Triage complaints- the good, the bad, and the shocking.

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"I was raped by an octopus."

"I have severe, severe, severe, SEVERE, SEVERE cold sores!" (five severes, I counted. And one cold sore visible.)

Discuss.

She had ants bite her in the area and said they were now inside of her and she felt something was wrong. I wasn't able to f/u with what happened.

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Specializes in Emergency Department.

This old lady came in with her daughter once and when I asked what brought her to the ER, she said,"It all started in 1993 when I performed oral sex on this man...." I stopped typing, started smiling like an IDIOT and had to apologize.

The lady was almost 70; it was a moment.

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Specializes in Neonatal Nurse Practitioner.

"Something's growing out of my lady parts"

She had stuck a piece of potato up herself, and it was growing....

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We had a pt come in with a STEMI. Young guy but a terrible history. He coded between changing him from our leads onto the cath labs machine. Shock, compressions, epi, shock again and he woke up. His response, "Did you have to do that thing? Like in ER?" The doctor responded, "yes, because you're in the ER"

He ended up with a very long hospital stay due to complications but did recover.

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You have got to be kidding!

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Specializes in Emergency.

A guy who injected too much heroin. his "best brah's" dropped him off in the valet parking lot....took many pictures of him pulseless on the ground and saying "ahh naw"... CPR started, narcan administered IM into the sternum. IV started eventually. Dude wakes up. ****** because we cut his shirt and ruined his high that cost like $45. tries to leave but falls because he's still half high and half asleep...get him back in the gurney. states "*** **********! why you cut my ****! You dont own me, this is a free country. i gotta be home by midnight because my mom said i have to." When explaining to this idiot that his friends were taking pictures of him when he was clinically dead, he said "yeah, well they had to. we were driving some fools car that wanted it back at 10, but because i OD'd, they needed proof why they didn't return it on time."

Priorities.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
took many pictures of him pulseless on the ground and saying "ahh naw"... CPR started, narcan administered IM into the sternum. .

I have to ask.....Narcan IM into the sternum????

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Specializes in Emergency & Trauma/Adult ICU.
I have to ask.....Narcan IM into the sternum????

:unsure: Sternum ..... intramuscular injection ....

Never mind.

OD stories have one common theme -- seriously warped priorities.

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Specializes in Emergency, Telemetry, Transplant.
"I swallowed a spork" - He actually did and ended up not needing sx somehow

"Im having leg pain"-- I ask the patient to remove his boot, (i already knew there was going to be something nice waiting for me from the smell) hmm no wonder it was full of pooling maggots and black purulent puss dripping.

I once played 'spork' in scrabble and an opponent challenged me and it was not in the scrabble dictionary. I'm still bitter about that one. :madface:

As for the maggots...always beware when someone has a plastic bag over their foot. I have never found anything good when removing such a bag.

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Specializes in Emergency, Telemetry, Transplant.
I have to ask.....Narcan IM into the sternum????

IO perhaps?

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

no....although the sternum can be used it isn't first chioce and in this scenario just give it IM in the arm or thigh...IM in the sternum? NO.

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A guy who injected too much heroin. his "best brah's" dropped him off in the valet parking lot....took many pictures of him pulseless on the ground and saying "ahh naw"... CPR started, narcan administered IM into the sternum. IV started eventually. Dude wakes up. ****** because we cut his shirt and ruined his high that cost like $45. tries to leave but falls because he's still half high and half asleep...get him back in the gurney. states "*** **********! why you cut my ****! You dont own me, this is a free country. i gotta be home by midnight because my mom said i have to." When explaining to this idiot that his friends were taking pictures of him when he was clinically dead, he said "yeah, well they had to. we were driving some fools car that wanted it back at 10, but because i OD'd, they needed proof why they didn't return it on time."

Priorities.

He was also very annoyed you killed his high (even though he was clinically dead) this is a extremely common reaction in drug addicts given IM narcan and as for the route just NO!! The deltoid muscle would have been perfectly fine

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