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

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 ER, ICU, Infusion, peds, informatics.
as for the strangest thing i've seen in the er, once we had a guy come in with a laceration to his member. the computer said his complaint was "split member." you should have seen everyone's faces, that was priceless! turns out it was a tiny little laceration that was stitched up and he was sent on his way. guess someone in triage or registration overreacted? ;)

christina

we had a guy come in one night who had tried to do a self-circumcision. :eek:

definatly an emergency. he was lucky the er doc that night was trained as a surgeon.

what makes it ridiculous is that well, he tried to do a self-circumcision. if i remember correctly, he used orajel as an anesthetic. what was he thinking?

Specializes in Medical-Surgical, Hemodialysis.

I don't know if this is ridiculous but I do find it somewhat entertaining... now that is. This happened three years ago.

I have two daughter's and my oldest scared the living daylights out of me one day. I went to the bathroom and before I could even get the door closed I heard a crash. My oldest daughter, who was five at the time, had climbed on one of her little sister's baby toys. (It was a Fisher Price walker or as I referred to a mini version of Granny's minus the tennis balls) I asked my miniature acrobat to sit on the sofa. I checked her over and made sure that everything moved and nothing was threatening to fall off. She wasn't crying uncontrollably but she was a little upset. I spent the next three minutes talking to her and asked her how she felt and she told me that her neck hurt her. After telling her that I'm sure that it did hurt and that to avoid hurting our neck we shouldn't climb on and/or jump on things like that. I went into the kitchen to get her some tylenol and water. When I got back she wasn't able to move her neck. I called my father-in-law (my husband was at work) and told him that I needed him to come into town and to hurry. I called EMS and woke my youngest up from her nap. My oldest daughter got a nice ride on the ambulance with her Uncle the paramedic, which she thought was cool, and we were quite rather relieved after she received her x-ray therapy and ibuprofen. She was fine. I was embarrassed and apologizing left and right to the Nurses and Doctor's. They were extremely gracious and said that things like that happen sometimes.

I just thought I'd add that a year before this we went to the ER with the same daughter for staples. She was jumping on her bed and I reminded her that wasn't a wise idea. As soon as I left her room I heard a bang. My acrobat in training had hit her head on her bead and was bleeding quite nicely. Gotta love those head wounds. Thank God ( and knock on wood) we haven't had any back to school injuries the past few years.

Specializes in Med/Surg.
My favorite....

"I just want to get checked out". Checked out for what?

This is ussually stated post minor MVC, fall, child falling off couch onto carpet, tumbling off a bike, doing new drugs, having 'relations' with people one is unsure of, etc..... and the conversation will often go like this...

"I just want to get (add a 'my son or daughter)checked out."

RN--"does it hurt anywhere, do you feel unwell?"

"no"

VSS, good colour, ambulatory etc. How do you triage this? What do they want us to check? Would a family doctor or phone line not be more appropiate? I once had a lady bring both her very well looking, playful children in to be 'checked out' after they might have had a drink of a puddle that was on the road a few hours earlier--she wanted us to pump their stomachs!!!!!

HERE'S YOUR CHECK---GO HOME!!!!!

LOL....

"Here's your sign"........Bob Engvall, Blue Collar Comedy Tour

Specializes in Emergency.

My most ridiculous patient complaint: A 54 year old male presented to the ER complaining of an "itchy rash". When asked how long he had the rash, he replied "22 years". When I asked him what was so different that this rash would make him come to the ER at 0200, he said, "I just couldn't take it anymore!"

Specializes in med-surg.

Once I had a mother call the ER because , no kidding, the PA had performed a "splinterectomy" on her son the night before and his finger was red. Denied c/o drainage, streaking, fever, ect. After asking why she didn't see her MD at the clinic today, to which she replied, "O i have a medical card" ( surprise, surprise) I Told her that she was the mother and since she could actually lay eyes on the finger, and I could not, to use her best judgement. Then she asked me if I could page the PA and have him meet her in ER in 10min, because her "husband had to be at work in 30 min and needed the car". And we wonder why healthcare is so expensive>>>>>>>>>>>

Specializes in critical care, ED, Health promotion, car.

I agree, hang nails are BEYOND ridiculous, but how about this? My husband is an EMT and one night, at 2am, he got a call to bring a patient to the ED for....."CHAPPED LIPS!" :uhoh3: Ya HATE when that happens!!!:chuckle

I no longer work the ED, but somebody came in for removal of blackheads when I was working there. Now THAT was pretty silly - right up there w/ hangnails! Savvy

Specializes in ortho/neuro/general surgery.

I just thought I'd add that a year before this we went to the ER with the same daughter for staples. She was jumping on her bed and I reminded her that wasn't a wise idea. As soon as I left her room I heard a bang. My acrobat in training had hit her head on her bead and was bleeding quite nicely. Gotta love those head wounds. Thank God (and knock on wood) we haven't had any back to school injuries the past few years.

Earlier this summer my severely mentally challenged son got too wound up and picked up a round metal thing (part of a camper or trailer, I think, I'm not sure what it was), and chucked it at his little sister's head. We were visiting friends at a campground where they were staying the weekend. I immediately grabbed him to calm him down and turned around to see my daughter's face covered in blood. :uhoh3: We ran her to the local ER immediately. Turns out it was a tiny scalp laceration that needed *1* staple. Oh, well... So I'm a nervous parent myself, sometimes.

Specializes in NICU, Infection Control.
Earlier this summer my severely mentally challenged son got too wound up and picked up a round metal thing (part of a camper or trailer, I think, I'm not sure what it was), and chucked it at his little sister's head. We were visiting friends at a campground where they were staying the weekend. I immediately grabbed him to calm him down and turned around to see my daughter's face covered in blood. :uhoh3: We ran her to the local ER immediately. Turns out it was a tiny scalp laceration that needed *1* staple. Oh, well... So I'm a nervous parent myself, sometimes.

When I was ~ 5, we were visiting friends near San Francisco; when we arrived, my father collapsed on their doorstep b/o a reaction to Penicillin! He recovers, and I'm out playing w/the local kids, an older boy picks up a piece of gravel and heaves it @ me--got me in the middle of the forehead. Went home crying, accompanied by a nicer child, scared the heck out of my mother. She took me to the dispensary (that's what they called "urgent care" in the Navy), they put a pressure dressing on w/some gauze and a piece of 1" adhesive tape around my head. Yes, the hair, too. Man, that hurt coming off!

Were those people glad to see us go!! All the Christmas pictures that year featured me w/a white adhesive bandaid across my forehead.

I agree, hang nails are BEYOND ridiculous, but how about this? My husband is an EMT and one night, at 2am, he got a call to bring a patient to the ED for....."CHAPPED LIPS!" :uhoh3: Ya HATE when that happens!!!:chuckle

I was an EMT in a small town for four years. One ambulance, and the hospital was 50 miles away.

We had some tourons--that's morons away from home--call 911 and page us because their 6 year old daughter skinned her knee. Small, small abrasion, but the parents couldn't be bothered to put on a band-aid themselves.

Murphy was THE prophet, so naturally, someone else had a stroke while we were dealing with the hopelessly stupid parents, and the stroke victim had to wait for an ambulance to come from 20 miles away. :angryfire

Specializes in pure and simple psych.

We had some tourons--that's morons away from home-- :angryfire

:chuckle:yeah: :yelclap: :chuckle
Specializes in ER.

...working in triage one night....23 year old girl came in at around 4am "I think I got stung by a bee."

-"where do you think you got stung?"

-"my finger"

-"let me see"

(shows me a completely normal looking index finger)

-"does it hurt?"

-"no"

-"does it itch?"

-"no"

-"when do you think you got stung?"

-"a week or so ago"

(I swear this is a true story....and at this point I can't help but laugh.)

-"why'd you come to the ER?"

-"because my boyfriend got stung and he's allergic and I wanted to make sure that I can't get anything from him."

People never cease to amaze me.

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