So, I'm working in the ICU, down to one patient because my other one got a helicopter ride to the big flagship teaching hospital in the capital....when we get a call from ER around 2 am. Patient unresponsive, found in the middle of the road, possibly hit by unknown vehicle, can my charge let me come down? I also work in ER so I could be an extra set of hands down there for the patient, and since I'd be the one getting them anyway...win for ER, win for ICU. I'm visualizing some poor guy walking the dog and getting sideswiped...it happens.
My charge says she'll look after my no-trouble-at-all new onset afib, and down to the ER I go. Whereupon, I descend into one of Dante's Levels of Hell -- the one where they put people who don't like drunk rednecks.
There's approximately 4 carloads of folks, all drunk, half of which have beaten up the other half at some sort of family party (not very expertly, I don't think any of them could see straight enough at that point to land a solid punch). I don't think there were enough teeth in the whole waiting room to supply one mouth. Three people are being seen, getting split eyebrows fixed, a hand xray'd for possible broken bones (don't put your thumb inside your fist, idiot), general fight stuff, but the big topic of conversation is, "Where's John?" John was at the party, decided to come with the rest of the clan to the ER, but somehow isn't there with the rest of the Wild Bunch. "He was gonna ride with you," "well, he didn't, cause he's not here," "don't your yell at her, you...." and on it went.
In rolls the "unresponsive" patient, who is now loudly responsive, and, of course, it's John. Our poor ER doc, who is bar none the most unflappable person I've ever met, follows the stretcher into the trauma room. "SIR," he says as we're hooking the patient to telemetry, sorting out the IV, "can you tell me what happened?"
"I got hit by a car!" Now, the guy has one spot of road rash on his shoulder, another on his hip, and his arm's scratched up, but you don't need xray vision to see that no vehicle has hit this guy. And you don't need a breathalyzer to know what the guy's been doing all day, I think the hair actually fell out of my nose.
"SIR, how do you know you were hit by a car?"
"Because they found me in the ROAD."
"SIR, why were you in the road?"
"Because I got hit by a CAR."
I went back to the ICU and got the scoop later. Turns out John was in the back of someone's pickup, and was found at an intersection. The driver stopped, John thought they were at the hospital, (pitchblack dark, no lights, no building, no hospital, just a stop sign, so, hey, we must be at the ER)....and stepped off the back of the truck. In all the drunken confusion, nobody noticed that they left home with more folks than actually arrived at the ER. Or presumably heard the loud "thud" as John was suddenly attacked by gravity.
In the meantime, the folks getting worked on have all been naming their attackers, giving fierce denials that they ever threw a punch, all while dabbing their bleeding knuckles, and in strolls the local cops as John gets wheeled to radiology, telling everyone, "I got hit by a CARRRRrrr...." The guy with the split eyebrow suddenly "remembers" that he wasn't in a fight, he wasn't hit at all...he tripped over a coffee table. The other guys hear the cops and suddenly that coffee table is the most dangerous thing in the whole county...every single one of those young men tripped over it, and one explained his bleeding knuckles by saying he was trying to help the others back up and must have skinned it on that coffee table. Nobody was drinking, in fact, these righteous young men were actually having Bible study...and yes, they knew it was the middle of the night, they had to get ready for their Sunday school classes, no doubt. John comes back, cleared by radiology and now wanting to find the driver of the car that hit him. Loudly. Cops leave, ticked off.
The ER doc is getting more and more upset with these idiots, and finally tosses them out of the ER, saying, "All of you -- OUT! And put John INSIDE the truck."
Well, in the end, the local "po-po" was smarter than I thought, and just "happened" to set up a field sobriety checkpoint between the hospital's driveway and the turn they had to make to go back to their trailers, and the drivers spent the night in the local jail for DUI...including John, who promptly told the cops, "that ER doctor said I had to get inside, and Junior was too drunk to drive."
You just can't make this stuff up....names changed to protect the incredibly guilty.....
