Good triage stories

[patrice meursault]

Just when you think you've heard it all, someone comes in and amuses you w/ a complaint.

When it is slow, or I have a good crew working w/ me, I use alot of direct quotes from patients whiel triaging.

This lady came in c/o her head "feeling funny" after being "hit in the head from 200 feet away by an Elvis impersonator who was shooting t shirts out into the crowd".

I think anytime you can get "elvis impersonator" into your triage note your day is complete!

Anyone else have a good story about a patient injury? Let's leave the FB in any body opening as most of us have been there done that............sorry, I know this kind of thread has been done at nauseum.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

i'm in the icu, not the er, so i don't do triage. however my best "patient complaint" story is the patient who was admitted with the diagnosis of "bedsore." when i looked, he had a prefect toilet seat-shaped decub that, after it was debrided, was deep enough to get most of a crile into.

"how did you get this sore?" i asked him.

"sittin' on the toilet," he said.

"how long did you sit on the toilet," i asked, incredulous.

"four days. and four nights."

before i could stop myself, i asked "why?"

"i was lookin' for god."

he lived with a sister-in-law who brought him meals and valium, and used the bathtub to do her business.

[life_aknew]

i'm in the icu, not the er, so i don't do triage. however my best "patient complaint" story is the patient who was admitted with the diagnosis of "bedsore." when i looked, he had a prefect toilet seat-shaped decub that, after it was debrided, was deep enough to get most of a crile into.

"how did you get this sore?" i asked him.

"sittin' on the toilet," he said.

"how long did you sit on the toilet," i asked, incredulous.

"four days. and four nights."

before i could stop myself, i asked "why?"

"i was lookin' for god."

he lived with a sister-in-law who brought him meals and valium, and used the bathtub to do her business.

i dont really know nothing about nothing but did he have to get a psych evalution...wow, just wow.

[Uptoherern, RN]

I triaged an elderly man whose complaint showed up in the computer as "hand injury". When I asked how, he proceeded to tell me that he had had some severe chest pain and collapsed to the ground, thus injuring his hand............we have no cath lab.......acute MI........flown out by helicopter for an "injured hand."

[Arrghh_Nnnn]

i'm in the icu, not the er, so i don't do triage. however my best "patient complaint" story is the patient who was admitted with the diagnosis of "bedsore." when i looked, he had a prefect toilet seat-shaped decub that, after it was debrided, was deep enough to get most of a crile into.

"how did you get this sore?" i asked him.

"sittin' on the toilet," he said.

"how long did you sit on the toilet," i asked, incredulous.

"four days. and four nights."

before i could stop myself, i asked "why?"

"i was lookin' for god."

he lived with a sister-in-law who brought him meals and valium, and used the bathtub to do her business.

and think about this....potty man is driving a car on the road with us and may also be a voter. hurray!

[mwboswell]

I triaged an elderly man whose complaint showed up in the computer as "hand injury". When I asked how, he proceeded to tell me that he had had some severe chest pain and collapsed to the ground, thus injuring his hand............we have no cath lab.......acute MI........flown out by helicopter for an "injured hand."

Thank you ERDIANE for your post - you just reminded me of one of my BIGGEST pet-peeves in the ER...

The pt comes back to the treatment area after being triaged and the typed complaint is "Ground level fall" and maybe a little blurb about some injury (IE: lac to head, wrist pain, back pain etc) but what REALLY gets me is that sometimes, NOWHERE in the chart is either the triage RN or the primary RN's assessment of what caused the fall? More often than not, in these patients, the cause of the fall has been more important than the subsequent injury!!

-MB

[littleRNthatcould]

Maybe not an actual triage story, but a pretty funny sign in sheet story. The paper comes through to the triage nurse and it reads, "Kicked in mouth by whores". Now, I realize the fellow might have been mighty upset at the "old nag" but what he was trying to write was..."Kicked in mouth by HORSE"! The docs and the nurses had a field day teasing this guy (don't worry he was in on it too after he realized his error). And he got off lucky, no broken bones, no missing teeth:D

[Lunah, MSN, RN]

One day our triage nurse came over to our doc and asked if he was a veterinarian -- someone had just signed in with a "sore trout." Ha ha ha! (It should have been "throat," of course!)

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

i'm in the icu, not the er, so i don't do triage. however my best "patient complaint" story is the patient who was admitted with the diagnosis of "bedsore." when i looked, he had a prefect toilet seat-shaped decub that, after it was debrided, was deep enough to get most of a crile into.

"how did you get this sore?" i asked him.

"sittin' on the toilet," he said.

"how long did you sit on the toilet," i asked, incredulous.

"four days. and four nights."

before i could stop myself, i asked "why?"

"i was lookin' for god."

he lived with a sister-in-law who brought him meals and valium, and used the bathtub to do her business.

i think i saw this story on the internet a few months ago but it was a female on the pot and the male enabler. i figured he thought she was having "female troubles" and was too embarassed to press the issue.

[cookienay]

Okay, this happened recently and I had to share. We have our share of frequent flyers of the same type: gold card, come for every little thing (it's not like they have to work or anything), total abuse of EMS. Well I recently triaged the 8 year old daughter/granddaughter of two of our FFs for a c/o "rash x 2 weeks" that had been evaluated in our dept the week prior- and yes, this person was brought in by ambulance. So I complete the triage and ask them to have a seat in the lobby and the girl says to me....

"But you never me asked my my pain scale."

silly triage nurse.

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

I personally am tired of the people that come in to get their earwax syringed out. They get a triage level 5 in my book and I don't care if they never see the inside of the ER. LWBS is too good for them.

[belle87RN]

As the person who signs people in for Triage I've heard quite a few funny stories of how people became injured but the best complaint was the young man that told me that he had "severe pain in his wing muscle". I thought I didn't hear him correctly when he told me that but no, he told me again when I asked him to repeat it and pointed to his shoulder blade. I laughed so hard...out of his hearing range of course!