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 ?

This is a wonderful venting tool!!! I'm so glad I found this!!! Let's see......I see so many stupid complaints, but there are some all time great ones. A mother presented at midnight, by ambulance of course with medicaid card in hand, on a school night, with her 6 year old. He had a loose tooth and she was afraid he might swallow it in his sleep. A 13 year old came in by ambulance and stated she was playing cards and as she was laying a card on the table she felt pain in her hand "for a second", but no pain now. I am REALLY cynical after 15 years of ER nursing. Glad to see some more nurses in my same frame of mind!
I'm here to save your butt, not kiss it!:banghead:
Specializes in ER!.

Pt showed up the other night c/o eye discharge. No pain, no itching, no vision changes. D/c thin and clear, sclera the lightest shade of pink detectable to the human eye, sort of like when I'm around my sister's bulldog for any length of time. I asked when this started, and pt replied, "Thirty minutes ago."

Who the **** goes to the ER for half an hour of eye discharge???? I do love my job, but often I find myself asking, how on earth did this individual come to the conclusion that his/her presenting complaint was an emergency deserving a trip to the hospital?

Specializes in School Nursing.
Another thing that is always fun is when parents bring their chidren in th ER because the School Nurse told them Strep is going around. Or that child had bumped his head playing and needed a CT. Its always amazing the things School Nurses tell these parents, while granted, it loses something in what the parent decides to tell you.

Another is when the school nurse tells the parents scabies is going around, and they all come to ER for exams. Rather than have the parents take a look for themselves or get some OTC treatment, they come to the ER because the school nurse told them too.

Ive never met a school nurse, but if I ever do, I dont know whether I will just tell her off about how little I think of her or just roll around on the floor laughing at her.

:lol2: Gee TeeitupTom.......How opinionated can you get ? You don't even have a clue about School Nurse's. How sad :confused:

It's really true that some have the chest pain thing figured out. They get admitted and an overnight stay with morphine. And the first thing they ask for on the floor after morphine is food. Some of them truly have cardiac disease, often from drug abuse, and get lots of morphine and turn a gorgeous shade of red-violent as they throw things and make demands to go and smoke or special requests from the kitchen overnight. And some do their best to drive you to making a mistake or "mistreat" them so they might have a lawsuit. It tears you apart wanting to ignore them in the ER and then walk over them as you care for truly deserving people who have a CVA or MI and badly need your time that is being stolen by the very selfish ones who have ruined themselves and God help them.

Specializes in Transplant, homecare, hospice.
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.

I'm sure that they didn't. That's really painful and it really IS an emergency. Nothing silly about it at all.

Specializes in Hospitalist.
Here's another one...

20 y/o "Buffy" type sorority girl at an area university, comes in with the c/o "A bump down there and its tender", hx present x 2 mos.

External exam by the doc reveals nothing unusual or abnormal, as he palpates around she suddenly says "that's IT!"

He palpates again. "this?" he asked, with a slight flitter with his finger to make sure he was correct (never mind the WAY that happened)..

"yes, that" was the answer

He sat back, removed his gloves, took a deep breath, and said with every amount of composure he could muster...

"that's your privy parts. That's SUPPOSED to be there."

All I could think was...God bless her, some poor guy finally found it.

:rotfl:

You know you are an ER nurse if you've ever had to leave the room because you were about to laugh in the patient's face. I KNOW I would have to run out of the room for this one! I'm laughing so hard with tears running down my face that I can hardly type!:chuckle

Specializes in Hospitalist.
Roy, peanut butter works well too, better in my opinion. You just glob it in the hair and the oil from the PB makes the gum slide right out then you just have to wash the PB out.

But I would not recommend trying this on a dog, apparently dog hair is different the gum will still be stuck and the poor dog will be trying to eat the PB and will bite his own ear and THEN you have to clean up the blood too. (LONG story....ended up having to call my friend who is a groomer LOL)

I really don't think I can take much more of this. I need some poise pads and waterproof mascara and large boxes of Kleenex. You people are killing me!:chuckle

Specializes in Hospitalist.

The guy who presented to the ER with a bungee cord tied REALLY tight around the top of Mr. Happy's 2 friends. He WANTED them to fall off because he didn't need them anymore. He couldn't get a doc to look at his hydrocele, so he checked the internet (gotta love the internet!) and that was the medical advice he came up with. The problem was that the scrotum didn't get numb like it was supposed to (I hate it when body parts refuse to follow directions). Well, he had something that resembled a very large purple pineapple hanging between his legs. When we finally freed the boys (who audibly sighed with relief, I'm here to tell you), we told him that was a really bad idea and he shouldn't do that again. He told us that that was what they did with lamb's tails. My wonderful friend bluntly informed him that he wasn't a lamb and "that's not a tail."

An inmate came in after having 3 grand mall seizures in 5 mins - awake, alert, oriented, sitting up and taking. We told EMS that he was faking because no one had 3 grand mal seizures in 5 mins without being at least a LITTLE bit post-itcal. The guy knew we had his number, so he didn't try anything in front of the nurses, but when the doc came in, he started "seizing" (picture a fish flopping all over the place and rolling around on the floor). My friend and I walked in and I said to her "That is, without a doubt, the worst fake seizure I have ever seen." The guy rolls on his back, sits up and says "What do you mean, fake seizure?" Thank you, guilty as charged. Case dismissed. But for your trouble, you get a gram of just barely diluted Dilantin for your trouble. Enjoy the burn.

No, I did not arrive on the planet yesterday nor did I fall off the turnip truck.:rotfl:

a hang nail with no c/o pain. he could have at least said it hurt :)

Your story reminded me of the first season of ER. An elderly pt. came in during a middle of a snowstorm (I think) and only Dr. Greene could remove the hangnail. The pt. asked Dr. Greene when the last time she saw him and he responded "last week".:chuckle

Specializes in ER, PACU.

I was in triage last night and a lady came in asking if we could give her a urine tox screen..See she had taken one for her job and it showed up positive for marijuana and she wanted to prove them wrong!! :chuckle

Yeah, ok lady :angryfire

Probably the most recurrent, ridiculous thing that I have seen people often bring themselves and their children in for is ......a single bug bite or bump, obviously not infected. I'm not exactly sure what they want us to do for that???:rolleyes:

One of the most interesting and shocking things.....I delivered a baby a few weeks ago. I was triaging her and she didn't even have a frown on her face. She gave me no warning and had the baby right there in the hallway before I could get her to a room.:imbar

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