Your strangest experience?

[deleted65604]

I wanted to hear your strangest experiences in the ED, you know, the kind you tell at family get togethers to make everyone laugh.

I'll start with my own. I'm on shift when they wheel in this 40 yo female screaming at the top of her lungs "Get it out! Get it out!" She was diaphoretic, with sweat pouring down her face, and in apparent distress. I follow the nurses into the room we take turns asking her questions as they get an IV in her and get vitals. Apparently, she checked into the ED, and was waiting to be triaged. She was found by a fellow patient in the waiting room with her pants around her ankles screaming, "get it out, get it out!" and reaching up her vagina. In the exam room, now on the gurney, she tells us that she has had a tampon stuck in her vagina that she hasn't been able to get out for several days. She is tachycardic, and I'm suspecting toxic shock syndrome, so I go get the pelvic tray to see what I'm going to find. I put her on a bed-pan, rather than the stirrups, to hasten the exam, stick the speculum in thinking, "this is going to be scary", and I see... nothing... normal cervix, no significant discharge, no bleeding. I say, maam, I don't see a tampon in there." All of a sudden, she starts straining like crazy." She is in mega- pushing mode, face beat-red, jugulars poppling out, eyes protruding. I keep angling the speculum around to make sure I'm not missing something, and the nurses are telling each other, "she's going to have a baby!" All of the sudden, she pushes the speculum out with her straining. I stand back and, with 2 nurses and a tech, watch this lady have a massive bowel movement on the bed. She looked so bad, that I got some labs looking for metabolic derangement, or signs of infection, and a head CT to evaluate for a mass, or an abscess or something that would cause altered mental status. Everything was normal, and when I checked on her again, she looked perfectly normal, and had no complaints. Discharge diagnosis: Severely urgent need to defecate.

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[sarahinromania]

I was a third year medical student, called down to do a consult in the ER. It was late and I was kind of out of it anyway. The guy was a paranoid schizophrenic in the main medical pod of the ED. He'd gotten in some awful fight and they needed to know if he was safe to go home. They didn't move him to the psych area because he had some medical stuff that required treatment first. So he just laid there in his stretcher, in four point leathers because he was agitated earlier, watching people. I went to talk to him, explained who I was, and at first he ignored me. But then he started talking about how all the people were different from last time and had been replaced by robots. He turned to me suddenly and said, "I think you're a robot. I'm not going to talk to you anymore." I asked him how I could prove that I wasn't a robot, and he asked me if I had a pulse. So there I am, in my short white coat, contorting my arm to get my wrist near his restrained hand without letting him grab my arm. He was able to feel my pulse and we continued the interview. I asked him what happened and he said that he got in a fight with this guy. He was relaying the conversation leading up to the fight and getting more and more agitated until he turns to me and fiercely says, "So I said to him, 'YOUR MOMMA!'" and he was so intense I was afraid of him but it was so unexpectedly sophomoric that I inwardly snorted and laughed for several hours afterward. The whole experience was a little trippy.

 

[Lola713]

I had a 53 yr old patient recently who came in with stroke-like symptoms and was found to have an acute thalamic hemorrhage on CT scan. She was admitted to neurology and was on cardene drip for BP control...she was an ED hold for quite a while, anyway she invited about 10 family members/friends etc down to ED and proceeded to have a full-out party in ED, with laughing and shouting, and then her family came out and started to demand special orders from the cafeteria for the pt, like tuna fish sandwiches (for breakfast!). Worst of all, the patient had her boyfriend curled up on the bed with her! No one knew what to say, if she didn't have an impressive CT scan her butt would have been kicked out of ED!

 

[DavisStudent]

I had a 53 yr old patient recently who came in with stroke-like symptoms and was found to have an acute thalamic hemorrhage on CT scan. She was admitted to neurology and was on cardene drip for BP control...she was an ED hold for quite a while, anyway she invited about 10 family members/friends etc down to ED and proceeded to have a full-out party in ED, with laughing and shouting, and then her family came out and started to demand special orders from the cafeteria for the pt, like tuna fish sandwiches (for breakfast!). Worst of all, the patient had her boyfriend curled up on the bed with her! No one knew what to say, if she didn't have an impressive CT scan her butt would have been kicked out of ED!

Terrible

 

[Febrifuge]

No, what you do is you say "you lot are doing it the right way; this is a very serious condition and it's wonderful that she knows you're here for her when she needs you most. But too much carrying on is bad for her right now; stress and yelling is bad for her right now; and tuna fish sandwiches would be horrible for her right now. So please -- take it easy."

If the boyfriend is quiet, and isn't taking up so much room the patient is bothered, fine by me.

 

[The White Coat Investor]

If the boyfriend is quiet, and isn't taking up so much room the patient is bothered, fine by me.

As long as he keeps his pants on.

 

[Pinner Doc]

This didn't happen to me directly, but it would have, had my shift started a few hours earlier. A patient came in with diffuse abdominal pain, and was found to have air-fluid levels on x-ray. Soon it came to light that the patient had actually swallowed a condom earlier that day. Not long after, the patient admitted to the nurse taking care of him that said condom was actually full of his partners... eh, excrement.

!!!

 

[edinOH]

I was going to tell you about me and the two nursing students in the call room but then I realized that isn't what you are going for with this thread...

 

[Apollyon]

Not long after, the patient admitted to the nurse taking care of him that said condom was actually full of his partners... eh, excrement.

Not the time to be coy. Semen or stool?

 

[Pinner Doc]

Oh, my bad... I thought excrement = feces. It was definitely feces.

 

[Jeff698]

Oh, my bad... I thought excrement = feces. It was definitely feces.

I was wondering the same thing.

I've heard some strange things (GC cultured from stoma infections in prisoners, etc) but crapping in a condom and then swallowing it is a new one. That's got to make the next edition of the DSM.

Take care,
Jeff

 

[EdEmEr]

Two that come to mind:

1: Latino(a) tranny got beat up for no doubt unleashing a surprise on some drunk yahoo. In the ED while cleaning the road rash he/she kept moaning "aaaayyyyy....ayyy" "Why dis man do dis to meeee" The normally noisey ED was dead silent.

2: Old lady passes out in church for unkown reason. HandP diggs nothing but the son comes out later and tells me mommy is a big time drinker. Moral: Always ask about sex,drugs and alcohol. Even in sweet little old ladies.
Anywho amongst her 15 (and I am not exaggerating) visitors was the preacher man. Straight out of "Coming to America". Blue suit, orange shirt and patent leather shoes. He introduced himself by his name but for S's and G's I called him preacher. As I am starting her IV she and preacher man start singing spirituals and holding hands. So naturally, I start humming the bass line.

 

[kungfufishing]

I was going to tell you about me and the two nursing students in the call room but then I realized that isn't what you are going for with this thread...

those skanks! they said I was the only one!

 

[doctawife]

Not patient related, but...

I spend some of my shifts over at the neighborhood county hospital, where things can get quite slow. Slow enough that I sometimes sneak over to the clinic area to catch a quick nap. So I'm snoozing away until an odd noise interupts my slumber - I look out of the clinic room to find an elderly lady vomiting coffee grounds onto the floor of the pediatric clinic. The pediatric clinic that is supposed to be closed to the general patient population at 3am.

Needless to say, I've never taken a nap in the clinic again. Yeesh.

(This is the same hospital where used condoms were found in the pedi resident's call room. We had our share of skanks, but none of the residents would stoop to shagging in those incredibly dirty call rooms. I've always wondered who on staff raided our call rooms. Gross!)

 

[FullArrest]

Since im not a doctor YET....I'll have to post the strangest one I have heard that a medic told me.

There was a lady being transported to one of the local hospitals with the chief complaint being

Quote: "I feel funny"


ha!

 

[AmoryBlaine]

Since im not a doctor YET....I'll have to post the strangest one I have heard that a medic told me.

There was a lady being transported to one of the local hospitals with the chief complaint being

Quote: "I feel funny"


ha!

Dude, I've seen 3 "I feel funny" in one shift.

My submission is not quite as cool as someone taking a massive crap on the bed. I saw this 55 y/o lady who c/o a "hand lac." Went in to take a look at it and found myself examining a 1cm scratch on her volar wrist. This thing needed a kiss from mommy, some neosporin, and a bandaid.

She DEMANDED that I suture the "laceration." I tried to explain to her that even a slow injection of marcaine would probably be more painful than the cut itself and that she absolutely did not need definitive wound care from me. She was polite but insistent.

So I opened up a suture kit, grabbed some 6.0 and my sterile 8s and threw one stitch into the damned thing. Her daughter hovered around and excitedly took pictures of "mom getting stiches." "Stitch, singular" I was tempted to reply but held my tongue.

When it was all over her daughter examined the wound and said that I had done a great job and that it looked so good!

 

[FullArrest]

We have a hospital here (John Peter Smith) that operates as a public hospital where "poor" people go.

Occaisonly, a JPS pt. will "accidently" have a "fall" at one of the bus stops close to JPS and request to be "evaluated" at JPS.

Heck, they just want a free ride to the hospital.


Talk about wasting MedStar's Resources...which are already overloaded.

 

[blotto geltaco]

Well one time back when I was on the old meat wagon I took this clown to the hospital because he said "I feel funny". He had just got done smoking a big sack of weed. I said "dude, it means the pot is working!" Still wanted to go to the ED.

 

[deleted65604]

I can't count the number of times that I have rolled my eyes at the things that come into the ED my squad for what seem to be the stupidest things. Usually, there is usually a pretty good reason why they came. A couple of weeks ago, this lady came in for "a bleeding varicose vein". I thought, "what a *****!" She got a CBC checked and a bandage put on her leg. She went home and it started bleeding again, so they called the ambulance again. She went unresponsive when the paramedics got there and she had a pressure in the 60's. She came around and had normal pressures in the ED, however, she bumped her trops a little. Sure, she just freaked out over the blood and vagaled, but that vagal maneuver dropped her pressure and caused cardiac ischemia. Some really bad things can present with "just feeling funny". Last week I sent a 90 year old to the cath lab because she felt a little funny. An EKG in the office showed ST segment elevation anteriorly. The ST elevation got worse by the time she got to the ED, and she went to the cath lab still denying chest pain. The only symptom she would admit was dyspnea on exertion. Her trop was like 3.0 in the ED, and gradually came down after the cardiologists stented the 99% blockage in the LAD. My point is, there is a reason that most things are transported to the ED without question, because a street corner is not the place to rule out serious stuff. The ED is the place to rule out emergencies.

 

[EMIMG]

A lady was at a bar and had a prosthetic eye. Apparently she sensed that an altercationw as about to ensue and she decided to remove her prosthetic eye, wrap it up in a napkin and put it someplace for safekeeping (a place that only women have).

Well, presented to the ED because she could not retreive the eye. So, one of the residents had to go retreive the prosthesis.

 

[AmoryBlaine]

A lady was at a bar and had a prosthetic eye. Apparently she sensed that an altercationw as about to ensue and she decided to remove her prosthetic eye, wrap it up in a napkin and put it someplace for safekeeping (a place that only women have).

Well, presented to the ED because she could not retreive the eye. So, one of the residents had to go retreive the prosthesis.

Her purse?

 

[Seaglass]

There was a guy who was "minding his own business" when he walked out of a bar and - guess what - got assaulted. Some homeboy stabbed him in the ear and he must have really hated the guy because he stabbed him with a Honda Civic key.

So this guy is sitting there in front of me with this Honda keyu sticking out of his ear and man is it lodged in there. It goes right into the ear canal but the guy can hear pretty good so I figure it went into the mastoid. I got a plain film that confirmed it.

The resident asks me what to do so I told her to call ENT to have them come and pull it out. ENT of course says "Why can't you pull it out." so I figure we have to try. Well we're pulling and pulling - nothing. The resident and I left the room and were in the process of calling ENT back when the med student walks out with the key in her hand. I didn't ask her how she did it because I thought it would be better if I didn't know.

What I still wonder is how the assailant managed to get his car home.

 

[Wackie]

Her purse?

I'm betting it was her shirt pocket.



Strange experience:
Someone with insurance and looked to be in money experienced a strange, sudden onset hip pain rated at 6/10 w/o hx of trauma. But the strange hip pain was not the strange part...













She refused all pain meds. She didn't even want motrin. Whaaa??? Nearly everyone's head exploded with the strangeness of it. Nurses were passing out. It was ugly.

 

[ERMudPhud]

There was a guy who was "minding his own business" when he walked out of a bar and - guess what - got assaulted. Some homeboy stabbed him in the ear and he must have really hated the guy because he stabbed him with a Honda Civic key.

So this guy is sitting there in front of me with this Honda keyu sticking out of his ear and man is it lodged in there. It goes right into the ear canal but the guy can hear pretty good so I figure it went into the mastoid. I got a plain film that confirmed it.

The resident asks me what to do so I told her to call ENT to have them come and pull it out. ENT of course says "Why can't you pull it out." so I figure we have to try. Well we're pulling and pulling - nothing. The resident and I left the room and were in the process of calling ENT back when the med student walks out with the key in her hand. I didn't ask her how she did it because I thought it would be better if I didn't know.

What I still wonder is how the assailant managed to get his car home.

Honda keys are a pain. You have to make sure the car is in neutral and there is a little button on the column you have to push to get the key out...







...oh wait never mind

 

[Mary Jane Watson]

On a crazy shift one day, a bunch of us watched a coffin (with flowers and funeral procession) go through our ED. They proceeded to have a funeral in the trauma bays. Turns out a man and his wife were in an MVC - he was in a traction bed and she died. The bed would not fit through the chapel doors for the service. The only place it would fit was the trauma bay. So the word came from on high (our trauma chief) that it was OK to hold the service there.

 

[AmoryBlaine]

I'm betting it was her shirt pocket.



Strange experience:
Someone with insurance and looked to be in money experienced a strange, sudden onset hip pain rated at 6/10 w/o hx of trauma. But the strange hip pain was not the strange part...













She refused all pain meds. She didn't even want motrin. Whaaa??? Nearly everyone's head exploded with the strangeness of it. Nurses were passing out. It was ugly.

Ha ha ha ha I love it. When I was on Medicine I admitted a guy in a sickle crisis who I practically had to beg to get him to allow me to bump his PCA. I'd go in to see him and in his unfailingly polite way he would tell me his pain was "7/10" while he sweated and tach'ed away in front of me. Then he would refuse an increase in his Dilaudid.

Unbelievable.

 

[Wackie]

Ha ha ha ha I love it. When I was on Medicine I admitted a guy in a sickle crisis who I practically had to beg to get him to allow me to bump his PCA. I'd go in to see him and in his unfailingly polite way he would tell me his pain was "7/10" while he sweated and tach'ed away in front of me. Then he would refuse an increase in his Dilaudid.

Unbelievable.

Seriously everyone was looking at each other and asking, "She doesn't want pain meds so what do we do now?"

 

[moonshade13]

My mom is the same way. I want to thump her on the head. I turn and say what are they to do then if you will not take pain meds, you are curled up in a ball crying.

back on topic I work in medical imaging, we had a patient come in and he was screaming do not touch me. then when we got him in the mri he was yelling I'm not dead yet. He thought we were putting him in a coffin. that was a fun day.