True ER stories

Nurses Humor

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Our ER gets lots of calls from residents in our rural area. One day a lady called and said her daughter had spilled some vinegar on herself earlier that day and now she has a red rash. The nurse who answered the phone said, "well I've never heard of a rash from vinegar, but I guess it's possible."

Another old ER nurse said, "Ask her if it was boiling at the time it spilled on her."

The rest of us burst into laughter. He said, "I've been doing this long enough, you gotta ask."

So the nurse on the phone asked, "Was it hot?"

The caller replied, "Yeah, it's been real hot here today."

You just gotta shake your head.

Overheard in the ER, says one family member to another, "they took mom down for a "cap" scan of her head."

Why is it that at 2 am on a Saturday night, that four month old back injury suddenly requires medical intervention? And why do you have to bring six family members in dire need of personal hygiene measures along? And if it hurts so bad, how can you talk and laugh loudly while eating corn chips and drinking Pepsi on your way out the door for a quick smoke (since the doc can't see you for 10 minutes anyway)?!

God, I love this job!

I will never forget the 80something in bed with a NOF # whom I found sucking on her now disconnected (by her) indwelling catheter. She looked at me and said "join me in a drink dearie" as she offered me her "straw". For some reason I gave that free drink a miss!

My most incredible ER story is when a very "wasted" young lady was brought to the ER by the police for a pelic exam following a drug bust. They felt she had secreted a small stash. The doc found a parcel all right! A small order of McDonalds French Fries wrapper in all!!! Apparantly, the girl was in a real hurry and grabbed the wrong package!

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Originally posted by outbackannie:

My most incredible ER story is when a very "wasted" young lady was brought to the ER by the police for a pelic exam following a drug bust. They felt she had secreted a small stash. The doc found a parcel all right! A small order of McDonalds French Fries wrapper in all!!! Apparantly, the girl was in a real hurry and grabbed the wrong package!

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Originally posted by sherryleetns:

Nurse call- Around 3am the registration clerk yells out "nurse call" I Answered the phone caller states there is something wrong with my baby,(as all er nurses know this statement can cover an entire spectrum of ills) but being the curious type I ask what seems to be the problem,"Well every time we change his diaper he screams" To which I respond "How old is your baby" Caller " 4 days old, and we have been doing everything the told us to do" They of course being the nursery nurse who had sent this tiny human home with these obviously unprepared parents. I then inguired "Is your baby a boy or girl" Caller"boy" To whichich I inguire "sir was your son circumsised to which he responded "YES, and we have been cleaning IT with alchohol like they showed us" After picturing in my mind this poor child who is probally traumatized for the rest of his life I told the FATHER, "lets just think about this amoment sir imagine if you will your skin being removed from your member and then someone pouring alchohol on it" SILENCE and then "O MY GOD" yes sir I reply i believe the correct treatment would be vasline to the area of discussion.

I have shared this story with many of my male co-workers and always the same shocked-grimace of pain as they realize this poor childs fate. p.s. love all your stories and comment, and THANK GOD for humor in the ER

I have two stories one is my own experience. I was working with a confused elderly man who had a J-P bulb in his abdominal surgical site. He was still NPO and kept saying how hungry he was. I caught him just as he was about to take a bite out of his JP bulb. I said, "Mr. Jones! What are you doing?" He responded irritably, "I'm trying to eat this potato!" I still call JP's "potato's" to this day!

In an ER where I once worked, an older couple came in, the husband in severe pain the wife sobbing. In the triage room the wife confessed, "I told him I didn't want to do it! But it is our 40th anniversary and he wanted to try something different! And we can't get it out!" "It" was a small vibrator. The doc could barely reach it with the anoscope and it was still ON (Energizer batteries apparently) and so the poor fellow wound up having emergency surgery to remove the vibrator --which on X-ray revealed it had migrated quite far up his colon!

You must admire the loyalty this wife had for not dropping him off at the ER doors and sped away!

MartyL, that is hilarious. Ouch, on that vibrator surgical removal. My good friend was an ER nurse years ago, in fact, she was one of Elvis's nurses. I keep trying to get her to come in here to share her hilarious ER stories or at least some Elvis stories. P.S. I love Biloxi. Thanks, fellow Southerner.

I was in nursing school and doing my clinical rotation through the ER when this young girl came in. She said that she was pregnant and that she had a bladder infection because she had cramps and every time she went voided she was bleeding. We ran a pregnancy test on her which was negative. She was menstruating. The nurses in the ER told me that they get that a lot.

One of the stories from our ER (from way before I was even a nurse) is that of the man that was so amazed by his colonoscopy photos that he decided to make a plaster cast of what the scope showed. Needless to say, when the plaster hardened, he was in real trouble and rushed to surgery. The surgeon still has the cast that formed. This is the same surgeon who removed a vibrator from another patient and sent it to pathology :) (Gotta love doctor humor!)

Specializes in ICU and EMS.
The funniest ER story I ever heard came from a friend. On a slow nite this older gentleman came in - he was kind of fidgeting around. His story was "My hemmorhoids were acting up, and I was out of Preparation H. Didn't know what to do until I saw the jar of Vicks. Maam, if I was a dog, I'd be dragging my 'backside' on the floor." I still laugh about that one. Vicks is such a cure-all, esp. with the 'olders' and they're always so amazed that we don't have it in the formulary.

I just got back from a medical mission trip in a poor mountainous region in the Dominican Republic. Everyone asked for Vicks... apparently down there it is the cure-all for everything from stuffy noses, and headaches to dry skin and insect bites! They also suck on Hall's cough drops like candy!

I work in a small regional hospital er that does not take phone triage. we often get calls about sick children and we have to tell them to come in if they feel the need but we can not give medical advice over the phone. This worked well enough until:jester: one day i answered the phone to hear a young voice (maybe all of 12 years old) ask me what was the best time to "breed" a 23 year old women. what could I say?????... sorry we can't give medical advice over the phone:uhoh3:

Specializes in OB, M/S, HH, Medical Imaging RN.

A young woman with purple hair, lots of tattoos and wearing weird clothes came in with abdominal pain. It was quickly determined that the patient had acute appendicitis, so she was scheduled for immediate surgery. When she was on the operating table, the doc noticed that her pubic hair had been dyed green and above it there was a tattoo that read, "Keep off the grass." Once the surgery was completed, the surgeon wrote a short note on the patient's dressing which said, "Sorry, had to mow the lawn." :lol2:

A young woman with purple hair, lots of tattoos and wearing weird clothes came in with abdominal pain. It was quickly determined that the patient had acute appendicitis, so she was scheduled for immediate surgery. When she was on the operating table, the doc noticed that her pubic hair had been dyed green and above it there was a tattoo that read, "Keep off the grass." Once the surgery was completed, the surgeon wrote a short note on the patient's dressing which said, "Sorry, had to mow the lawn." :lol2:

That's awesome...I'm sure she got a kick out of it too. That kind of humor really makes a hospital stay more pleasant for the patient, IMO.

My brother dialyzed through a permacath, and every week, the tech who changed his dressing had to initial it. She would also write him a little note (backwards so he could read it in the mirror) or draw a little doodle on it. He always looked forward to going home and reading what she wrote on his dressing..and she did this every week for two straight years. What a sweetie.

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