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 ?

I read this whole thread! Took a few days but well worth it... thank you for the laughs!!

Specializes in ER.

Pt with a hx of sleep apnea presented to ED complaining of periods of no breathing during sleep previous night. States she thinks it might be getting worse. Already has CPAP.

She was summarily discharged without a single intervention and with instructions on her previously diagnosed condition.

infected paper cut per ambulance:yeah:

Would LOVE to be able to direct pts to Walgreens/CVS. Most days at least 1/4 of our waiting room could be taken care of with OTC meds.

A few of my favorite:

-Constipation x 2 days. Yep, called 911 for that one, arrived by ambulance

-Yeast infection

-"Raging fever" . . . 99.2

-Elevated BP, pt states, "I don't take those blood pressure pills. If it gets too high I just come in here and y'all fix it for me" [brilliant]

-"Both sides of my nose are stopped up and I don't like breathing through my mouth" (arrived at 0200)

-"vomiting for the past 19 years"

-wanting to be tested for swine flu even though pt has no symptoms because "I work with some Mexicans"

ahhhh, job security

Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..

Ain't that the truth!

Specializes in ED only.

We had a 63 year old male come to our ER a couple of days ago, complaining that his eyebrows hurt. After extensive testing because we didn't want to miss anything due to his age, he left with a diagnosis of myofacial pain and instructed to take tylenol!!!!!!!

And what normal rational person would decide that because his eyebrows hurt it demanded a trip to the ER? the ER takes care of crazy people ALL DAY LONG.

Specializes in Emergency Nursing.

1. an old lady was sent to the ED by her hairdresser, who found a "dangerous swelling" on her head, while he was cutting her hair. The little old lady had actually fallen a couple of weeks before, suffering from a mild head trauma.

The hairdresser wrote a paper for the ED, explaining that he was sending the lady because he was seriously worried about the risk that "an intracranial hemorrage was possibly trying to get out" of the little old lady's head.

I suppose the hairdresser was a Ridley Scott's "Aliens" movie fan...

2. a patient called an EMS ambulance at 4 in the morning and arrived at the ED because of his hemorrhoids...

and that guy had been suffering from hemorrhoids for at least 6 years. When I asked him why has he called an ambulance in the middle of the night for a problem he had since 2004, he answered that an ambulance was much more cheaper than a taxi (in Italy, EMS is for free, as well as hospital care)

3. a young, foreign girl who complained of "headache for the last seven years, never visited by her general pratictioner, no painkillers taken"

(by the way, that was the winner of my ED "funny triage of the year award", 2009 edition)

4. a patient who had been constipated "since a couple of hours"...

Just my 2 €cent ;)

Greetings from an Italian colleague

Here is some I have seen whilst working as a float tech in the ED:

- Paper cut (brough in by ambulance, complaining of breathing difficulties due to shock. Given a band aid and sent home by NP within 5 minutes of arrival)

- Young woman demanding an X-ray of her chest to see if her lungs got sunburnt(!)

Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..
paper cut (brough in by ambulance, complaining of breathing difficulties due to shock. given a band aid and sent home by np within 5 minutes of arrival)
snort!! this on tickled my funnybone royally. thank you.

Still a student - but I remember some funny reasons I had to send some of my students to the ER when I was a RA at Michigan State University.

Probably the worse was I had a guy on my floor who thought it would be a swell idea to glue his eye lids together with super glue after a Frat brother of his dared him to!

I also had one guy who got dared to slam 2 bottle of Soy sauce at the dinner table! He told me later that after "his ass felt like a super soaker" he had a friend drive him to the ER! LORD!

Crazy college antics has prepared me for this line of work! LOL!

Specializes in ICU, Telemetry, ER.

What I particularly like is things like the beads up the nose or in the ear and they come by ambulance because they didn't have "any way to get here" but then a miracle occurs and there are 4 loved ones that show up of course with a car who of course can take them home..... No matter what part of the country you work in we all get this stupid stuff because these people simply can't afford to go to the Doctor's office or they are too lazy to get up when the Dr's office is open and they know we will see them no matter what. BTW I think a pregnancy kit can be gotten for a dollar at the dollar store and so can tylenol and ibuprofen ---- amazing isn't it.....

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