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 Medsurg/ICU, Mental Health, Home Health.
Vince_RN said:
Another favorite of mine is the folks the police bring in on mental health holds even though there is no mental health complaint simply because they were annoying people and generating 911 calls.

Yeah, one of my patients has a mental illness in addition to being moderately MR. He knows right from wrong and lives at a house with staffing...however, he's allowed to come and go as he pleases and he LOVES to go to Burger King, the gas station, convenience stores, etc. and shoplift (sodas).

The workers at the stores call police the second they spot him in their establishment. So the cops take him to the psych ER and one of our case managers has to go pick him up. He's not there for any PSYCH reason!

Earlier this week, he skipped over the middle man and walked to the psych ER himself. Why?

He wanted a cup of coffee.

The constables at the hospital got sick of him so drove him over to our office rather than having him annoy everyone until a case manager to get there.

You mean to tell me that yawning movement is normal? I'm asking seriously (nursing student) my second child would do this all the time, especially when she was sick. I had the exact same situation you explained above (except I didn't want to be admitted, they admitted us for possible menigitis instead). NO ONE told me was normal! And I even explained it just like you did here! I said that she does this exaggerated yawn and holds her breath and arches her back at the same time. They told me at the children's hospital that her arching could be a sign of the stiff neck related to menigitis and did a spinal tap and admitted us for 4 days. The culture later turned out to be negative. How come none of the young residents or the nurses told me this was normal?

Great now I lost countless hours of sleep thinking my daughter was going to die for no reason.

I even called the after hours nurse at our doctors office for advice before we went to the children's hospital and no one told me it was normal :(

The fact the you described our scenario a little totally makes be believe what your saying is true.. I just wish someone told me.

Specializes in Hospice.
Seattlemamalama said:
Sorry browsing through old threads here... But you mean to tell me that yawning movement is normal? I'm asking seriously (nursing student) my second child would do this all the time, especially when she was sick. I had the exact same situation you explained above (except I didn't want to be admitted, they admitted us for possible menigitis instead). NO ONE told me was normal! And I even explained it just like you did here! I said that she does this exaggerated yawn and holds her breath and arches her back at the same time. They told me at the children's hospital that her arching could be a sign of the stiff neck related to menigitis and did a spinal tap and admitted us for 4 days. The culture later turned out to be negative. How come none of the young residents or the nurses told me this was normal?

Great now I lost countless hours of sleep thinking my daughter was going to die for no reason.

I even called the after hours nurse at our doctors office for advice before we went to the children's hospital and no one told me it was normal :(

The fact the you described our scenario a little totally makes be believe what your saying is true.. I just wish someone told me.

There are over 2000 posts in this thread.

Using the quote feature will help the rest of us figure out who you're responding to, because ain't nobody got time to backtrack through 104 pages of comments!!

A girl came in to my ER last year saying "her weave was too tight".

They actually come over to me, since I am black and asked if it was normal! It was too funny to even get offended, the resident was really at a loss. I went in there and looked her in the eye and said "you knew it was too tight when you left the stylist. You need a new stylist".

Problem solved.

Right buttcheek ache one day after an IM injection.

Specializes in Emergency Medicine, Injury Prevention.

The silliest ones that actually made me turn around and walk out of the room, so the pt could not see my facial expressions were

~~ " I just changed my tooth paste and now my gums are sore" ( I asked her, is that it? do you have a toothache, bleeding, fever...etc, "No my gums are just a little sore and I want them checked out"

~~ Ems brings a pt in around 4am from Walmart with "I stubbed my toe at work" yep that was her only complaint, oh and she needed a work note for a week"

~~ Young female states "I got a french tickler stuck up in me, for a month" ................and she did, that took a lot of vicks vapor rub in my nose to get thru

You can imagine over 28 years as a nurse in the ER and another 5 as a ED tech, I feel like my eyes and brain will never be right again

Frequent flyer psych pt comes into ED and sits for a few minutes. Everyone including housekeeping knows him by name. He comes up to the registration window and says " gimme $5 and I won't check in." Checks in after his request was denied[emoji15][emoji15]

Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
NurseOnAMotorcycle said:
Called a pt in to be triaged. he stopped three steps from triage and yelled this chief complaint quote:

"F--- you, you f---ing c---!"

then walked out of the ED. I still have no idea why he came in.

How cultured and generous of him...to leave.

Specializes in Emergency Room.

17 yo f comes by ambulance for a cough x 3 days that she was already on antibiotics for. Lungs clear, never heard her cough once in the hour she was there.

RainbowSkye said:
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.

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

^^^THIS^^^^ was a biggie in the area where I worked at one time. It was a smallish city with 2 hospitals. I worked in the smaller (private) now where I floated between ICU and ER. We fixed this problem. sort of, by posting a pic of the doc on duty on the front door of the ED each night. The local druggies knew which ones wouldn't "help them out" with a fresh RX and would go across town to the other hospital where they might have better luck. Eventually, I think because of communication between nurses, the other hospital's ED caught on to what we were doing and started doing the same thing. Poor druggies just didn't know WHAT to do! :cheeky: I guess they had to go to the little rural hospitals after that. Hopefully those EDs caught on....they had some of the same docs because we all pretty much used the same group.

Walking in the snow and feet got cold...

ETA: arrived via EMS

Specializes in LTC, home health, critical care, pulmonary nursing.
MrsWampthang said:
Tampon "lost" for two days. One of the few times I almost blew chow from the smell. :chair: :chuckle

Worst weirdest was a person that drank a cup of abrasive substance that wasn't supposed to be drank. Can't tell ya any more than that without violating HIPAA. Needless to say it wasn't pretty and that person is really messed up for life.

Another weird injury I saw once upon a time, a kid came in with a fishing lure stuck to his head. When he first walked up I thought it was something coming out of his head! (I was a registrar in the ER then.)

Pam

It's HIPAA. Just saying.

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