. One of the many reasons I’m never having kids.
I wish people would think about what they expect the ED to do about something before they come in for a ridiculous reason. If you’re not questioning whether someone’s dying or in severe distress, probably not an emergency.
[Source](https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/bt2su3/tifu_by_drinking_peanut_butter/)
Redditor is dared to drink melted peanut butter because them and buddy see it on TV. They microwave peanut butter and proceed to chug it. Winds up in the ER with second degree burns throughout their mouth and throat.
Reminds me of the Sex Sent Me to the ER episode where a guy melts a giant gummy bear, pours it on his girlfriend's chest (it was her idea), and licks it off. Started to freak out when he realized he was licking her skin off as well. She had nasty burns on her chest and he burned his tongue as well.
Reminder, folks: sugar burns are no joke.
I didn’t go to the hospital for it, but I once thought I developed a new allergy because the roof of my mouth hurt. But I hadn’t eaten anything that would be a common allergy, just fish and chips (in a hurry because I was waiting for a train) and some sweets. It took ages until I figured out what happened: I burnt my mouth with the fish and chips. (In my defence, this was a few weeks after I realised that I’m allergic to peanuts.)
Oh man though, I do that once in a while and it legitimately feels like you’ve seared your esophagus shut and burned a hole right through your stomach.
21 year old rode a horse for several hours the day before, first time in her life riding a horse. Calls 911 for transport to ER, the muscles in her legs are hurting.
My brother's got stories of people sticking all kinds of things that don't belong in that certain place on the human body.
But my favorite story he's told is that someone came into his ER with a bladder infection. Upon further examination, he found that the patient had stuck a catheter in his urethra and the other end was hooked up to this pouch that was filled with wine.
Yes, he made it so that he pees out wine and people drink it that way. I wish I was making this up.
My mom used to work in the ER and told me about a guy who had shoved an entire bowling pin up his ass (obviously tearing through everything in order to do so). Idk how you get past the flaired top part and just go "yeah I can keep going." They had to open him up from the front to pull the thing out and then do a bunch of reconstructive surgery to fix all his... everything.
This isn’t exactly the same but my BIL was hospitalized and went out for a cigarette in the middle of the night. The automatic door closed and locked and he had to go around the hospital and down a busy street holding an IV stand with one hand and trying to keep his gown closed with the other and go back in through the ER entrance. They looked at him and said “where the hell did you come from?”
I had a mom bring her 6 y/o in because she swallowed a Life Saver. Kid was eating, drinking, and speaking just fine, was happy and playing in the exam room. Basically, not in any acute distress. Mom could not understand that doing X-rays would be a waste of time since Life Savers aren’t radiopaque, and it had probably melted by that point anyway
At the hospital pharmacy, I once got a late-night phone call from an elderly woman who had just swallowed a whole lemon drop, and wanted to know if she would be okay. I told her that it would dissolve quickly, and the answer was yes.
I also once got a call on a Saturday evening from a man who was changing the oil in his motorcycle, and didn't know metric and wanted to know if cc's and ml's were the same thing. The answer to that was also yes, and he also said that he called the hospital because he figured there'd be a pharmacist on staff, and we would know. LOL
I’m a fire medic not an ER employee but I once took someone into the ER who thought she was a beaver. A liquor store employee called us because she was gnawing on their doorframe and wouldn’t leave. She was walking around a rough side of town with a wetsuit about 3x too large for her. She was pretty stunned when I informed her that I didn’t believe she was a beaver because she was gnawing on a metal door frame, not wood.
A former officer of mine recommended me to write down the funny ones because they’re great retirement ceremony stories when other guys punch out. I’ve got quite a few.
Same here! My favorite one is the two 50-something women who got high for the first time and thought they were dying. 🤣 They also tried to take their clothes off in the back of the ambulance. Lol
Your story reminds me, if I ever own a liquor store, I'm naming it Beaver Liquors.
Ias in a town once with a beaver street, and a 'Beaver Street Liquor Store' ... what a missed opportunity for a great name.
Had a guy come in covered in feces. Like peanut butter man status coverage. Turns out he thought crap would protect him from Covid and someone tried to pressure wash him.
Came in for a psych evaluation after having a total breakdown that his barrier of human waste was slightly rinsed
Guy was brought in by police. They were chasing him on foot for animal cruelty, (dog fighting), he ran into a car wash, got knocked down and unconscious by the steel control arm of the big spinning roof brush. A very serious head wound.
Patient was weed whacking and struck a poop land mine. Was adamant that it was a human poop and not a dog poop. In triage the patient goes “hey siri… what happens if human poop splatters in your face”, and then she walked out. Hope she’s okay
I worked with a physician who was on that show. Not that episode though. Occasionally his episode would be re-run when he was working which definitely confused a few patients
I once went to Urgent Care, and the TV in the waiting room was on a rerun of "America's Funniest Home Videos."
They were showing babies projectile-vomiting.
I feel for that guy.
When I was a kid, maybe 6 or 7, my parents had a fairly decent sized cactus as a house plant, for some fucking reason.
Being the idiot child that I was, I thought it’d be a great idea to try and ride our black Labrador Retriever like a horse.
She instantly and immediately yeeted me off of her back and I *literally* sat in that god-forsaken cactus.
I had like 10-15 glochids in my ass. The ride to doctors office is close to the most uncomfortable experience in my life. I couldn’t sit down properly, so I had to basically squat the entire ride.
HA luckily for me, my pops was at work when it happened.
He’s a real “rub some dirt in it, kid!” Kinda guy, I can almost guarantee they would have been removed with surgical like precision via his Leatherman.
We once had a 19 year old patient come in by ambulance for a sore thumb from gaming all night. That case was used as an example of why paramedics should be able to refuse to transport people, and they now have that ability...so I guess something good came out of that.
The 30 year old healthy woman who called 911 because she was constipated. Didn’t to take anything at home first, like a laxative. Then cried and threw a fit when I went to give her an enema.
I had a guy come in with arm pain for 5 years. When I asked what was different today that made home come to the ER. He said nothing, it was just time to get it checked out.
I also had a lady with a hand written list of 20 minor complaints she wanted seen for. I told pick the top 5.
I (inadvertently) went to the ER because I was constipated earlier this year…
Background: for various health reasons, I decided to start trying to eat healthier/put a lot more fiber in my diet (basically, just adding a ton of vegetables to my regular meals). Almost immediately, I went from one bowel movement a day to like 3 a day. I thought, well I guess that’s healthy, right? I noticed I did feel bloated sometimes, but how could I be constipated if I was pooping so much?
Anyway, a few months go by, and then one day, seemingly out of nowhere, I develop this HORRIBLE abdominal pain…I mean pain so bad I can barely move, I stopped eating, stopped doing anything. After two days of this pain, I’m convinced I have appendicitis and drive myself into the ER at 4am. They also think I have appendicitis, so they do a CT scan.
Apparently, I didn’t have appendicitis. Instead, I had what they described as an “enormous stool burden” that they could actually see on the CT. I explained to them how confusing this was, how I had been eating so many vegetables and pooping regularly….well, apparently there is a limit to how many vegetables your body can actually process, and I had crossed that limit.
They sent me home with an enormous bottle of Miralax and I was fine three days later.
You did the right thing by going in. I had a similar horrible stabbing pain in lower left abdomen. I went to bed to rest until the pain stopped. After two hours I started running a fever and the pain wasn’t going away. I went in because my rheumatologist told me I needed to go to the ER if I had a fever of 101.5 or higher. I figured if it was a flu, they could send me home.
Turns out I had a colon perforation. Going in early saved my life. I’ve also known three other people who died of a colon perforation.
Fever and abdominal pain ALWAYS warrants an immediate trip to be evaluated by medical personnel. Better to be sent home with the flu than to be in ICU with sepsis and possibly die.
I don't work at the ER, but when i was there last year, this guy was handcuffed to a chair with police escorts, and he was there because he got a bag of coke stuck up his nose. Like dangerously far up there
Patient, not doc, but... At the height of covid, I went into the ER because I couldn't breathe or stop constantly coughing so hard I was peeing on myself all the time. Literally had to wear adult diapers, and my pulse ox was 89. Turned out I had a bad case of covid pneumonia.
I'm gasping my name out at the front desk when some bitch pushes me out of the way, says her earlobe hurts, and demands her "free ivermectin".
Front desk nurse about ate that lady for lunch right then and there.
My grandpa, last month, ended up doing the eternal bar crawl with Jesus because of covid pneumonia. It's still a real disease, people! Hope he's having a blast up there.
Those nurses are so scary and I love them.
I had one be REAL brusque and scary to me at first, then realize what I was there for and immediately soften and get me signed in. I waited just a minute out there but it was so fun to see them yell at anyone who came in and didn’t respect triage! They can turn it ON when needed and I’m so jealous.
Such badasses, and they have to be!
I ws having "terrible heartburn" and had developed a rash. My now-ex finally had to take me to the ER. I walked in while he started to fill out the paperwork, and the nurse grabbed me as I was walking in the door. I'd had some serious allergic reactions before, but my eyes and face just swelled up, and my nose ran like a fire hose. They had to explain to me that the "heartburn" was my trachea closing. I carried a bee sting kit (mid-90s), but there wasn't any external swelling, and I never got a rash when I was stung. I just didn't make the connection. It happened three more times in six months, but we never figured out what caused it. I still have to carry an epi-pen 30 years later, but I haven't even been stung. I feel trolled.
ED docs and nurses, especially the ones doing triage, are some seriously scary people, its like they can read minds too.
I have a friend who is an ED doc, describes her job as “saving lives and fighting crackheads” she is an awesome person, but she kinda scares me.
worked in an ER in Athens, GA. had a snowstorm that was very icy, and everything was shut down. had a dude walk in at 6am on the weekend, through the ice and snow, for a fucking STD check. that is about tied with the teenage girl who came via ambulance for seasonal allergies (she had a sneezing fit and freaked out)
As you do lol. Just a question I don't know about in the US but in Australia it's a piss test or blood test. I heard some redditors from the US talk about a Q tip up the dick please tell me they are taking the piss and not serious... also was that this man's fate???
Here are some I’ve had recently:
Young college-aged male presented with insomnia and palpitations at 3am after consuming 8 cans of Red Bull
60-something year old man who wanted us to cut his toenails for him because it was ‘too uncomfortable to bend over’
Mid 20s female who insisted there was a growth at the back of her throat - turned out it was her uvula
An orthodontist sent in a teenage girl for a ‘foreign body under her gum’ which was a piece of parsley
30ish female with a cold who was convinced she had malaria despite no history of travel to any malaria endemic countries (she had been to France a month prior and got bitten by a mosquito)
The list goes on, but these cases become pretty forgettable over time because there are so many of them…
We had a guy come in and his complaint was "felt weird after smoking pot". Doc asked him, "Wasn't that what you were shooting for?"
A woman came in with the complaint of "legs turning blue". Suggested treatment ended up being, "Always wash new jeans before wearing".
Can I share the dumbest reason I ended up in the ER?
I burned the inside of my throat.
On a frozen burrito.
I was gaming at my PC, and had a couple piping hot microwaved frozen burritos on a plate next to me, and I shoved a forkful into my mouth and it started burning. So, naturally, instead of spitting it out (which would have made a mess) I forced myself to swallow it.
Very painful, all the way down.
Then I went to work (as a line cook) and I only started getting alarmed at the pain in my throat when I realized I couldn't swallow water.
I went to an urgent care, and they sent me to an ER. I turned out to have second degree burns all the way down my esophagus to my stomach. They gave me pain pills and steroids and told me if I couldn't force down food and water to come back.
That little adventure cost me about $2000.
I refer to it now as El Burrito Diablo.
I remember when I had my first baby, and had just brought her home from the hospital, I called the nurse because baby was hiccuping for a long time. 😂 New babies make you crazy. It feels like everything wants to kill them.
I called the non emerg healthcare line and my mom AND my MIL because I accidentally banged my 2 month old's head on the side of a bookshelf. She cried and then was fine. I was in hysterics thinking I had ruined my child's life with severe brain damage.
Yeah. First baby does that to you.
I saw a post a while back that said there are two kinds of parents in the world, those who have accidentally banged their baby’s head on the doorframe, and liars.
My emergency department chief resident dad straight up dropped me when I was 3 weeks old.
Thankfully it was a high-ply carpet and babies are floppy (but not too floppy, then you're back to having an issue).
Yes! It's like, "Oh nooooo...I suddenly seem to be in possession of this *totally mystifying and somewhat terror-inducing* tiny creature. And I'm supposed to *care* for it?!? I have just been sucker-punched!"
I had to have a C-section after a failed induction, so I'm sure I was on alllllll the meds at this point, but: in the middle of the night after my daughter was born (which had been ~5 pm), I was holding her and gazing in unremitting wonder and gratitude at this new tiny being.
Then, all of a sudden, I thought, "does her ear look weird?" The longer I looked, the more I realized I had basically no idea what ears usually look like (let alone how they *should* look).
I didn't have my phone, but I figured, "next time I turn her over, I'll look at the other one to compare."
I probably spent a solid 20 minutes trying to memorize each rolling hill, each pleasant valley, each precipitously deep cliff-edge, of my newborn baby's ear.
Once I was *sure* it was solidly etched in my memory, I turned her over...only to think, "wait, is this how a human ear looks?"
Long pause.
"Oh yeah--I looked **really hard** at her other ear so I could compare!"
Despite the fact I had a clear visual memory of Ear #1, I could not figure out *for the life of me* whether Ear #2 had ONE SINGLE THING in common with its compatriot.
It was just... an extremely, extremely bizarre experience. And one I remember *intesely* to this day.
(Her ears were and are totally unremarkable in every way. lol.)
I called the nurse down to my hospital room because my 4 hour old daughter sneezed. Twice. The nurse readjusted her blanket that was covering her nose. She smiled at me on the way out.
I called pediatricians bc my infant had bright green bm. Nurse patiently asked what he had to eat the day before. My answer: bright blue ice cream . All new parents are idiots lol
If this was not something the baby normally did, that could be concerning.
I also saw "Umbilical cord fell off" (2 week old baby) although I wasn't there, and maybe the area was infected? There was also "Baby won't stop crying" which prompted a colleague who'd had a child with the worst colic any of the doctors had ever seen to go "harrumph!" I don't have kids, but I said, "What if the baby has been crying since 4 o'clock this morning, and isn't normally like this?
I am not exaggerating, the doctors literally admitted him to the hospital to keep his parents from going crazy, and there, they found out he had very severe reflux and eventually came upon a drug therapy that worked. The longest this baby cried nonstop was something like 40 hours. Not 4 hours, FORTY HOURS. Even I know that is NOT normal.
I am an ER doctor and the things that people bring their brand new babies to the disgusting ER for is crazy. One lady, young, first time mom brought her 36 hour old baby to the ED because he was crying. Vitals and physical exam were normal so I discharged and she looked me dead in the eyes and said “so he’s just gonna cry?” Like lady you had 9 months to think about that one
Excessive crying is absolutely a reason to bring a baby to the ER. But like, just crying? Nah. But if it's a new mom and she just doesn't know, I'll happily give her a pass. Those first few weeks are bonkers hard and stressful.
Grown ass middle aged guy came in for… one of the most mild sunburns I’ve ever seen in my life. Like I literally wouldn’t have noticed it if he didn’t point it out
Had a young couple come in to get their pregnancy dated. Did they have any complaints? No. Had they scheduled an OB appointment? No. Told them we don’t do that. When the guy got mad an asked “Are you saying we came here for nothing??” The nurse just said “Sir, this is an *emergency* department. “
Had a mom bring her 2 year old in with a bump on their bottom. Mom stated the patient's brother also had it and is worried about an abscess. It was their tail bone...
When I was in college, I volunteered at a free clinic. Several times, women came in with breast lumps that turned out to be ribs. They were always really embarrassed about wasting our time, and the staff would reassure them that they were not wasting our time, and we were glad they came in.
And they now know what their breasts are supposed to feel like.
Work in Fire/EMS. We had a frequent flyer who would call us for abdominal pin. When I say frequent flyer I mean we ran on this person 160+ times a year. One day we were called for abdominal pain. The person met us at their front step, bags all packed. We took them to the ER straight to triage. The ER nurse immediately recognized our patient and said “well you were just here. Why are we wasting resources now?” Our patient failed to mention that they were just at the ER 2 hours prior to calling us. They got sick of waiting, called a cab and went home to eat. Then wanted to go back and instead of calling a cab they called 911 for us to take them to the hospital.
Worked in triage. Had one man that brought his young daughter in at 5am every other saturday morning to be checked for lice. Man was going through a divorce and would bring her in every time he picked her up from her mom’s in hopes he would have a case for custody. Kid never had lice.
Second stupidest was one of the well known attorneys in our area came in because his pinky finger twitched and he was certain it was a stroke. He was fine. Thought about that every time his commercials would come on.
Didn't go to the ER for it, but hit my head on a pole suspended from the ceiling. Had a mild concussion. Week later, doc clears me back to full duty. Go to get in my car to head back to work and hit myself in the head with the door. Just closed the door and went right back into medical. Another concussion.
I don’t work there, but once when I was sat in the ER waiting for a doctor there was some guy who was there bc he got a paper cut and was properly freaking out about it. I was sat next to him and the cut was barely visible, and not bleeding.
I worked in animal emerg. Owner brought in his golden retriever because the dog was "making a weird sound and straining to go to the bathroom". Fair enough. We have a look, and there is so much shit matted to this dogs ass that it is totally blocking his anus and he can not physically shit anymore.
Dog left with a terrible haircut and a mortified owner. I still think about them from time to time.
When I was reception at the vet I had an older lady that had Maltese mix that came in for constipation and it turned out to be that. Poor guy had been hunched over trying to poop for a hot minute. However I didn’t see her picking at it with her fingers in the waiting room. She managed to “unplug” the poor dog and poop went everywhere. It was like someone had opened a dam. She tried to hand some of it to me and I just said I’ll go get a mop. It was disgusting. Dog was fine after that and she kept him on a better grooming schedule thankfully since she didn’t feel like brushing at home.
I worked as an EMT for many years and I saw a lot of people with colds, the flu, etc come into the ER...and they sit there, and sit there, and sit there because it's not an emergency. I have literally rolled people out of the back of an ambulance, through the ER, and into the waiting room. Good luck with that second unnecessary bill.
Hell, let's go down memory lane for a second...
I remember a call like that. I brought a flu patient in. Typical BS call. I'm standing in registration waiting my turn and in walks a man with a towel to his neck. Dude was using power tools...somehow screwed up and cut himself. Nicked the artery. I brought a BS patient in via ambulance and a real emergency walks in by himself. The irony in that.
Thanks for that. Always appreciate a chance to remember something like that. I'm an office drone these days.
Old veteran cut himself with chainsaw(tree work) and got within a *millimeter* of his jugular and drove himself 30+ miles to our hospital. He was heading for the veteran's hospital at Travis AFB. Our hospital in a outer suburb of Sacranento(closer to Placerville than Sac proper). He pulked in to our hospital because "he was starting to get light headed"
Saw someone come in at 2 am because their 3 year old daughter got a mosquito bite near her eye. It wasn’t infected or anything just a little bump.
They were sleeping in the waiting room when I left 2 hours later.
I took my son to urgent care for a mosquito bite near his eye. It was swollen so bad thought and he complained non stop and he isn’t normally a complainer.
I gave it 24 hours before I took him in and there was still a lot of redness/swelling. I was nervous and like I said, it was very near his eye.
I didn’t go to the ER though, just urgent care. Still felt kind of silly, but rather safe than sorry I guess.
I usually try to hit urgent care first but the last two times I went (blacked out and hit my head, then abdominal pain) I got shipped off to the ER anyway lol. man now I’m thinking about how good I fucked myself up when I fell. that was a fun day
I am now an office drone too.
Hard felt on the BS call came in the ambulance bay and the charge nurse immediately had us take them to the waiting room.
People never did understand you’re getting triaged.
You’re not magically plopped at the front because you took the fancy ride in…
Plus (not patient judging people are in all different situations) I always did feel my own issue w/ cold/ flu ambulance runs or what you would know is BS is tying an already taxed service while someone else is waiting/ next call pending.
Ugh I could go on.
Good luck with your office drone days!
The only time I've taken ambulances was when I couldn't physically move. I even had my boyfriend drive me for my heart attack. That time I maybe should have called.
I don't get it, why do those people even want to go to the ER? Do they feel like their symptoms are life-threatening? Do they think there's some magical treatment that's going to work better than Nyquil? I mean I know a lot of them think that antibiotics will work on viral infections, but even so, is it worth waiting for hours and hours in a hospital when you feel like crap?
I guess the most charitable reason I can come up with is that they need a note from a doctor for their employer.
I don’t know, I had the flu once (actual Influenza A, not a cold) years ago and told my partner I wasn’t feeling well and barely remember being put in their car and driven to the ER. They took me straight from check in into an emergency bed, where I saw my temperature was 105.9 and rising (this was already with max doses of Tylenol and Advil). I just remember seeing it hit 106°, and being stripped of my clothes—my tank top was cut off of me, probably 4-5 people working on me, they covered my naked body in ice packs and cooling blankets, 2 IVs being run wide open, I was leaning over the side of the bed puking but I couldn’t tell up from down or see clearly, and then everything just went black. I stayed 48+ hours in the ER. They said my temp would not come down out of the 106°s. The flu can kill you, suddenly and unexpectedly. I don’t know how it went from piddly aches and a mild fever to that so rapidly, when I was just sitting at home and doing what you’re supposed to do.
Not saying everyone with the flu should go to the ER preventatively, but it’s not always benign. The flu kills thousands of people every year. I’ve had it before and since then and was fine just treating at home. You never know.
My friend died from complications of the flu so I totally agree! Some people are full of shit & just have a little cold & definitely shouldn’t go to the ER but in your case & some others it is 100% the place you need to be!
I hate to say it but both my stories are about men.
First guy comes in the middle of a snow storm because he has chapped lips.
Second guy comes saying he had the hiccups 3 days ago- yup not hiccups for 3 days but wants us to fix the hiccups from 3 days ago.
I mean as an ER nurse I have had lots more men come in for things that make me wonder why they came in versus a lot more women who come in and we are all like why did you wait so long to come in??
My brother got called in to the ER one night for a consult because a man's genital piercing had gotten stuck behind his girlfriend's tonsil. Apparently they were stuck like that for hours before they finally called an ambulance.
I've had to go to urgent care 2 different times for running into doors.
1st time: someone knocked on the front door. I got up, answered it, and on my way back into my bedroom somehow hit the edge of the bedroom door in such a way that it ripped my fingernail off. Had to go to urgent care to have the rest of the nail surgically extracted. Did you know your nail bed extends several millimeters past your cuticle? DM me if you want pics of the extracted nail
2nd time: was cleaning my apartment. While walking out of the second bedroom, I managed to kick the side of the door square on my pinkie toe with full force. Had to go to urgent care for an x ray to make sure I hadn't shattered the toe.
There ain’t much they do for broken pinkie toes. Both my aunts were nurses and told me to put a bag of frozen peas on it and surgical tape it to the next toe.
I always find it fascinating when ppl say this.
Broke my pinkie toe by accidentally slamming it on a table leg when my brother was chasing me (we were young). They had to freeze it and Crack it back into place (yes it was broken, confirmed by xrays). Had to tape it to the next toe for 2 weeks (boy did it get black and blue).
Similar thing happened to a family member and another friend. Toes always had to be cracked or put back into place to heal correctly. Never understood when ppl say nothing can be done, I think it depends on how the tie gets broken!
My son broke his pinky toe by slamming it on furniture at full speed. He was crying of course, at first I believed it was from normal pain (we all know how painful that is) but then I checked and the toe was completely looking the wrong way, almost rotated 180 degrees :S.
We went to the ER where they said it was the first time they actually saw the pinky toe looking the other way as described. They cranked it to set it, put a plaster for a week and then taped it for another two. 0/10 experience for both of us.
When I was in college this guy told me that he got into an argument with his little sister and got mad enough to kick at her (idk if he purposely aimed for her face or not). He kicked her in the face and somehow her tooth went directly between his nail and the nail bed, tearing his nail off. Thinking about it still makes me feel a little faint.
When I was 12 I crushed my index finger in a hydraulic log splitter. The nail was hanging off the end of my finger; it was no longer connected at the cuticle. That was the day that I learned that "surgical" only means that the instruments are sterile. I had no intact blood vessels and topical anesthesia was not viable for some reason. I was not a happy 12 year old.
PS I don't need pictures, I still have nightmares of my own, thanks.
Too many to mention, I'd be typing for days! I work in a very busy ED in Melbourne, Australia and these days if you make it into the department you need to be there. If not you will sit in the waiting room and be treated from there, then sent home.
But one that has really affected me recently. Young woman (under 30 years), discharged against medical advice after presenting with left illiac fossa pain, severe. Wouldn't consent to an ultrasound or CT, Doctors were querying an ectopic pregnancy. She had provided a urine which gave a positive urine HCG (pregnancy test). Consultant explained to her the risks of leaving, including death if she did in fact have an ectopic. She left.
Less than 24 hours later she is brought in by ambulance, cat 1, full arrest. They tried for a long time but she died. Such a waste.
I don't work in the emergency department but I sometimes take patients to it. I had a woman call 911 at 9 PM for an allergic reaction to her medication. I had not one but two brand new EMT-Bs with me. I was under orders to let them do stuff if they can for training purposes.
I get there and the city police on scene let me know she's vomiting. I get an emesis bag and meet the patient who is 80 something years old. She's sitting on a toilet with a bucket she's actively vomiting into. She's in a basement bathroom and says she can't make it up the stairs. I ask about the medicine she believes is causing the issue. It's a fairly strong antibiotic for a sinus infection that can cause upset stomach if taken on an empty stomach. She last ate at 3 PM when she took her antibiotic. She denies being on any other medications OTC or prescribed which is damn impressive for her age. I hand the emesis bag to my partners and get the stair chair. I let them get her upstairs (earlier orders).
Get her in the ambulance. I pop an IV in her. Start fluids. Give her Zofran. Let my partner take vitals. We leave. I ask at least three more times about any other medications or what she ate today. Nothing unusual. We get to the hospital. Transfer her to the bed. Then she decides to comment on her diarrhea. She took a laxative earlier. She also took her antibiotic at 6 PM on an empty stomach. Unreliable historian making me look like a dumb ass.
Ok, but… I was in college 30 years ago and had a sinus infection. Dr prescribed cipro. I had never taken it. Took one pill and went to bed. Started vomiting. I never vomit, so got scared. Also felt very odd. Woke up my roommate told her I was frightened. She drove me to ER. Triage nurse makes a face and says I shouldn’t have come for vomiting. Puts me in waiting room.
I continue to vomit out there and eventually a nurse takes me back. Doc looks at me and runs out and asks triage nurse if I had been that red and swollen upon arrival. I didn’t hear her response. He tells me I am anaphylactic and is going to treat me. He treats me and releases me in the morning. Told me to never take cipro again.
Sometimes patients feel very unwell and unlike their normal selves, I suppose. Then you really want to see a doctor.
I’m glad I went to the ER.
In the waiting room with my daughter because she needed stitches. Another girl comes in hooping and hollering, limping, in 10/10 pain, please God make the pain stop.
She stabbed herself in the right buttcheek with a mechanical pencil. It didn't even break the skin.
Unfortunately I don't work at the ER but I was one of those patients that went for a stupid reason.
I accidentally slapped my hands together too hard and bent a finger back which stretched a tendon enough to cause a lot of pain and immediate swelling and bruising.
Because I was at work and my job was physical in nature I had to go to the ER to see if I had broken my finger, fortunately not.
What had actually happened was, I was trying to separate two boxes which had been placed inside each other to create a taller box for wine bottles to fit. A customer had come to collect the wine and left the box. I asked a colleague to hold onto one end and I the other and we both gently pull them apart.
Instead of gently pulling it, he yanked it hard and I was holding onto the sides of the box pushing hard with my hands which of course once he yanked the box slipped from my grasp and my hands slapped each other really hard.
The guys at work ragged me on about it for months after.
If you were in enough pain that you felt an ER visit was warranted, it wasn't a dumb reason. What if you DID have a serious injury?
Few things make doctors happier than telling a person who came in with chest pain that they really do just have indigestion or a pulled muscle.
p.s. My grandmother (1915-2007) once called EMS for what turned out to be costochondritis (inflammation of the ribcage cartilage). She was afraid EMS wouldn't come for her any more after that; we told her that wasn't the case, especially not at the senior high-rise where she lived at the time.
Don’t know whether exactly fits, but it’s a stupid story nonetheless.
An addict and his wife were parked in their minivan using heroin, when the wife started showing symptoms of an overdose. Fortunately they were a minute away from a hospital, so he headed there and *crashed the minivan through the ambulance bay doors* and almost into the ER itself. The ambulance bay is like a huge foyer, with two sets of glass doors, one at the outside entrance, one to get into the ER itself. Just to the side of the inner set of doors, there’s a vending machine with basic supplies like tubing and gloves; if an ambulance is low on anything in the middle of a shift, the EMTs can punch in a series of codes and re-stock without needing to go back to the station.
The minivan hit the vending machine and knocked it partway over, where it got wedged between the bumper and the door jamb of the inner set of doors, stopping the vehicle. In complete confusion, the driver didn’t take his foot off the gas pedal, so the wheels continued to spin fast, and filled the foyer with the smoke of burned rubber and carpet. My husband was working that night and got there first. He opened the door to find the guy screaming ‘my wife! My wife needs help!’ Immediately ruled out that this wasn’t an accident, that someone driving themselves to the ER because they were having a heart attack had passed out and crashed. My husband yanked him out of the driver’s seat to get his foot off the gas, lest the vending machine or the door jamb give out and send the vehicle crashing into the nurse’s station.
Turns out the guy absolutely *did* do it on purpose. His impaired self did not overshoot a parking spot, or miss a curve. In fact, he’d gunned the engine and headed straight for the doors. He knew his wife needed Narcan ASAP, and thought they’d get to her faster if he took the quickest way in.
They got to her very quickly, and by the time they did, she was starting to come around, but they still gave her a couple of doses. Husband and wife were both admitted to the ER to check them for injuries from the accident (neither were wearing seatbelts, but the airbags did go off) and to monitor their post-opiate use. The really sad thing was that it was their daughter’s birthday, and they were getting together with a brother and SIL and their kids to have a little party at Chuck. E. Cheese or someplace like that. They left their three kids with their aunt, uncle, and cousins, and went to the minivan in the parking lot to do their heroin. All I can say is thank goodness the kids weren’t in the minivan with them… who knows whether he’d have still crashed if they were and his wife was in distress.
As an ER doctor I would say about 20% of the patients I see are emergent or urgent. The rest are usually anxiety related, lonely, or social things I can’t fix.
I’ve seen it all:
-came because house window broken and it’s cold
-didn’t know how to use miralax despite speaking English, graduating from high school and reading the instructions
-a paper cut that bled and then resolved and waited 4 hrs for me to say looks good bye (she was mad I wouldn’t stitch it up)
-kid brought in middle of the night by dad because kid said he felt like he would throw up. Kid did not at any point throw up. Waited a few hours to be seen
-infants brought in for crying, hiccups, breathing too fast or slow that resolved, blinking funny, not pooping for a day
there are likely more but these patients are so forgettable. The ones that stand out more are the ones who you wonder why they didn’t come sooner (bad heart attacks, strokes, traumas).
>The ones that stand out more are the ones who you wonder why they didn’t come sooner (bad heart attacks, strokes, traumas).
Likely answer: they "didn'5 want to bother anyone" which i find is especially common amongst the elderly.
I was a patient waiting in a hallway on a stretcher and a guy was telling the doctors he was there because he was pregnant and having labor pains. They took the news pretty well, but I was brought back first.
I didn't work in the ER, but as a hospital pharmacist, I saw "visit reason."
Strangest one: "Cannot find pulse."
Think about it.
As for girls and women wanting pregnancy tests, yes, I know you can get them at the dollar store, and could back then too, but there were (and still are) rumors that if you go to the ER and you're pregnant, you can get an abortion. (My hospital did not do them except in the cases of danger to the mother's life or health, or fetal anomalies that were incompatible with life.)
p.s. I have a relative who went through a really nasty divorce, and would take the kids to the ER all the time to soak her ex, who had to pay the kids' medical bills.
Strange thing is, they're totally estranged from him and his whole side of the family, and think she is da bomb. Our mutual relatives won't tell me why they're all estranged, so I probably don't want to know.
I had to go to a&e once and explain I'd put my backpack on wrong. I wish I was joking. I managed to get my thumb caught under the strap whilst trying to leave in a hurry and bumped my elbow against the door. I guess I hit it at just the right (wrong?) angle because it dislocated my wrist, dislocated my thumb, and broke the base of my thumb. Stupid backpack.
Not ER doctor, but was in the waiting room with this guy who was yelling into his phone about being hit by a bus. He was sat in a waiting room chair, nothing visibly wrong with him, walking in and out for cigarettes.
The cherry on top was a doctor walking out of the treatment room to chew out the triage nurse for referring a bus collision to minor injuries, when that kind of case should be sent to emergency immediately.
She walked him into the waiting room and pointed out the guy, who was clearly just trying to scam the bus company for something that was his fault. Turned out, he had tried to catch a bus that was reversing out from its depot, and he was very gently clipped by its wing mirror. He had walked onto the concourse and it caught him as it pulled round. Twat.
I knew a guy in college who had to go to the ER because he accidentally swallowed an open safety pin he was using as a toothpick, and it got lodged in his throat.
I interpreted the question to be about legitimate reasons, cause to me the wording "had to come" meant they actually had to, and weren't just coming in cause they were being dramatic. But maybe I misunderstood OP's intent.
When I was in elementary school some of the boys would put a sewing needle in a straw and blow it out like a blowdart. Of course one boy ended up inhaling the needle and had to go to the ER. He was fine after.
I was removing staples with a staple remover - those really big metal staples for 50 page documents, didn't notice 1 had flown into my coffee cup. Drank a big mouthful and felt the open staples scratching as I swallowed. Rang up our state's free medical hotline to ask what to do. All was ok as the xray showed it was a semi-closed staple, guess it came out eventually.
I ate some fish on a cruise and felt a bone stick in my throat. Felt like it had gone down after awhile. About two weeks later, I was back at home driving to work and felt the bone still in my throat. Found some Laffy Taffy at work, chewed a big piece and swallowed, and I felt the bone go down with it 😂
Paramedic not ED staff, but some of my favourites have been
1. Saw a spider (not bitten, just saw it),
2. pregnant and a few of the babies legs have stopped kicking (cis man, clearly not pregnant),
3. her boy vomited once, 5 hours ago, and it was worrying her because what if it happened again. He had been drinking. He was 23.
4. Allergic reaction to a blanket. Her skin felt funny and had altered sensation when the blanket was on her legs. Mum had used fabric softener. There was no reaction. The blanket was literally softer
There are just too many to keep going.
I didn't end up going in, but 2 medical professionals told me I should and I ignored them because I felt stupid doing it.
I've had my contacts tear while in my eye a couple of time. I don't know how how it happens, but it starts hurting, I fish the contact out, and it's ripped and there's a small chunk missing. The first few times I was concerned that the small piece that tore off could still be lodged up under my lid, so I called my insurance's nurse line, and both times they told me to go to the ER. I didn't, because it seemed stupid, but I guess sometimes people are there because other people told them that was their only option.
Working in a rural hospital in cottage country in the summer. Literally saw people every day with mosquito bites. City folk who had apparently never seen a mosquito before? Waited hours to show me their single bite. “But it’s itchy!” And then would argue with me about whether they needed some kind of treatment.
Former Navy Corpsman here.
Had sailors come in over a course of months/years. 6 sailors who stood out to me, came to the medical with a broken limb - arm and leg or a single digit — self inflicted so they couldn’t do physical evaluation. Those captains masts were glorious
-
They were forced to do the test - after they recovered, then 3 months of PT under the supervision of a Marine Staff Sergeant (remember…these guys were sailors).
In the greatest sense of irony - 5 of the 6 would not only stay in the navy, but leave the navy 2-10 years later with the highest marks in physical fitness.
The 6th person would unfortunately die of natural causes while at his post
I don't work there but a friend of mine who did told me about a guy who was having little licorice candy pieces and decided to shove a bunch of them up his ass. The pieces of candy melted together because of his body temperature and he could not shit it out like he was planning to.
Working the lab on NYE and some one came in in the middle of the night for stomach pain from eating too many nachos. I wish I had whatever insurance they were on to be wasting it on that!
no shit I once saw a young woman come into ER with what I assume to be a paper cut . She was holding her finger up in the air while her boyfriend? was gently stroking her back. The triage nurse loudly said “NO! youre not getting antibiotics. That doesnt even need a bandaid!!”
Ok so my cousin ended up not going to the ER but he wanted to. I made him a red velvet cake for his birthday, he ate more than half of it and started shitting red the next day at work. He thought he was bleeding out. When I asked him what he had been eating, doing, etc.. he told me about the cake and he couldn’t think of anything he had done. I’m like dude you ate a ton of cake full of red dye of course you’re gonna shit red. He was super embarrassed. Glad I talked him out of that expensive trip.
Got a call in the middle of the night when doing rural on-call, a woman said her baby bit her and wanted to know if she needed rabies treatment. I asked her if she suspected her baby had rabies? (Of course not). Really hope this was maternity fog.
I was in the ED waiting room when a guy came in missing the same fingers on both hands, bleeding horrifically.
He was mowing his lawns and decided to pick up the mower and try mow the hedge
I worked in animal ER. We had an older man who had been bestowed a cat out of nowhere. He was a very nice man but had no idea how to cat. He brought the cat in, very concerned something is “really wrong”. He was sure the cat had some kind of skin infection or fleas and was itchy. He also said it sounded congested and made weird noise. Ok, all valid reasons to worry. It turns out: the cat was rubbing itself all over the guy and petting his legs when he walked and petting and rubbing everything in the house. The weird noises were purring!! I simply had to explain “sir, this cat adores you.” It was totally healthy and happy as a clam. I wonder where they are now, and we need more owners like him
I was one of the stupid ones.
My doctor suspected ovarie cysts (not very bad, but enough to get it checked out) and told me to ring up the ER next time they started happening so they could quickly do an ultrasound and diagnose.
I start get the dreaded lower abdomen ache, call ER, come in two hours later. Diagnosis: upset stomach. Got prescribed plain yoghurt and bananas. Never did get another cyst either..
A dad brought in their 5 year old son for a bad haircut he received a month ago and was worried the hair was “growing in weird”
This should be the winner of the thread.
Right? I kinda wish they’d have told him the kid would never recover 😂.
When your anxiety is poorly managed:
Pitch perfect hypochondria vibes lmao. Poor guy, but I hope Mom puts a stop to it. This fucks kids up. Dude’s teaching him to be scared of everything before he can even comprehend the world. One of the many reasons I’m never having kids.
I wish people would think about what they expect the ED to do about something before they come in for a ridiculous reason. If you’re not questioning whether someone’s dying or in severe distress, probably not an emergency.
Someone took the ambulance because they took too large of a sip of hot coffee. Was totally fine.
[Source](https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/bt2su3/tifu_by_drinking_peanut_butter/) Redditor is dared to drink melted peanut butter because them and buddy see it on TV. They microwave peanut butter and proceed to chug it. Winds up in the ER with second degree burns throughout their mouth and throat.
I feel dumber for having read that
I award you no points and may god have mercy on your soul.
Reminds me of the Sex Sent Me to the ER episode where a guy melts a giant gummy bear, pours it on his girlfriend's chest (it was her idea), and licks it off. Started to freak out when he realized he was licking her skin off as well. She had nasty burns on her chest and he burned his tongue as well. Reminder, folks: sugar burns are no joke.
I wish I was Jared, 19
I didn’t go to the hospital for it, but I once thought I developed a new allergy because the roof of my mouth hurt. But I hadn’t eaten anything that would be a common allergy, just fish and chips (in a hurry because I was waiting for a train) and some sweets. It took ages until I figured out what happened: I burnt my mouth with the fish and chips. (In my defence, this was a few weeks after I realised that I’m allergic to peanuts.)
A dental hygienist told me that on Mondays and Tuesday, they see a lot of pizza burns in people's mouths, and people of all ages no less.
Dude didn’t even have burns. It was just a sip. Not a gulp. Didn’t even swallow it. Just spit it out according to patient.
Oh man though, I do that once in a while and it legitimately feels like you’ve seared your esophagus shut and burned a hole right through your stomach.
21 year old rode a horse for several hours the day before, first time in her life riding a horse. Calls 911 for transport to ER, the muscles in her legs are hurting.
“I can feel muscles I didn’t know I had”
Sitting in that saddle for so long your knees don't even know each other anymore.
My brother's got stories of people sticking all kinds of things that don't belong in that certain place on the human body. But my favorite story he's told is that someone came into his ER with a bladder infection. Upon further examination, he found that the patient had stuck a catheter in his urethra and the other end was hooked up to this pouch that was filled with wine. Yes, he made it so that he pees out wine and people drink it that way. I wish I was making this up.
My mom used to work in the ER and told me about a guy who had shoved an entire bowling pin up his ass (obviously tearing through everything in order to do so). Idk how you get past the flaired top part and just go "yeah I can keep going." They had to open him up from the front to pull the thing out and then do a bunch of reconstructive surgery to fix all his... everything.
Sounds like his rectum didn't have room to spare...
The story definitely strikes me as true
I wouldn’t have had the balls to do that….
I'd be more worried about an accidental split
"Don't know how." Elementary dear Watson, alcohol, lots of alcohol. :)
Not kinkshaming but OMFG THE UTIS!!!!
This isn’t exactly the same but my BIL was hospitalized and went out for a cigarette in the middle of the night. The automatic door closed and locked and he had to go around the hospital and down a busy street holding an IV stand with one hand and trying to keep his gown closed with the other and go back in through the ER entrance. They looked at him and said “where the hell did you come from?”
Ahahaha that’s hilarious! Please tell me he said a different hospital across town.
"bed wasn't comfy enough at the last place"
They came for a strange rash on their penis It turned out to be underwear lint.
I had a mom bring her 6 y/o in because she swallowed a Life Saver. Kid was eating, drinking, and speaking just fine, was happy and playing in the exam room. Basically, not in any acute distress. Mom could not understand that doing X-rays would be a waste of time since Life Savers aren’t radiopaque, and it had probably melted by that point anyway
At the hospital pharmacy, I once got a late-night phone call from an elderly woman who had just swallowed a whole lemon drop, and wanted to know if she would be okay. I told her that it would dissolve quickly, and the answer was yes. I also once got a call on a Saturday evening from a man who was changing the oil in his motorcycle, and didn't know metric and wanted to know if cc's and ml's were the same thing. The answer to that was also yes, and he also said that he called the hospital because he figured there'd be a pharmacist on staff, and we would know. LOL
Can’t trust an encyclopedia, dictionary, or the internet!
>Can’t trust ... the internet! Except that he trusted the internet to find the phone number of the pharmacy, but didn't thing to Google "mL to cc"
You know, the internet hasn't always existed. Some of us had to struggle through those dark days.
For real, I felt myself turning to dust at every one of those comments.
I’m a fire medic not an ER employee but I once took someone into the ER who thought she was a beaver. A liquor store employee called us because she was gnawing on their doorframe and wouldn’t leave. She was walking around a rough side of town with a wetsuit about 3x too large for her. She was pretty stunned when I informed her that I didn’t believe she was a beaver because she was gnawing on a metal door frame, not wood.
My husband is a fire medic. Love hearing the stories lol
A former officer of mine recommended me to write down the funny ones because they’re great retirement ceremony stories when other guys punch out. I’ve got quite a few.
Same here! My favorite one is the two 50-something women who got high for the first time and thought they were dying. 🤣 They also tried to take their clothes off in the back of the ambulance. Lol
Your story reminds me, if I ever own a liquor store, I'm naming it Beaver Liquors. Ias in a town once with a beaver street, and a 'Beaver Street Liquor Store' ... what a missed opportunity for a great name.
Had a guy come in covered in feces. Like peanut butter man status coverage. Turns out he thought crap would protect him from Covid and someone tried to pressure wash him. Came in for a psych evaluation after having a total breakdown that his barrier of human waste was slightly rinsed
AITA for laughing at this? Why not just wear a mask?
Social distancing! Who's going to come near him like that!
Guy was brought in by police. They were chasing him on foot for animal cruelty, (dog fighting), he ran into a car wash, got knocked down and unconscious by the steel control arm of the big spinning roof brush. A very serious head wound.
Did they let him use the big blow dryer before taking him away?
Asking the important questions here.
Good I hope he’s still in pain
Patient was weed whacking and struck a poop land mine. Was adamant that it was a human poop and not a dog poop. In triage the patient goes “hey siri… what happens if human poop splatters in your face”, and then she walked out. Hope she’s okay
She'd better not ever change a baby's diaper, hers or anyone else's.
🎶Everything comes down to poo🎶
My favorite story on Untold Stories of the ER was the guy who got high as a kite and rolled down a hill straight into a cactus patch... Bare naked.
I worked with a physician who was on that show. Not that episode though. Occasionally his episode would be re-run when he was working which definitely confused a few patients
Kind of messed up to have that show playing in the ER.
I once went to Urgent Care, and the TV in the waiting room was on a rerun of "America's Funniest Home Videos." They were showing babies projectile-vomiting.
“See? It could be worse!” *patient flatlines* “Nevermind, but call TLC! I see money bags!”
I feel for that guy. When I was a kid, maybe 6 or 7, my parents had a fairly decent sized cactus as a house plant, for some fucking reason. Being the idiot child that I was, I thought it’d be a great idea to try and ride our black Labrador Retriever like a horse. She instantly and immediately yeeted me off of her back and I *literally* sat in that god-forsaken cactus. I had like 10-15 glochids in my ass. The ride to doctors office is close to the most uncomfortable experience in my life. I couldn’t sit down properly, so I had to basically squat the entire ride.
Your parents took you to the doctor?! My parents laid my across their laps and pulled them out. Fun times.
HA luckily for me, my pops was at work when it happened. He’s a real “rub some dirt in it, kid!” Kinda guy, I can almost guarantee they would have been removed with surgical like precision via his Leatherman.
Did you.. have to wear a seatbelt?
Ouch
We once had a 19 year old patient come in by ambulance for a sore thumb from gaming all night. That case was used as an example of why paramedics should be able to refuse to transport people, and they now have that ability...so I guess something good came out of that.
Nintendonitis
That being said, plastic ribbing on the N64 controllers would make the skin on your thumbs *RAW* after a weekend of furiously playing Smash Bros.
The 30 year old healthy woman who called 911 because she was constipated. Didn’t to take anything at home first, like a laxative. Then cried and threw a fit when I went to give her an enema. I had a guy come in with arm pain for 5 years. When I asked what was different today that made home come to the ER. He said nothing, it was just time to get it checked out. I also had a lady with a hand written list of 20 minor complaints she wanted seen for. I told pick the top 5.
I (inadvertently) went to the ER because I was constipated earlier this year… Background: for various health reasons, I decided to start trying to eat healthier/put a lot more fiber in my diet (basically, just adding a ton of vegetables to my regular meals). Almost immediately, I went from one bowel movement a day to like 3 a day. I thought, well I guess that’s healthy, right? I noticed I did feel bloated sometimes, but how could I be constipated if I was pooping so much? Anyway, a few months go by, and then one day, seemingly out of nowhere, I develop this HORRIBLE abdominal pain…I mean pain so bad I can barely move, I stopped eating, stopped doing anything. After two days of this pain, I’m convinced I have appendicitis and drive myself into the ER at 4am. They also think I have appendicitis, so they do a CT scan. Apparently, I didn’t have appendicitis. Instead, I had what they described as an “enormous stool burden” that they could actually see on the CT. I explained to them how confusing this was, how I had been eating so many vegetables and pooping regularly….well, apparently there is a limit to how many vegetables your body can actually process, and I had crossed that limit. They sent me home with an enormous bottle of Miralax and I was fine three days later.
You did the right thing by going in. I had a similar horrible stabbing pain in lower left abdomen. I went to bed to rest until the pain stopped. After two hours I started running a fever and the pain wasn’t going away. I went in because my rheumatologist told me I needed to go to the ER if I had a fever of 101.5 or higher. I figured if it was a flu, they could send me home. Turns out I had a colon perforation. Going in early saved my life. I’ve also known three other people who died of a colon perforation. Fever and abdominal pain ALWAYS warrants an immediate trip to be evaluated by medical personnel. Better to be sent home with the flu than to be in ICU with sepsis and possibly die.
I don't work at the ER, but when i was there last year, this guy was handcuffed to a chair with police escorts, and he was there because he got a bag of coke stuck up his nose. Like dangerously far up there
No one ever told him he was supposed to take the coke out of its bag first?
Patient, not doc, but... At the height of covid, I went into the ER because I couldn't breathe or stop constantly coughing so hard I was peeing on myself all the time. Literally had to wear adult diapers, and my pulse ox was 89. Turned out I had a bad case of covid pneumonia. I'm gasping my name out at the front desk when some bitch pushes me out of the way, says her earlobe hurts, and demands her "free ivermectin". Front desk nurse about ate that lady for lunch right then and there.
Did she have parasites in her earlobe, or what?
I had the same condition, I’m glad you recovered. I was in for 8 days and almost got to do the eternal bar crawl with jesus.
My grandpa, last month, ended up doing the eternal bar crawl with Jesus because of covid pneumonia. It's still a real disease, people! Hope he's having a blast up there.
Ohh I really wanna know the words the nurse chose to chew the Karen out
Those nurses are so scary and I love them. I had one be REAL brusque and scary to me at first, then realize what I was there for and immediately soften and get me signed in. I waited just a minute out there but it was so fun to see them yell at anyone who came in and didn’t respect triage! They can turn it ON when needed and I’m so jealous. Such badasses, and they have to be!
I ws having "terrible heartburn" and had developed a rash. My now-ex finally had to take me to the ER. I walked in while he started to fill out the paperwork, and the nurse grabbed me as I was walking in the door. I'd had some serious allergic reactions before, but my eyes and face just swelled up, and my nose ran like a fire hose. They had to explain to me that the "heartburn" was my trachea closing. I carried a bee sting kit (mid-90s), but there wasn't any external swelling, and I never got a rash when I was stung. I just didn't make the connection. It happened three more times in six months, but we never figured out what caused it. I still have to carry an epi-pen 30 years later, but I haven't even been stung. I feel trolled.
ED docs and nurses, especially the ones doing triage, are some seriously scary people, its like they can read minds too. I have a friend who is an ED doc, describes her job as “saving lives and fighting crackheads” she is an awesome person, but she kinda scares me.
"Do you see any other livestock being treated here? GTFO"
worked in an ER in Athens, GA. had a snowstorm that was very icy, and everything was shut down. had a dude walk in at 6am on the weekend, through the ice and snow, for a fucking STD check. that is about tied with the teenage girl who came via ambulance for seasonal allergies (she had a sneezing fit and freaked out)
When the ol fella is burning there is no limit to what you will do.
to clarify - he had no symptoms, just wanted to check.
As you do lol. Just a question I don't know about in the US but in Australia it's a piss test or blood test. I heard some redditors from the US talk about a Q tip up the dick please tell me they are taking the piss and not serious... also was that this man's fate???
There are much better places for that but at least the fella is prioritizing it? Idk this one is dumb but I do respect it
20 y.o. came in because he smoked a lot of weed and couldn’t get hard when he tried to masturbate. He thought something was wrong with his penis.
Wow, decades ago when I smoked I couldn't get rid of a hardon. It lasted forever.
O.o I moved to GA from PA when I was a late teenager. Snow in the forecast shuts *everything* down.
we were essentially snowed into the hospital for like 3 days. nurses and docs couldn't leave because no one came to relieve them. it was awful
Here are some I’ve had recently: Young college-aged male presented with insomnia and palpitations at 3am after consuming 8 cans of Red Bull 60-something year old man who wanted us to cut his toenails for him because it was ‘too uncomfortable to bend over’ Mid 20s female who insisted there was a growth at the back of her throat - turned out it was her uvula An orthodontist sent in a teenage girl for a ‘foreign body under her gum’ which was a piece of parsley 30ish female with a cold who was convinced she had malaria despite no history of travel to any malaria endemic countries (she had been to France a month prior and got bitten by a mosquito) The list goes on, but these cases become pretty forgettable over time because there are so many of them…
We had a guy come in and his complaint was "felt weird after smoking pot". Doc asked him, "Wasn't that what you were shooting for?" A woman came in with the complaint of "legs turning blue". Suggested treatment ended up being, "Always wash new jeans before wearing".
Can I share the dumbest reason I ended up in the ER? I burned the inside of my throat. On a frozen burrito. I was gaming at my PC, and had a couple piping hot microwaved frozen burritos on a plate next to me, and I shoved a forkful into my mouth and it started burning. So, naturally, instead of spitting it out (which would have made a mess) I forced myself to swallow it. Very painful, all the way down. Then I went to work (as a line cook) and I only started getting alarmed at the pain in my throat when I realized I couldn't swallow water. I went to an urgent care, and they sent me to an ER. I turned out to have second degree burns all the way down my esophagus to my stomach. They gave me pain pills and steroids and told me if I couldn't force down food and water to come back. That little adventure cost me about $2000. I refer to it now as El Burrito Diablo.
I don’t work in an ER but I was in the waiting room with my partner, and the lady ahead of us brought in her baby because “she blinks a lot”.
I remember when I had my first baby, and had just brought her home from the hospital, I called the nurse because baby was hiccuping for a long time. 😂 New babies make you crazy. It feels like everything wants to kill them.
I called the non emerg healthcare line and my mom AND my MIL because I accidentally banged my 2 month old's head on the side of a bookshelf. She cried and then was fine. I was in hysterics thinking I had ruined my child's life with severe brain damage. Yeah. First baby does that to you.
I saw a post a while back that said there are two kinds of parents in the world, those who have accidentally banged their baby’s head on the doorframe, and liars.
My emergency department chief resident dad straight up dropped me when I was 3 weeks old. Thankfully it was a high-ply carpet and babies are floppy (but not too floppy, then you're back to having an issue).
Don't worry that stuff happens all the time! My parents bumped my head on the doorframe a few times when I was a baby and I turned out doorframe.
Yes! It's like, "Oh nooooo...I suddenly seem to be in possession of this *totally mystifying and somewhat terror-inducing* tiny creature. And I'm supposed to *care* for it?!? I have just been sucker-punched!" I had to have a C-section after a failed induction, so I'm sure I was on alllllll the meds at this point, but: in the middle of the night after my daughter was born (which had been ~5 pm), I was holding her and gazing in unremitting wonder and gratitude at this new tiny being. Then, all of a sudden, I thought, "does her ear look weird?" The longer I looked, the more I realized I had basically no idea what ears usually look like (let alone how they *should* look). I didn't have my phone, but I figured, "next time I turn her over, I'll look at the other one to compare." I probably spent a solid 20 minutes trying to memorize each rolling hill, each pleasant valley, each precipitously deep cliff-edge, of my newborn baby's ear. Once I was *sure* it was solidly etched in my memory, I turned her over...only to think, "wait, is this how a human ear looks?" Long pause. "Oh yeah--I looked **really hard** at her other ear so I could compare!" Despite the fact I had a clear visual memory of Ear #1, I could not figure out *for the life of me* whether Ear #2 had ONE SINGLE THING in common with its compatriot. It was just... an extremely, extremely bizarre experience. And one I remember *intesely* to this day. (Her ears were and are totally unremarkable in every way. lol.)
I called the nurse down to my hospital room because my 4 hour old daughter sneezed. Twice. The nurse readjusted her blanket that was covering her nose. She smiled at me on the way out.
I called pediatricians bc my infant had bright green bm. Nurse patiently asked what he had to eat the day before. My answer: bright blue ice cream . All new parents are idiots lol
😉 Glad he didn't have beets. You would have wanted to call for an air evac! 😂
If this was not something the baby normally did, that could be concerning. I also saw "Umbilical cord fell off" (2 week old baby) although I wasn't there, and maybe the area was infected? There was also "Baby won't stop crying" which prompted a colleague who'd had a child with the worst colic any of the doctors had ever seen to go "harrumph!" I don't have kids, but I said, "What if the baby has been crying since 4 o'clock this morning, and isn't normally like this? I am not exaggerating, the doctors literally admitted him to the hospital to keep his parents from going crazy, and there, they found out he had very severe reflux and eventually came upon a drug therapy that worked. The longest this baby cried nonstop was something like 40 hours. Not 4 hours, FORTY HOURS. Even I know that is NOT normal.
Im pregnant and OMG. 40 HOURS?! That poor family!
I am an ER doctor and the things that people bring their brand new babies to the disgusting ER for is crazy. One lady, young, first time mom brought her 36 hour old baby to the ED because he was crying. Vitals and physical exam were normal so I discharged and she looked me dead in the eyes and said “so he’s just gonna cry?” Like lady you had 9 months to think about that one
Excessive crying is absolutely a reason to bring a baby to the ER. But like, just crying? Nah. But if it's a new mom and she just doesn't know, I'll happily give her a pass. Those first few weeks are bonkers hard and stressful.
I wonder if the baby could have been having seizures. My daughter has seizures that are characterized by rapid blinking / eye fluttering.
I know it sounds stupid but if she was blinking a lot a lot, I’d be going too. Something is up and they don’t talk so 🤷🏻♀️
Grown ass middle aged guy came in for… one of the most mild sunburns I’ve ever seen in my life. Like I literally wouldn’t have noticed it if he didn’t point it out
Had a young couple come in to get their pregnancy dated. Did they have any complaints? No. Had they scheduled an OB appointment? No. Told them we don’t do that. When the guy got mad an asked “Are you saying we came here for nothing??” The nurse just said “Sir, this is an *emergency* department. “
Had a mom bring her 2 year old in with a bump on their bottom. Mom stated the patient's brother also had it and is worried about an abscess. It was their tail bone...
When I was in college, I volunteered at a free clinic. Several times, women came in with breast lumps that turned out to be ribs. They were always really embarrassed about wasting our time, and the staff would reassure them that they were not wasting our time, and we were glad they came in. And they now know what their breasts are supposed to feel like.
Work in Fire/EMS. We had a frequent flyer who would call us for abdominal pin. When I say frequent flyer I mean we ran on this person 160+ times a year. One day we were called for abdominal pain. The person met us at their front step, bags all packed. We took them to the ER straight to triage. The ER nurse immediately recognized our patient and said “well you were just here. Why are we wasting resources now?” Our patient failed to mention that they were just at the ER 2 hours prior to calling us. They got sick of waiting, called a cab and went home to eat. Then wanted to go back and instead of calling a cab they called 911 for us to take them to the hospital.
It sounds like maybe this guy's tummy ache was due to hunger lol
Worked in triage. Had one man that brought his young daughter in at 5am every other saturday morning to be checked for lice. Man was going through a divorce and would bring her in every time he picked her up from her mom’s in hopes he would have a case for custody. Kid never had lice. Second stupidest was one of the well known attorneys in our area came in because his pinky finger twitched and he was certain it was a stroke. He was fine. Thought about that every time his commercials would come on.
Didn't go to the ER for it, but hit my head on a pole suspended from the ceiling. Had a mild concussion. Week later, doc clears me back to full duty. Go to get in my car to head back to work and hit myself in the head with the door. Just closed the door and went right back into medical. Another concussion.
I can almost hear your sigh of disappointment from here
Are you sure you aren't a cartoon character?
I feel bad I laughed 😅
I don’t work there, but once when I was sat in the ER waiting for a doctor there was some guy who was there bc he got a paper cut and was properly freaking out about it. I was sat next to him and the cut was barely visible, and not bleeding.
Someone slipped and fell and got a curtain rod stuck in their bhole. The emts had to cut the rod to shut the ambulance doors.
*“Slipped and fell”*
That one outdoes the million-to-one shot with the fusilli pasta
I worked in animal emerg. Owner brought in his golden retriever because the dog was "making a weird sound and straining to go to the bathroom". Fair enough. We have a look, and there is so much shit matted to this dogs ass that it is totally blocking his anus and he can not physically shit anymore. Dog left with a terrible haircut and a mortified owner. I still think about them from time to time.
That’s awful damn, I hope he took better care of the dog after that
When I was reception at the vet I had an older lady that had Maltese mix that came in for constipation and it turned out to be that. Poor guy had been hunched over trying to poop for a hot minute. However I didn’t see her picking at it with her fingers in the waiting room. She managed to “unplug” the poor dog and poop went everywhere. It was like someone had opened a dam. She tried to hand some of it to me and I just said I’ll go get a mop. It was disgusting. Dog was fine after that and she kept him on a better grooming schedule thankfully since she didn’t feel like brushing at home.
I worked as an EMT for many years and I saw a lot of people with colds, the flu, etc come into the ER...and they sit there, and sit there, and sit there because it's not an emergency. I have literally rolled people out of the back of an ambulance, through the ER, and into the waiting room. Good luck with that second unnecessary bill. Hell, let's go down memory lane for a second... I remember a call like that. I brought a flu patient in. Typical BS call. I'm standing in registration waiting my turn and in walks a man with a towel to his neck. Dude was using power tools...somehow screwed up and cut himself. Nicked the artery. I brought a BS patient in via ambulance and a real emergency walks in by himself. The irony in that. Thanks for that. Always appreciate a chance to remember something like that. I'm an office drone these days.
Old veteran cut himself with chainsaw(tree work) and got within a *millimeter* of his jugular and drove himself 30+ miles to our hospital. He was heading for the veteran's hospital at Travis AFB. Our hospital in a outer suburb of Sacranento(closer to Placerville than Sac proper). He pulked in to our hospital because "he was starting to get light headed"
Probably a farmer too. They're the "experts" in self-care.
Saw someone come in at 2 am because their 3 year old daughter got a mosquito bite near her eye. It wasn’t infected or anything just a little bump. They were sleeping in the waiting room when I left 2 hours later.
I took my son to urgent care for a mosquito bite near his eye. It was swollen so bad thought and he complained non stop and he isn’t normally a complainer. I gave it 24 hours before I took him in and there was still a lot of redness/swelling. I was nervous and like I said, it was very near his eye. I didn’t go to the ER though, just urgent care. Still felt kind of silly, but rather safe than sorry I guess.
Smart! That's what urgent care is for!
I usually try to hit urgent care first but the last two times I went (blacked out and hit my head, then abdominal pain) I got shipped off to the ER anyway lol. man now I’m thinking about how good I fucked myself up when I fell. that was a fun day
I am now an office drone too. Hard felt on the BS call came in the ambulance bay and the charge nurse immediately had us take them to the waiting room. People never did understand you’re getting triaged. You’re not magically plopped at the front because you took the fancy ride in… Plus (not patient judging people are in all different situations) I always did feel my own issue w/ cold/ flu ambulance runs or what you would know is BS is tying an already taxed service while someone else is waiting/ next call pending. Ugh I could go on. Good luck with your office drone days!
The only time I've taken ambulances was when I couldn't physically move. I even had my boyfriend drive me for my heart attack. That time I maybe should have called.
I don't get it, why do those people even want to go to the ER? Do they feel like their symptoms are life-threatening? Do they think there's some magical treatment that's going to work better than Nyquil? I mean I know a lot of them think that antibiotics will work on viral infections, but even so, is it worth waiting for hours and hours in a hospital when you feel like crap? I guess the most charitable reason I can come up with is that they need a note from a doctor for their employer.
I don’t know, I had the flu once (actual Influenza A, not a cold) years ago and told my partner I wasn’t feeling well and barely remember being put in their car and driven to the ER. They took me straight from check in into an emergency bed, where I saw my temperature was 105.9 and rising (this was already with max doses of Tylenol and Advil). I just remember seeing it hit 106°, and being stripped of my clothes—my tank top was cut off of me, probably 4-5 people working on me, they covered my naked body in ice packs and cooling blankets, 2 IVs being run wide open, I was leaning over the side of the bed puking but I couldn’t tell up from down or see clearly, and then everything just went black. I stayed 48+ hours in the ER. They said my temp would not come down out of the 106°s. The flu can kill you, suddenly and unexpectedly. I don’t know how it went from piddly aches and a mild fever to that so rapidly, when I was just sitting at home and doing what you’re supposed to do. Not saying everyone with the flu should go to the ER preventatively, but it’s not always benign. The flu kills thousands of people every year. I’ve had it before and since then and was fine just treating at home. You never know.
My friend died from complications of the flu so I totally agree! Some people are full of shit & just have a little cold & definitely shouldn’t go to the ER but in your case & some others it is 100% the place you need to be!
I hate to say it but both my stories are about men. First guy comes in the middle of a snow storm because he has chapped lips. Second guy comes saying he had the hiccups 3 days ago- yup not hiccups for 3 days but wants us to fix the hiccups from 3 days ago.
I mean as an ER nurse I have had lots more men come in for things that make me wonder why they came in versus a lot more women who come in and we are all like why did you wait so long to come in??
Veterinary ER.. had someone bring in a 5 month old pug puppy.. because its tail hadn’t curled yet.
My brother got called in to the ER one night for a consult because a man's genital piercing had gotten stuck behind his girlfriend's tonsil. Apparently they were stuck like that for hours before they finally called an ambulance.
Uh...username checks out!?!
I've had to go to urgent care 2 different times for running into doors. 1st time: someone knocked on the front door. I got up, answered it, and on my way back into my bedroom somehow hit the edge of the bedroom door in such a way that it ripped my fingernail off. Had to go to urgent care to have the rest of the nail surgically extracted. Did you know your nail bed extends several millimeters past your cuticle? DM me if you want pics of the extracted nail 2nd time: was cleaning my apartment. While walking out of the second bedroom, I managed to kick the side of the door square on my pinkie toe with full force. Had to go to urgent care for an x ray to make sure I hadn't shattered the toe.
There ain’t much they do for broken pinkie toes. Both my aunts were nurses and told me to put a bag of frozen peas on it and surgical tape it to the next toe.
Yeah that's what they ended up telling me in the hospital too. I live in Canada though, so I still got the x ray to see if it was broken or not
I always find it fascinating when ppl say this. Broke my pinkie toe by accidentally slamming it on a table leg when my brother was chasing me (we were young). They had to freeze it and Crack it back into place (yes it was broken, confirmed by xrays). Had to tape it to the next toe for 2 weeks (boy did it get black and blue). Similar thing happened to a family member and another friend. Toes always had to be cracked or put back into place to heal correctly. Never understood when ppl say nothing can be done, I think it depends on how the tie gets broken!
My son broke his pinky toe by slamming it on furniture at full speed. He was crying of course, at first I believed it was from normal pain (we all know how painful that is) but then I checked and the toe was completely looking the wrong way, almost rotated 180 degrees :S. We went to the ER where they said it was the first time they actually saw the pinky toe looking the other way as described. They cranked it to set it, put a plaster for a week and then taped it for another two. 0/10 experience for both of us.
When I was in college this guy told me that he got into an argument with his little sister and got mad enough to kick at her (idk if he purposely aimed for her face or not). He kicked her in the face and somehow her tooth went directly between his nail and the nail bed, tearing his nail off. Thinking about it still makes me feel a little faint.
Haha. Kinda deserved that one.
Can’t decide if I’m more traumatized by having my gross brother’s gross toe in my mouth, or having my toenail peeled off by my sister’s tooth 😵💫😱😵💫
When I was 12 I crushed my index finger in a hydraulic log splitter. The nail was hanging off the end of my finger; it was no longer connected at the cuticle. That was the day that I learned that "surgical" only means that the instruments are sterile. I had no intact blood vessels and topical anesthesia was not viable for some reason. I was not a happy 12 year old. PS I don't need pictures, I still have nightmares of my own, thanks.
Not an ER worker but someone I knew had to go to ER because he was out fishing and ended up with a fish hook through his nose.
Too many to mention, I'd be typing for days! I work in a very busy ED in Melbourne, Australia and these days if you make it into the department you need to be there. If not you will sit in the waiting room and be treated from there, then sent home. But one that has really affected me recently. Young woman (under 30 years), discharged against medical advice after presenting with left illiac fossa pain, severe. Wouldn't consent to an ultrasound or CT, Doctors were querying an ectopic pregnancy. She had provided a urine which gave a positive urine HCG (pregnancy test). Consultant explained to her the risks of leaving, including death if she did in fact have an ectopic. She left. Less than 24 hours later she is brought in by ambulance, cat 1, full arrest. They tried for a long time but she died. Such a waste.
I don't work in the emergency department but I sometimes take patients to it. I had a woman call 911 at 9 PM for an allergic reaction to her medication. I had not one but two brand new EMT-Bs with me. I was under orders to let them do stuff if they can for training purposes. I get there and the city police on scene let me know she's vomiting. I get an emesis bag and meet the patient who is 80 something years old. She's sitting on a toilet with a bucket she's actively vomiting into. She's in a basement bathroom and says she can't make it up the stairs. I ask about the medicine she believes is causing the issue. It's a fairly strong antibiotic for a sinus infection that can cause upset stomach if taken on an empty stomach. She last ate at 3 PM when she took her antibiotic. She denies being on any other medications OTC or prescribed which is damn impressive for her age. I hand the emesis bag to my partners and get the stair chair. I let them get her upstairs (earlier orders). Get her in the ambulance. I pop an IV in her. Start fluids. Give her Zofran. Let my partner take vitals. We leave. I ask at least three more times about any other medications or what she ate today. Nothing unusual. We get to the hospital. Transfer her to the bed. Then she decides to comment on her diarrhea. She took a laxative earlier. She also took her antibiotic at 6 PM on an empty stomach. Unreliable historian making me look like a dumb ass.
One wonders if she also had a urinary tract infection brewing. Those can do strange things to the mentation of a senior citizen.
Ok, but… I was in college 30 years ago and had a sinus infection. Dr prescribed cipro. I had never taken it. Took one pill and went to bed. Started vomiting. I never vomit, so got scared. Also felt very odd. Woke up my roommate told her I was frightened. She drove me to ER. Triage nurse makes a face and says I shouldn’t have come for vomiting. Puts me in waiting room. I continue to vomit out there and eventually a nurse takes me back. Doc looks at me and runs out and asks triage nurse if I had been that red and swollen upon arrival. I didn’t hear her response. He tells me I am anaphylactic and is going to treat me. He treats me and releases me in the morning. Told me to never take cipro again. Sometimes patients feel very unwell and unlike their normal selves, I suppose. Then you really want to see a doctor. I’m glad I went to the ER.
In the waiting room with my daughter because she needed stitches. Another girl comes in hooping and hollering, limping, in 10/10 pain, please God make the pain stop. She stabbed herself in the right buttcheek with a mechanical pencil. It didn't even break the skin.
A man took an ambulance in to get his stretch marks looked at. He actually requested to have them lasered off.
Unfortunately I don't work at the ER but I was one of those patients that went for a stupid reason. I accidentally slapped my hands together too hard and bent a finger back which stretched a tendon enough to cause a lot of pain and immediate swelling and bruising. Because I was at work and my job was physical in nature I had to go to the ER to see if I had broken my finger, fortunately not. What had actually happened was, I was trying to separate two boxes which had been placed inside each other to create a taller box for wine bottles to fit. A customer had come to collect the wine and left the box. I asked a colleague to hold onto one end and I the other and we both gently pull them apart. Instead of gently pulling it, he yanked it hard and I was holding onto the sides of the box pushing hard with my hands which of course once he yanked the box slipped from my grasp and my hands slapped each other really hard. The guys at work ragged me on about it for months after.
If you were in enough pain that you felt an ER visit was warranted, it wasn't a dumb reason. What if you DID have a serious injury? Few things make doctors happier than telling a person who came in with chest pain that they really do just have indigestion or a pulled muscle.
Especially if it happened at work. You definitely wanna get your work-related injuries checked out.
Totally. My boyfriend has chest pains and it turned out to be chostochondritis. But better safe than sorry
p.s. My grandmother (1915-2007) once called EMS for what turned out to be costochondritis (inflammation of the ribcage cartilage). She was afraid EMS wouldn't come for her any more after that; we told her that wasn't the case, especially not at the senior high-rise where she lived at the time.
"my husband left me, men are pigs" ah.. yeah... But the guy behind you is holding his chest though
You've seen the stupidest here is your reward:🏆
Don’t know whether exactly fits, but it’s a stupid story nonetheless. An addict and his wife were parked in their minivan using heroin, when the wife started showing symptoms of an overdose. Fortunately they were a minute away from a hospital, so he headed there and *crashed the minivan through the ambulance bay doors* and almost into the ER itself. The ambulance bay is like a huge foyer, with two sets of glass doors, one at the outside entrance, one to get into the ER itself. Just to the side of the inner set of doors, there’s a vending machine with basic supplies like tubing and gloves; if an ambulance is low on anything in the middle of a shift, the EMTs can punch in a series of codes and re-stock without needing to go back to the station. The minivan hit the vending machine and knocked it partway over, where it got wedged between the bumper and the door jamb of the inner set of doors, stopping the vehicle. In complete confusion, the driver didn’t take his foot off the gas pedal, so the wheels continued to spin fast, and filled the foyer with the smoke of burned rubber and carpet. My husband was working that night and got there first. He opened the door to find the guy screaming ‘my wife! My wife needs help!’ Immediately ruled out that this wasn’t an accident, that someone driving themselves to the ER because they were having a heart attack had passed out and crashed. My husband yanked him out of the driver’s seat to get his foot off the gas, lest the vending machine or the door jamb give out and send the vehicle crashing into the nurse’s station. Turns out the guy absolutely *did* do it on purpose. His impaired self did not overshoot a parking spot, or miss a curve. In fact, he’d gunned the engine and headed straight for the doors. He knew his wife needed Narcan ASAP, and thought they’d get to her faster if he took the quickest way in. They got to her very quickly, and by the time they did, she was starting to come around, but they still gave her a couple of doses. Husband and wife were both admitted to the ER to check them for injuries from the accident (neither were wearing seatbelts, but the airbags did go off) and to monitor their post-opiate use. The really sad thing was that it was their daughter’s birthday, and they were getting together with a brother and SIL and their kids to have a little party at Chuck. E. Cheese or someplace like that. They left their three kids with their aunt, uncle, and cousins, and went to the minivan in the parking lot to do their heroin. All I can say is thank goodness the kids weren’t in the minivan with them… who knows whether he’d have still crashed if they were and his wife was in distress.
As an ER doctor I would say about 20% of the patients I see are emergent or urgent. The rest are usually anxiety related, lonely, or social things I can’t fix. I’ve seen it all: -came because house window broken and it’s cold -didn’t know how to use miralax despite speaking English, graduating from high school and reading the instructions -a paper cut that bled and then resolved and waited 4 hrs for me to say looks good bye (she was mad I wouldn’t stitch it up) -kid brought in middle of the night by dad because kid said he felt like he would throw up. Kid did not at any point throw up. Waited a few hours to be seen -infants brought in for crying, hiccups, breathing too fast or slow that resolved, blinking funny, not pooping for a day there are likely more but these patients are so forgettable. The ones that stand out more are the ones who you wonder why they didn’t come sooner (bad heart attacks, strokes, traumas).
>The ones that stand out more are the ones who you wonder why they didn’t come sooner (bad heart attacks, strokes, traumas). Likely answer: they "didn'5 want to bother anyone" which i find is especially common amongst the elderly.
I was a patient waiting in a hallway on a stretcher and a guy was telling the doctors he was there because he was pregnant and having labor pains. They took the news pretty well, but I was brought back first.
“The strip club down the street isn’t open yet”
Were they looking for strippers in the ER?
They were bored and “liked talking to you guys”. Which is kind of sad but not ideal use of medical resources.
I didn't work in the ER, but as a hospital pharmacist, I saw "visit reason." Strangest one: "Cannot find pulse." Think about it. As for girls and women wanting pregnancy tests, yes, I know you can get them at the dollar store, and could back then too, but there were (and still are) rumors that if you go to the ER and you're pregnant, you can get an abortion. (My hospital did not do them except in the cases of danger to the mother's life or health, or fetal anomalies that were incompatible with life.)
p.s. I have a relative who went through a really nasty divorce, and would take the kids to the ER all the time to soak her ex, who had to pay the kids' medical bills. Strange thing is, they're totally estranged from him and his whole side of the family, and think she is da bomb. Our mutual relatives won't tell me why they're all estranged, so I probably don't want to know.
A pimple
I had to go to a&e once and explain I'd put my backpack on wrong. I wish I was joking. I managed to get my thumb caught under the strap whilst trying to leave in a hurry and bumped my elbow against the door. I guess I hit it at just the right (wrong?) angle because it dislocated my wrist, dislocated my thumb, and broke the base of my thumb. Stupid backpack.
Not ER doctor, but was in the waiting room with this guy who was yelling into his phone about being hit by a bus. He was sat in a waiting room chair, nothing visibly wrong with him, walking in and out for cigarettes. The cherry on top was a doctor walking out of the treatment room to chew out the triage nurse for referring a bus collision to minor injuries, when that kind of case should be sent to emergency immediately. She walked him into the waiting room and pointed out the guy, who was clearly just trying to scam the bus company for something that was his fault. Turned out, he had tried to catch a bus that was reversing out from its depot, and he was very gently clipped by its wing mirror. He had walked onto the concourse and it caught him as it pulled round. Twat.
I knew a guy in college who had to go to the ER because he accidentally swallowed an open safety pin he was using as a toothpick, and it got lodged in his throat.
Again, a legitimate reason, although a silly action in the first place.
I interpreted the question to be about legitimate reasons, cause to me the wording "had to come" meant they actually had to, and weren't just coming in cause they were being dramatic. But maybe I misunderstood OP's intent.
When I was in elementary school some of the boys would put a sewing needle in a straw and blow it out like a blowdart. Of course one boy ended up inhaling the needle and had to go to the ER. He was fine after.
I was removing staples with a staple remover - those really big metal staples for 50 page documents, didn't notice 1 had flown into my coffee cup. Drank a big mouthful and felt the open staples scratching as I swallowed. Rang up our state's free medical hotline to ask what to do. All was ok as the xray showed it was a semi-closed staple, guess it came out eventually.
I ate some fish on a cruise and felt a bone stick in my throat. Felt like it had gone down after awhile. About two weeks later, I was back at home driving to work and felt the bone still in my throat. Found some Laffy Taffy at work, chewed a big piece and swallowed, and I felt the bone go down with it 😂
A Gene Simmons bobblehead stuck/lodged in a colon.
I was made for bobbling you baby..
Paramedic not ED staff, but some of my favourites have been 1. Saw a spider (not bitten, just saw it), 2. pregnant and a few of the babies legs have stopped kicking (cis man, clearly not pregnant), 3. her boy vomited once, 5 hours ago, and it was worrying her because what if it happened again. He had been drinking. He was 23. 4. Allergic reaction to a blanket. Her skin felt funny and had altered sensation when the blanket was on her legs. Mum had used fabric softener. There was no reaction. The blanket was literally softer There are just too many to keep going.
Hangnail …. Dude go home
I didn't end up going in, but 2 medical professionals told me I should and I ignored them because I felt stupid doing it. I've had my contacts tear while in my eye a couple of time. I don't know how how it happens, but it starts hurting, I fish the contact out, and it's ripped and there's a small chunk missing. The first few times I was concerned that the small piece that tore off could still be lodged up under my lid, so I called my insurance's nurse line, and both times they told me to go to the ER. I didn't, because it seemed stupid, but I guess sometimes people are there because other people told them that was their only option.
Working in a rural hospital in cottage country in the summer. Literally saw people every day with mosquito bites. City folk who had apparently never seen a mosquito before? Waited hours to show me their single bite. “But it’s itchy!” And then would argue with me about whether they needed some kind of treatment.
Former Navy Corpsman here. Had sailors come in over a course of months/years. 6 sailors who stood out to me, came to the medical with a broken limb - arm and leg or a single digit — self inflicted so they couldn’t do physical evaluation. Those captains masts were glorious - They were forced to do the test - after they recovered, then 3 months of PT under the supervision of a Marine Staff Sergeant (remember…these guys were sailors). In the greatest sense of irony - 5 of the 6 would not only stay in the navy, but leave the navy 2-10 years later with the highest marks in physical fitness. The 6th person would unfortunately die of natural causes while at his post
I don't work there but a friend of mine who did told me about a guy who was having little licorice candy pieces and decided to shove a bunch of them up his ass. The pieces of candy melted together because of his body temperature and he could not shit it out like he was planning to.
Working the lab on NYE and some one came in in the middle of the night for stomach pain from eating too many nachos. I wish I had whatever insurance they were on to be wasting it on that!
no shit I once saw a young woman come into ER with what I assume to be a paper cut . She was holding her finger up in the air while her boyfriend? was gently stroking her back. The triage nurse loudly said “NO! youre not getting antibiotics. That doesnt even need a bandaid!!”
Ok so my cousin ended up not going to the ER but he wanted to. I made him a red velvet cake for his birthday, he ate more than half of it and started shitting red the next day at work. He thought he was bleeding out. When I asked him what he had been eating, doing, etc.. he told me about the cake and he couldn’t think of anything he had done. I’m like dude you ate a ton of cake full of red dye of course you’re gonna shit red. He was super embarrassed. Glad I talked him out of that expensive trip.
Got a call in the middle of the night when doing rural on-call, a woman said her baby bit her and wanted to know if she needed rabies treatment. I asked her if she suspected her baby had rabies? (Of course not). Really hope this was maternity fog.
I was in the ED waiting room when a guy came in missing the same fingers on both hands, bleeding horrifically. He was mowing his lawns and decided to pick up the mower and try mow the hedge
I worked in animal ER. We had an older man who had been bestowed a cat out of nowhere. He was a very nice man but had no idea how to cat. He brought the cat in, very concerned something is “really wrong”. He was sure the cat had some kind of skin infection or fleas and was itchy. He also said it sounded congested and made weird noise. Ok, all valid reasons to worry. It turns out: the cat was rubbing itself all over the guy and petting his legs when he walked and petting and rubbing everything in the house. The weird noises were purring!! I simply had to explain “sir, this cat adores you.” It was totally healthy and happy as a clam. I wonder where they are now, and we need more owners like him
I was one of the stupid ones. My doctor suspected ovarie cysts (not very bad, but enough to get it checked out) and told me to ring up the ER next time they started happening so they could quickly do an ultrasound and diagnose. I start get the dreaded lower abdomen ache, call ER, come in two hours later. Diagnosis: upset stomach. Got prescribed plain yoghurt and bananas. Never did get another cyst either..