What was the MOST ridiculous thing a patient came to the ER for?

Specialties Emergency Nursing Q/A

And did you have to treat them?

I am just curious. Your stories always seem to either crack me up or shake my head in amazement.

Thanks for sharing ?

Specializes in Urology.

I've had several crazy complaints but one of the best has to be the young girl who came in for a pregnancy test. Now I know others have said this is also the dumbest thing but this particular pregnancy test takes the cake. She came in with a purse full of positive home tests but her boyfriend refused to believe her. He told her to go to the hospital and get a "blood test" just to be sure. I looked at her and calmly told her to dump her purse full of positive tests in front of her boyfriend and explained to her that she is infact pregnant. The blood test is no different from the OTC ones you can buy and if you have 5+ positive tests, I'm pretty sure the writing is on the wall. At this point I told her to leave as there is nothing we could do since there was no real medical complaint.

Today I had a patient come in by ambulance due to nausea. Said nausea has been going on for >5 years, per patient. She also complained of breast tenderness, which had begun in 1969. She already had an appointment with her primary, and had been getting treated for her chronic nausea, but figured we would be able to do more than her primary. Her nausea/tenderness was no worse today than it was 5 years ago. Her vitals were taken and she was discharged within approx 5 minutes.

I read this entire thread from start to finish because I love the ER so much.

Had a patient brought in to the ER by the police after being arrested, she was claiming she had mad cow disease because she had eaten a lot of beef. She was really proud of herself because she thought she had outsmarted the cops by pretending to be sick, and was outraged when they actually came back to discharge her to jail. Also, lunch that day in the ER Secure Unit was meatloaf.

Oh god,some people are so stupid,I can't! What don't they understand in the word "emergency"??? That's self explanatory,though :no:

How can they wait for hours for dumb reasons like that??? Once thing is sure is they're way more patient that I am :facepalm:

Specializes in Emergency.

Nothing on tv.

Specializes in Nursing Faculty, ER Nurse.

We have had at least a couple of patients this year come in complaining that they got arrested the night before and the handcuffs hurt....

Specializes in Medsurg/ICU, Mental Health, Home Health.
Vince_RN said:
Another favorite of mine is the folks the police bring in on mental health holds even though there is no mental health complaint simply because they were annoying people and generating 911 calls.

Yeah, one of my patients has a mental illness in addition to being moderately MR. He knows right from wrong and lives at a house with staffing...however, he's allowed to come and go as he pleases and he LOVES to go to Burger King, the gas station, convenience stores, etc. and shoplift (sodas).

The workers at the stores call police the second they spot him in their establishment. So the cops take him to the psych ER and one of our case managers has to go pick him up. He's not there for any PSYCH reason!

Earlier this week, he skipped over the middle man and walked to the psych ER himself. Why?

He wanted a cup of coffee.

The constables at the hospital got sick of him so drove him over to our office rather than having him annoy everyone until a case manager to get there.

A girl came in to my ER last year saying "her weave was too tight".

They actually come over to me, since I am black and asked if it was normal! It was too funny to even get offended, the resident was really at a loss. I went in there and looked her in the eye and said "you knew it was too tight when you left the stylist. You need a new stylist".

Problem solved.

Right buttcheek ache one day after an IM injection.

Specializes in Emergency Medicine, Injury Prevention.

The silliest ones that actually made me turn around and walk out of the room, so the pt could not see my facial expressions were

~~ " I just changed my tooth paste and now my gums are sore" ( I asked her, is that it? do you have a toothache, bleeding, fever...etc, "No my gums are just a little sore and I want them checked out"

~~ Ems brings a pt in around 4am from Walmart with "I stubbed my toe at work" yep that was her only complaint, oh and she needed a work note for a week"

~~ Young female states "I got a french tickler stuck up in me, for a month" ................and she did, that took a lot of vicks vapor rub in my nose to get thru

You can imagine over 28 years as a nurse in the ER and another 5 as a ED tech, I feel like my eyes and brain will never be right again

Frequent flyer psych pt comes into ED and sits for a few minutes. Everyone including housekeeping knows him by name. He comes up to the registration window and says " gimme $5 and I won't check in." Checks in after his request was denied[emoji15][emoji15]

Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
NurseOnAMotorcycle said:
Called a pt in to be triaged. he stopped three steps from triage and yelled this chief complaint quote:

"F--- you, you f---ing c---!"

then walked out of the ED. I still have no idea why he came in.

How cultured and generous of him...to leave.

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