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 ?

I see a lot of patients do this in the context of seeking attention from friends and family; they're the ones that like to be able to tell their peeps that "It was so [bad/painful/horrible], I had to be [taken/rushed] to the ER [on Christmas/on Thanksgiving/during a blizzard]." You know, those fun patients who call everyone on their shiny new cellphones the minute their behinds hit the mattress, exclaiming, "OMG, I've been admitted to the ER!" *snort* That's no feat ... we take everyone! :D

These are the same ones who want to know when meals are, and how soon the TV can be turned on as soon as they get to their rooms, too.http://images.allnurses.com/smilies/angryfire.gif

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And then there was the guy who arrived by ambulance, got off the stretcher and walked into the waiting room to the vending machine for a sandwich - his whole reason for coming was to get a sandwich from the machine, and he didn't have the $$ for a cab and didn't want to walk! And THEN he wanted the ambulance to take him back home!

And the teenage girl who came in on...guess...Christmas Day, wanting her earlobe sewn back together - more than a year after she caught her earring with her hairbrush and pulled it thru the lobe, ripping it. She was not happy when the doc told her that was an unrealistic expectation...

Savvy

A few days ago, someone came in asking for a CT scan of his kidneys to take for his appointment with his urologist. He and his daughter came half an hour before his scheduled appointment. There may have been some sort of misunderstanding or something because the patient spoke no English and his daughter spoke broken English. They were sent off very quickly, no CT done. After all, his appointment was in half an hour.

Another time a patient came for the sole reason of getting admitted to the hospital. His doctor has admitting privileges but sent this guy through the ED, ticking off the doctor I worked with that day.

Specializes in CVICU, ER.

I have a good story and I promise this is so true. EMS brings this guy in one night. CC, self castration! I promise, no lie. The report I got was he just didn't want to have sex with his wife anymore. EMS report says this. Pt went to Tractor Supply, bought some type of lidocaine product for horses and a scalpal, went home, laid plastic then towels on the bathroom floor and proceeded to cut his testicles out, one then the other. After much blood loss, he called in the wife to the b'room, who called EMS. She then did what her culture believes will stop uncontrolled bleeding and packed the wound with coffee grounds. EMS got there, said it looked like someone had been killed. The actual pt, who spoke very little broken english, pointed to a towel. The paramedic unfolded the towel to find 2 perfectly round detached testicles... That's Nuts!!! (LOL, that's actually what the doc said.) Anyway, it was a mess. Coffee grounds were everywhere. And we had to get him ready for emergency surgery to stop the bleeding. No hope for reattaching anything. The charge nurse actually had the opinion that this guy was of sound mind. I was like, what? Sound mind, seriously? Most ppl will just say "I have a HA". This was big for our dept. Everyone was stopping by to peek in on the drama.

I have a good story and I promise this is so true. EMS brings this guy in one night. CC, self castration! I promise, no lie. The report I got was he just didn't want to have sex with his wife anymore. EMS report says this. Pt went to Tractor Supply, bought some type of lidocaine product for horses and a scalpal, went home, laid plastic then towels on the bathroom floor and proceeded to cut his testicles out, one then the other. After much blood loss, he called in the wife to the b'room, who called EMS. She then did what her culture believes will stop uncontrolled bleeding and packed the wound with coffee grounds. EMS got there, said it looked like someone had been killed. The actual pt, who spoke very little broken english, pointed to a towel. The paramedic unfolded the towel to find 2 perfectly round detached testicles... That's Nuts!!! (LOL, that's actually what the doc said.) Anyway, it was a mess. Coffee grounds were everywhere. And we had to get him ready for emergency surgery to stop the bleeding. No hope for reattaching anything. The charge nurse actually had the opinion that this guy was of sound mind. I was like, what? Sound mind, seriously? Most ppl will just say "I have a HA". This was big for our dept. Everyone was stopping by to peek in on the drama.

Awful. When I still worked in the ED, we had a self-castration too. Guy felt that sexual thoughts were the work of the devil, and he was going to see to it that the devil couldn't drive him to sin. Extremely religions man, by all accounts. Somehow, I don't think this is what God wanted him to do... I was not on that day, but he apparently did a pretty nice clean surgical job! It's hard to imagine what kind of inner voices drive someone to do such a thing. I have a schizophrenic family member and have a great deal of sympathy, but sure can't say I understand!

Savvy

Specializes in Emergency.

"That's nuts!" Ha ha!!!

We had a psych pt who used a knife to cut into the side of a coke can to make a sharp tool out of the aluminum to cut his off. It didn't work but did make a huge mess. Still don't get the logic....

Specializes in Trauma/ED, SANE/FNE, LNC.

had a guy come in with sudden onset of blurred vision in his left eye. when the tech took him to the machine to check his visual acuity she picked up his glasses and guess what? The lens in the left side of his glasses was missing!!! He didnt bother checking, he just ran to the ER as fast as he could!

Left with his broken glasses and an ER bill. Think the Insurance company will pay for this visit?

Specializes in CVICU, ER.
had a guy come in with sudden onset of blurred vision in his left eye. when the tech took him to the machine to check his visual acuity she picked up his glasses and guess what? The lens in the left side of his glasses was missing!!! He didnt bother checking, he just ran to the ER as fast as he could!

Left with his broken glasses and an ER bill. Think the Insurance company will pay for this visit?

LOL, bet he felt like a loser. That's what happens when ppl start using the ED as their pcp...

-Constipated girl demanding that we remove the fecal contents and numb her rectum so it don't hurt when she poops

-hang nail

-baby crying and wouldn't stop- turns out his shoes were too tight. Once the shoes were off, he was fine

-pregnancy test

-foreign objects removed from the rectum

I could go on an on....

Specializes in ER, pedsER, SICU, Trauma.
A white kitten brought in to a major trauma center in the middle of the night because it fell off the sofa and hurt its leg. 50 bed busy trauma center with 5 doctors all stopped what they were doing and looked at the kitten walk across the floor.

Once I had a mom and daughter brought by in by EMS after a very mild MVC. EMS handed us a cardboard box and told us the daughter's ferret had also survived the accident. Apparently he had epistaxis at the scene which was now resolved. The ferret had to be babysat in the charge office until dad could come retrieve him. They were all discharged. That might have been the day I decided I could not work anywhere else.

Specializes in OBGYN.

Blue hands. No pain. Turned out the pt had bought a new pair of blue jeans and the dye rubbed off on her hands.

In the ER was a guy who came in saying he had " groin pain" he acted very peculiar and it was hard to get a history and definitive c/c. Said he could only talk to the male doc. So when we finally get him in the back, I try to talk to him and explain to him i work for a fire dept as well and I work with all men and I am very understanding....come to find out, he came to the ER cause he had masterbated earlier in the day and now " can't get it up" for his wife who would be coming home and wanted sex. He said if she found out he had masterbated she would kick him out and divorce him so it was easier to come into the ER and complain something was wrong.

Ohhh some of the crazy 911 calls I had to respond to ( of course in the middle of the night)

1. mosquito bite to tip of member

2. several calls to the casinos for CP... had no pain at all except they had no ride back to Memphis so they took an ambulance and once we arrived at ER, they got out and either walked to their house or caught a ride

3. same call from Memphis Motor Sports Park during NHRA race, c/c CP, got to ER and he removed himself from stretcher and said thanks for the ride. Some Memphis FF/PMs knew him by his first name and said he does it all the time.

4. Shortly after Hurricane Katrina we saw multiple patients from same family who came to ER for " Hurricane flashbacks" and told us their doc from back home said only Oxycontin would help alleviate the flashbacks and it would be easier to give them 60 day supply until they could get back. So i asked which city in LA they were from and they couldn't remember, they were that traumatized. I made up a city, yep thats where they were from, i made up a street name.. would you believe they lived on that same street !

For all the BS that came into the ER, some of them were miraculously healed after a nice 8 and 12 hour theraputic wait :)

Specializes in OR,ICU.

i have had kidney stones 3 times, they are no joke.this last time they used toradol which actually worked better than the morphine.:)

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