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 ?

My own personal story..

Last night took my son to the local "after hours doc in the box" with a temp of 105.4 rectal "he is 2". Temp has been going on for a couple days but couldn't get it down last night.

Well at the minor emergency clinic we look him over for 2 hours can't find anything wrong with him. No UTI, red throat, cough, runny nose just really high fever. So Dr. tells me to have him to the local ER "just in case". I take him in and the nurse is rolling her eyes at me and seems bothered that I even was in the ER. I told her everything that the other Doc had done and said and she said "I guess he didn't think of a viral infection" and rolled her eyes again. So after 5 1/2 hours half a bag of fluids "he wouldn't eat or drink", blood culture, CBC, chest X-ray, the Dx is Pneumonia. Shot of Rocephin and a Rx for more antibiotics and we were on our way.

So in your opinion was this a ridiculous thing to bring him in for? I didn't get a chance to talk to the first nurse again to see if her attitude changed any.

I am still going my pre-nursing classes, so I don't know if pneumonia is a serious enough thing for ER. :imbar

Thanks you all!! :imbar

No, Maam, it was NOT a ridiculous thing to take your baby in for a temp over 105.

And that ridiculous nurse with the eye rolling problem needs to be taken down about 3 notches. I would report her in a New York minute.

How rude, for her to be rolling her eyes at you.

That is a pet peeve of mine...people who :uhoh3: their eyes. ESPECIALLY nurses who do it like in your situation or nurses who do it at other nurses.

It is very childish and immature in my not so humble opinion.

:angryfire

{Calming down now.}

Gerilynn

If you want to scare yourself to death look up the signs and synptoms of spinal meningitis. A pediatric emergency medicine specialist I spoke to some years ago sited the incidence as 1:100 of cases of "fever of undetermined origen" in preschool age children. He may have been overstating the case. I never verified his claim, but he was an MD speaking in his area of specialty.

I saw one of these first hand. The parents noted that their one to two year old was fussy and had a low grade temp. That evening as they put him to bed he had a few spots. When they checked him early in the morning he had purple blotches and a high temp. By 5:30am the child was in our ER. We transfered the child directly to pediatric intensive care. He was dead before noon.

No you did not over react.

the most ridiculous thing was a married man from the age of 42 that walked into the Er and said he had a stomache after starting the normal questions he started to get a bit nervous and asked the MD if he could talk in privat with him so we left the room a few minutes later our MD came out of the examination room and had a smile on his face what was not normal the only thing he said was get this man an Xray from the abdomen. As the Pat. was getting his Xray made ,the MD told us the story:

The Man was a non outed Homosexual he was playing aroud with his friend and tuck a cut of baseball bat from the lenght of my underarm an placed it in his .....

from there they were unable to remove it. They have tried everything I mean really evering including to insert a hook into the bat to get it pull out

He was so embarrassed the poor guy but he had to bring him into the OR under Anesthesia we tryed to pull it out no chance then we tryed a suction delivery but this wouldent work the poor Guy had to get Labratomie

The team from the OR made picture of it it was 12 inches long

We have to medically clear any juvenille arrested in DC if they have any kind of complaint before they can go to lock-up. MPD recently implemented this policy, and we've seen some really ill :rolleyes: patients. My two favorites:

1. My wrists hurt. Me-Can you show me where they hurt? Him-where the handcuffs are. Me-Officer, can you loosen those a notch? (Officer loosens cuffs) Him-That's much better.

2. Me-Why are you here? Him-Back pain. Me-Can you rate your pain on a 1-10 scale? Him-It doesn't hurt now. Me-When did it hurt? Him-When the cop had his knee in my back. Me-Let me get this straight. Your back hurt when the officer had you pinned to the ground with his knee, but stopped as soon as he removed the knee? Him-Yeah.

I also like it when you ask the officer what is wrong with the patient and get the response "nothing." Then why did you bring him here?

I know they are only following their policies, but it is so annoying, especially when the ED is full. It's not like we can bring the handcuffed patients out into a pediatric waiting room!

I know they are only following their policies, but it is so annoying, especially when the ED is full. It's not like we can bring the handcuffed patients out into a pediatric waiting room!

but why not? this seems like a great way to clear the waiting room

:p

:chuckle

We have to medically clear any juvenille arrested in DC if they have any kind of complaint before they can go to lock-up. MPD recently implemented this policy, and we've seen some really ill :rolleyes: patients. My two favorites:

1. My wrists hurt. Me-Can you show me where they hurt? Him-where the handcuffs are. Me-Officer, can you loosen those a notch? (Officer loosens cuffs) Him-That's much better.

2. Me-Why are you here? Him-Back pain. Me-Can you rate your pain on a 1-10 scale? Him-It doesn't hurt now. Me-When did it hurt? Him-When the cop had his knee in my back. Me-Let me get this straight. Your back hurt when the officer had you pinned to the ground with his knee, but stopped as soon as he removed the knee? Him-Yeah.

I also like it when you ask the officer what is wrong with the patient and get the response "nothing." Then why did you bring him here?

I know they are only following their policies, but it is so annoying, especially when the ED is full. It's not like we can bring the handcuffed patients out into a pediatric waiting room!

Don't go there! I don't know you PedsERRN so I'll give you that one. We're all brothers in arms out there. They watch our backs we watch theirs. They have guns pointed at them we have Menengitis pointed at us. When your working the ER and gun or knife gets pointed at you there's nothing more sweeter sounding in the world then the sound of those sirens. The boys will be there in a heart beat. And, when the gun and knife come back to finish what they started. Until your ready to kick down that door and take what's on the other side not knowing what's on the other side so I can go home tonight - Baby you stand over there I'm hanging with my friends in blue. So leave them alone to do their jobs. So spend some time going those stupid policies and produres that we have to follow and weed out 99% of them before you knock on somebody elses door.

Try this one on for size. Mom comes in with baby in arms and 2 kids beside her. CC "I want a rx for motrin for the baby" when asked why "because the baby was crying earlier" baby is now sleeping sweetly.No n/v/d no temp, vss. when I explained that she did not need a rx for motrin mom got angry and somped off. 5min later my co worker came in and told me she just got through triaging the mom. Mom checked in because she and her husband were having sex about 3 hours earlier and now she was sore. no more mention of baby crying. seen by ER doctor any told to go to the store for ....motrin. Its the stupid people that make the job funny.

Try this one on for size. Mom comes in with baby in arms and 2 kids beside her. CC "I want a rx for motrin for the baby" when asked why "because the baby was crying earlier" baby is now sleeping sweetly.No n/v/d no temp, vss. when I explained that she did not need a rx for motrin mom got angry and somped off. 5min later my co worker came in and told me she just got through triaging the mom. Mom checked in because she and her husband were having sex about 3 hours earlier and now she was sore. no more mention of baby crying. seen by ER doctor any told to go to the store for ....motrin. Its the stupid people that make the job funny.

Can I quote you on that one "it's the stupid that make the job fun" I want to hang with you. :balloons: LOL

Lets see...

1) Brought in by ambulance for..insomnia

2) Broke a nail

3) Male used a gator ade bottle for sexual gratification(yanno the little ring wear the cap screws off?) You guessed it...tight as a tick on an alabama hound dog around the staff of his member(ouch)

4) Female exotic dancer came in told HUC, I hurt my knee he asked her how and she proceeded to show him the dance she was doing(minus the pole) :rotfl:

5) Male patient came in, when asked what the problem was he said " I be disappearing and sh**)..almost turned away and back around and said "where'd you go?" Psych eval to say the least... :chuckle

6) Snake bite(non-venomous..needed to be checked though..but did they have to bring in the live snake???) :lol_hitti

Specializes in RN CEN.
As a matter of fact, in the wee hours of Monday morning, I woke up with severe pain on my left side front and back and radiating down my groin. I also had alot of pressure to urinate but when I tried could only void a very small amount. Also had vomiting and nausea.

Well, the pain would not subside. Any Tylenol I tried to take for it was vomited up.

Finally after 3 hours of this, I dragged my aching body to the car and drove down to the ER at 4:30 in the morning. I could not understand what could be causing the pain and was, understandably, afraid.

There was blood in my urine and they did a catscan, but the nurses had already figured out I had a kidney stone ("doing the kidney stone dance").

They put an IV in me for fluid and pain medicine and when I was awake enough let me go home with vicodin and suppositories for nausea and vomiting. Doc instructed me to see a urologist in the next couple days.

I hope the ER staff didn't think me coming down with a KS was silly. I live alone and just have myself to depend on. They sure did help me out - the pain was unbearable.

Just a little anecdotal story.

Kidney stones are very painful and are a very common site in the ER, if not treated could infact result in irreversible damage to the kidney. If bad enough could destroy the use of the kidney all together requiring a transplant.

So don't feel bad about going to an ER with KS's

Kidney stones are very painful and are a very common site in the ER, if not treated could infact result in irreversible damage to the kidney. If bad enough could destroy the use of the kidney all together requiring a transplant.

So don't feel bad about going to an ER with KS's

That's not completely true as long as you can pass them no real damage done. The only real problem with stones is if a blockage occurs. If your ureter completely blocks and urine backs up into your kidney that's where the damage comes from. Secondly you have just for emegancies such as this you always have a back up. No need to scare the poor thing like that. It's very painful and certainly can be an emergent situation.

Specializes in RN CEN.
That's not completely true as long as you can pass them no real damage done. The only real problem with stones is if a blockage occurs. If your ureter completely blocks and urine backs up into your kidney that's where the damage comes from. Secondly you have just for emegancies such as this you always have a back up. No need to scare the poor thing like that. It's very painful and certainly can be an emergent situation.

Point well taken, I was using worst case scenario. The point I was hoping to make was to not be ashamed of going to an ED with this problem.

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