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 ?

Talk about parent in denial or just plain dumb......

While working a rural ER gig.....

Dad (Daryls brother Daryl...) comes in with 7 year old son (nose-pickin' and bouncing off the walls) stating son banned from riding school bus because he peed on some other children riders. (not wet his pants....I clarified....actually peed on)

"Do you think he has Diabetes?", says dad, "I heard that it can cause stuff like that" ....(as son is pulling cotton balls out of a jar on the counter...)

um yeah...:uhoh3:

For some reason, this reminded me of a funny story about my grandfather. One day, out of the blue, he told me that I should take my daughter to the ED. She was about 9 months old at the time, and happily playing, so I asked him why. He told me that the bald patches on her head were worrying him. I explained to him about babies losing hair and that she was just a little later than most, her MD had already commented on it.

Later that day, my mom calls me laughing. Grandpa had went to her, telling her that she needed to make me take the baby to the ED right now because if I didn't she could die. Mom pressed him for why he thought something was wrong and finally he told her that he'd watched a special about Leukemia the night before and all of the kids who had it were losing thier hair. :rolleyes:

Here is my UTI experience and what's so messed up about our healthcare system. AT work, started to feel it coming on. I had one in the past and knew what it was right away. Got off work and called my PCP and asked him to call something in for me. Oh, hell no, can't do that...gotta see you....(jesus C.....I AM an ICU nurse...it's not like i'm diagnosing a heart condition and asking you to call in some Cardizem or something..) No available appt. until Tues. (4 days away)...Now that's some good preventative medicine...How far will this infection travel by tuesday? It's 4:30. Can barely pee by then. So I head over to a doc in the box. (never been to one before, hell, have paid for insurance for 17 years and barely used it) Doc in the box says I need a referral or my insurance won't cover it. WHAT?? They call my PCP, he say NO...haven't seen her for it, she needs to make appt here or go to ER. GO TO ER?? Good use of insurance. Doc in the box says insurance won't pay for this ER visit either. I call my PCP personally from doc in the box. I told the office nurse my dilemma, can't pee, lots of pain, gotta work in AM. I told her I was 6 blocks away and would be in shortly and will sit in the waiting room and be last appointment of the day, if necessary, to be seen. I was sooooo pissed. Nurse comes back on the phone and snottily says, fine, just come in. Can you believe this crap? If I would have been on welfare...NO PROBLEM...ala carte service...free of charge. Changed PCP's.

I have to say, welfare is not all it's cracked up to be. While it may be true that you could have gone right to the ED without any referral bull, there are plenty of other drawbacks, besides the fact of needing to be well below the poverty line to qualify. For instance, only being allowed 6 prescriptions a month. Having a pretty limited choice of PCP's. A huge list of medications that aren't covered at all. Limitations such as with pain killers, only being allowed 3 prescriptions in a 75 day period, of no more than 30 count.

My neighbor has MS and is on medi-cal. I probably spend 4-6 hours a month on the phone with her social worker trying to help her get special authorizations for all the medication she needs. It took me over three months of complaing to get her pain pills straightened out for her. She was expected to make due with 1 Vicodin a day. Not even extra strength, just the standard 5/500 which is all medi-cal covers. Strangely, it bypasses the mid-level drugs, but does cover things like Morphine, which I finally convinced her doctor to give her. Poor woman was suffering horribly, and is unable to walk, or stand or barely move, all she could do is lie in bed and suffer.

Sorry to ramble, but medi-cal recipients should be pitied, not begrudged the little they get just because some abuse it. I'm sure just as many blue cross members abuse the ED.

[i had a woman come in via ambulance stating her colon fell out while on the toilet. When she realized what happened, she said she 'pushed the rest of it back in'. She brought in a paper plate with what she said was the part of her colon that had fallen in the toilet. Needless to say, it was feces. The EDMD told her, "if it looks like sh__ and smells like sh__, then it is sh__!".

I also had a 17 year old boy come in with his mother complaining of constipation. During triage, he refused to sit down. He said that he tried to 'get it out' by using tweezers. Upon exam, we found the handles to BBQ tongs protruding from his rectum. The Xray showed large tongs all the way up into the colon. The tip of the tongs were jagged and would could not be removed without causing internal trauma. He required surgery with a colon ressection and a ver legnthy hospital stay.

Those are my 2 best stories.

guy comes to the ED with c/o "my wife says that my member is going the other way. It's gone left for 26 years and now it's going right". First of all, I was the only "girl nurse" working with three big "boy nurses" that night. Secondly, who do you think was assigned to this nutcase? Third, the boy nurses couldn't stop laughing loudly while I'm trying to maintain a professional demeanor. Fourth, when asked if he had any med hx, he of course says "no" and takes off his shirt and exposes a chest and abdo that looks like Dr. Frankenstein had experimented on him. "That's nothing, just an old gunshot wound". That was it, I left the room, wrote PE deferred to MD. MD got quitethe kick out if it...

But on the other hand, at least he made us laugh. Our ED is currently inundated and over-run, and had a 30-ish well kept female in the other day by ambulance who had belly pain for 15 MINUTES. No n/v/d, laughing and talking to her multiple friends who rushed to the ER when they found out that she was there, apparently in extremis, and complained loudly and was very snotty about having to wait to be seen- in the midst of some of the worst chaos I have seen in 16 years of this crap. These folks don't make you laugh, they make you homicidal.

:rolleyes:

Specializes in NICU/Neonatal transport.

It's also frustrating as a parent when you are sent to the ER by the Dr. for what you really feel is non-emergent, but it's apparently the only way to get things done.

My son had fractured his fibula when he was just under 3. Speech and language delay and sensory integration issues: he was completely unaware of it and we caught it because of a mild limp. They told us at 6pm on a friday night we had to go into the children's ER to get his leg set (he had his xrays taken at 9am, but it apparently took that long to get the radiologist to look at them)

I've also been sent by my PCP because DD is a very snuffly child when not ill, and when she gets sick, it's hard to tell if she's wheezing or not. All I wanted was a nurse to listen to her lungs and tell me if she was clear or not. I know that if it's an upper wheeze, there's no concern, I just didn't have the ability to tell the difference. (hell, with my own asthma, someone else usually notifies of my wheezing before I notice)

Well, I don't disagree with what you say, but I think it is more than not having access to a primary care provider. I live in a very rural area in the deep south, and even here we have a Public Health Department, a federally funded clinic for the indigent and working poor as well as a community mental health center.

Unfortunately, I think many folks come to the ER for other reasons:

-convenience (no need to make an appointment, and where else can you get your kids' runny noses checked out, your vag bleeding evaluated and your mom's migraine treated all at the same time and place? I mean, what ER nurse hasn't heard "While I'm here....")

-ignorance

-entertainment

-avoidence (you can't hardly go back to your pcp for more Lorcet when you just got your 'script filled yesterday)

-the system: some people must have that dreaded doctor's excuse to go back to work after only one sick day and if you live in an area with no urgent care, what can they do? Also, I think we've taught people over the past few generations to rely on the system instead of thinking for themselves (so of course you bring you kids to the doc if they vomit once).

-lack of funds (like we're not going to ask them to pay and then follow-up on it)

I think the answer is going to depend on a change in the whole health care system, and pardon my cynical attitude, but that ain't gonna happen any time soon.

I frequently tell parent when they bring 2 or more children to the E.R. for minor illnesses that "we charge triple for family affairs":crying2: :crying2:
Specializes in Trauma, Teaching.

Had a custodial mom bring in a toddler who had been visiting non-custodial dad, because there was a scratch on the bottom of the kid's foot.

Scratch was old, mostly healed, not open anywhere, not red, .... but grandma said it might be abuse and go get looked at. Mom got kind of red looking at it, and asked if it really needed attention. I just kept slowly shaking my head from side to side saying "it is against the law for me to tell you YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE SEEN", she'd ask something else, and I just kept repeating myself. She decided not to be seen after all. :uhoh3:

(triage does not count as medical screening required by EMTALA)

I guess my weirdest thing I saw while working in the ER as a tech was a crack addict who tried to shoot up in the veins in her breasts. She had developed a pretty bad abcess. I remember the doctor coming in and I asked if I could watch (I was about to enter nursing school as was always really interested in watching interesting things). He says yes and that its a lot like popping a zit. After numbing it and cleaning up the area he made a small incision on the top of the abcess and squeezed both sides and puss popped and ran out everywhere, I couldn't believe how deep it was. Like 2 inches deep! WOW.

Oh I guess another interesting thing I saw in the ER was a homeless man with a really bad infection in his toes. When I helped him take off his shoes I knew it was going to be bad cause his sock was soaked in puss or icky stuff like that. With my gloves on (thank GOD) I took off his sock and much to my surprise, MAGGOTS everywhere all over the wounds. I had never heard of such a thing. I bought had a fit. I said to the guy, "Do you know you have worms in your wound?" He said, "I do?" "Yah, it looks pretty sore and dirty.

I learned later that the maggots actually do a good job of cleaning away the dead tissue and debris. Interesting. And YUcky.

Thanks for listening,. Curleysue :rotfl:

21- yr old M c/o nausea and vomiting X 1 day. Stated he was out late Friday night at a bar, drinking with his friends, then woke up Sat. morning with HA, nausea and vomiting, feels like room is spinning. Says, "I think there was something in my drink."

Yeah, Einstein, it's called ALCOHOL! :rotfl:

I don't think you are the least bit stupid. You seem to be a caring, concerned parent. As you said, there was a lot of blood, and you didn't know how severe the injury was. The ED is equipped to handle a lot more than the average pediatrician office. So look at it this way, what if the injury had been more serious and you took him to his MD's office only to have it be more than they could handle? They would have sent you to the ED, or called EMS to take him to the ED, and then you would have had 3 bills to pay, not just one. You did the best you could with the information you had at the time. As far as I'm concerned, you win the "good mom" award.

Absolutely! Sure, it was a (luckily) superficial head wound--but you would have never forgiven yourself if you made that assessment yourself, and it turned out to be a fractured skull or a subdural hematoma, and he was seemingly fine, but suddenly got drowsy and maybe even lost consciousness--and emergency care was delayed. I agree; you did exactly the right thing utilizing the information you had at that point in time.

One summer evening at our inner city ER I did the initial intake on a somewhat intoxicated hispanic man who complained, "there is stuff coming out of my stomach." I asked if he was nauseous or vomiting and he said, " No, stuff is coming out of my stomach." I asked if he had a wound and he said "No, stuff is coming out of my stomach. I show you." With that he pulled up his T shirt and pointed to his umbilicus. There he was growing a fine crop of belly button lint. I cleaned this out with an alcohol swab and explained that it came from his shirt. I could see he was not sure he could believe me but offered to let him stay and talk to the MD if he wanted to. He left.

How any male reaches adulthood without encountering belly button lint I do not know. Perhaps he was a recent arrival from sunny climes and had never before worn snug, knited cotton clothing.

and do 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 :)

Pt. X was using his friend's drugs. After he got high for 4 days on them, he wanted the hospital lab to analyze his drugs to see what he had been taking.:uhoh3:

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