What was the MOST ridiculous thing a patient came to the ER for?

Specialties Emergency Nursing Q/A

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 Internal Medicine Unit.

Then I had the guy who was bitten by a water mocassin. He didn't want to kill the snake so he picked it up with a rake to try to move it to the woods. The snake is now totally p*ssed off and scared so the guy drops the snake. Now the snake is even more mad, so the guy tries to pick the snake up and whammo...he gets envenomated. I told him "If your name is not Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, and you are not getting paid millions of dollars to pick up the snake, leave it alone!"

:rotfl: Water mocassins will attack, and I find your reply to be perfect!

Specializes in Internal Medicine Unit.
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.

Where I work, the first thing they ask for on the floor is food...pain?? hmmm...

Specializes in 6 years of ER fun, med/surg, blah, blah.

I hate birthing babies in the hallway, don't you?!!

Then I had the guy who was bitten by a water mocassin. He didn't want to kill the snake so he picked it up with a rake to try to move it to the woods. The snake is now totally p*ssed off and scared so the guy drops the snake. Now the snake is even more mad, so the guy tries to pick the snake up and whammo...he gets envenomated. I told him "If your name is not Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, and you are not getting paid millions of dollars to pick up the snake, leave it alone!"

:rotfl: Water mocassins will attack, and I find your reply to be perfect!

This may make me sound insane, but when I was a junior in high school I found a baby water moccasin (I have always loved working with snakes) and raised it by hand, holding it every day. As it grew it became so tame that it would wrap around my wrist and hang out there while I did my homework. I named him Pookie Partocomus (I was a Perfect Strangers fan at that time too ;) ). Anyhoo, Pookie was over a year old when I had to release him after my graduation. I found him a nice area with a stream and all, and released him. He had been a great pet to have though!

Lori

After working Triage for 4 hours, I find myself repeating, "Remember, Stupidity is not a crime". The two people that came in with the pt. complaining of severe abd. pain , writhing , moaning, and she needed a room immediately. In my assessment I asked her when her last period was, "Oh they are real irregular"...when was the last time she had a pregnancy test to which she repied...Oh, I dont date Men, she's my partner",Ive never been with a man. I said. OK... (suspicion rising, because of the abd mass that she started complaining about)Her partner sys, "Her abd. has been swelling for a long time". I asked has she seen an MD for it, to which she replied, My doctor told me , I couldnt get pregnant, besides I dont date Men". Long story short, 35 minutes later , Mother and Baby are doing fine, Partner is no where to be seen, , Mother is trying to remember the details from "That party I went to". And Im trying to get an RX for Toradol for my rib splint from laughing so freaking hard. I wonder if it could have been her hygiene spray??? "That's just me, but I could be wrong"

I have some silly things people called the Poison Hotline for:

1) "I ate a potato chip with some green on it. Will I be OK?" :icon_roll

2) "I was sitting at a funeral service, and all of a sudden I felt something in my mouth, so I swallowed it." This woman couldn't tell me if it was just some phlegm, or a bug, or any other possible rational explanation I could come up with, yet she still wanted "to know what to do". :uhoh3:

3) A very macho sounding guy called wondering how to get superglue off his hands. It turns out, he had a tiny Christmas angel super-glued to his finger. The mental image cracked me up! :chuckle

I just started in Urgent Care, so I will probably have some good ones for that soon.

After working Triage for 4 hours, I find myself repeating, "Remember, Stupidity is not a crime". The two people that came in with the pt. complaining of severe abd. pain , writhing , moaning, and she needed a room immediately. In my assessment I asked her when her last period was, "Oh they are real irregular"...when was the last time she had a pregnancy test to which she repied...Oh, I dont date Men, she's my partner",Ive never been with a man. I said. OK... (suspicion rising, because of the abd mass that she started complaining about)Her partner sys, "Her abd. has been swelling for a long time". I asked has she seen an MD for it, to which she replied, My doctor told me , I couldnt get pregnant, besides I dont date Men". Long story short, 35 minutes later , Mother and Baby are doing fine, Partner is no where to be seen, , Mother is trying to remember the details from "That party I went to". And Im trying to get an RX for Toradol for my rib splint from laughing so freaking hard. I wonder if it could have been her hygiene spray??? "That's just me, but I could be wrong"

I nearly choked on my tea while reading this :rotfl:

Dont choke too long, Ill have to rescue breath ya...:rotfl: At Charity Hospital in New Orleans, where I worked the accident room, I had an elderly black man coming screaming to the Heavens that he had "Spiral Mighty Jesus" in his head, Now having just moved from California this was a shock to me, but having faith I asked him if he wanted to speak to one of the Sisters, when another nurse whispered to me, "Honey He means spinal meningitis.... she left giggling....

Hi Rainbow,

And it's really not fair to the Triage nurse, who has to listen to these people who c/o 'waiting' too long for their head lice emergency in the Triage area. That's why security is there in front -- since the fine folks who utilize our McER have been known to be violent when 'precious' is c/o vomiting once yet running around in bare feet eating chips and drinking coke.

Your post reminded me of a time that I was a pt. waiting in the ER waiting room. I was beyond dehydrated (hadn't peed in 16hrs.), lost 30 pounds in 2 weeks and passing enough blood that I had to beg the dr. not to give me a transfusion. Plus, in sooo much pain bp was very, very high and I couldn't walk up straight(ended up being dx w/ulcerative colitis). Anyway, I'm miserable, sitting in the waiting room next to a 30'ish man with his wife. My head is on my mom's shoulder, she's trying to comfort me as I'm bawling. My name is called after 2 hrs. and this guy had JUST walked in. I get up and this guy says "well, I'm sicker than her. I've got a toothache." His wife apologized to me for the comment but still, that's just mean.

This society has become a if I don't get it now, I'm gonna sue or smack ya. Sure, a toothache hurts but wait your turn!! Toothaches don't kill!!

I swear, it takes all kinds.

I will never forget calling 911 for my Dad, who I thought was having an M.I. After giving the dispatcher explicit directions to our home, I sent my daughter outside to watch for them. She watched as the drove past the first cross street, then back up, came down it, then went down the wrong street, then another wrong street, despite my daughter flashing our front light off and on (you could see everything becuase of the circular roads and the lack of many homes). Thank heavens my Dad was alright.

911 is one of the best systems every instituted. It is some of the dispatchers and some of the firemen that need a little work :rolleyes:

Grannynurse :balloons:

Reminds me of a time I had was rear ended on a very busy street in a college town....in front of the football stadium that you could see from space. Anyway, I call 911 on my cell, give dispatcher exact address--there was a business across the street with it's address prominently displayed. Dispatcher says "I don't know where you are." So I tell her I'm at the southside of the Ball State Stadium. "What stadium"???? I actually asked her if she was in Muncie and when she replied yes, I had to wonder what she was smoking. Asked her if she knew about Ball State, her response was yes. Then I asked her if she knew about a football stadium. Reply was yes. Do you know where it is? Reply was yes. I told her again where I was at....she still had no clue. I hung up and the police arrived 2 mins. later.

Luckily, this is the only negative experience I've had with dispatchers. Except for this one I respect and admire them. I would feel so helpless, knowing that the person on the other end may be dying and I can't do anything about it.

We see a lot of that in our ER too. Children frequently come in with fevers of 103-104. When we ask the parents when their last dose of tylenol or motrin was given, they state, "we didn't want to give them anything until you saw them." Come on guys, we will believe you if you tell us the child had a temp.

thats hilarious.. How do these people with an IQ of 30 manage to breed anyway?

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