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 ?

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?

The most rediculous thing I have ever seen was a patient who lost a .....sex toy up his rectum. But that was not the funny part, his partner decided to try to get it out with salad tongs the kind with a hinge in the middle. The hinge got caught on the mucosa and he came walking in or with the tongs hanging out of his rectum. :rotfl:

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.

:rolleyes: Sometimes this is the perfect opportunity to start some patient teaching. Frequently these people are told to NEVER start an antibiotic before consulting with the healthcare system, be it a physician or a clinic. They frequently interpret that to mean ANY med.

We need to look at ourselves before we decide on being judgemental.

I have rarely seen a parent who will intentionally harm their child.

:rolleyes: Sometimes this is the perfect opportunity to start some patient teaching. Frequently these people are told to NEVER start an antibiotic before consulting with the healthcare system, be it a physician or a clinic. They frequently interpret that to mean ANY med.

We need to look at ourselves before we decide on being judgemental.

I have rarely seen a parent who will intentionally harm their child.

I was not trying to be judgemental. I have actually had the parents tell me that they were afraid that if their child did not have a fever they would have to wait longer or we might not believe their child was sick. Also many times they will tell you, "jr wouldnt take his tylenol, he doesnt like it". There comes a point where parents have to be the grown up and act accordingly. And yes of course we use this opportunity to educate the parents.

When my daughter was about 7 months she started crying like crazy, which is not normal for her, we inspected her starting from the head down, when we got to her feet we noticed one of her toes was blue. We got a magnifying glass but couldnt see anything. We took her to the ER it turned out to be a toe tourniquet.

Then a when she was 1 1/2 she was extreamly sick wouldn't eat, drink do much of anything very lethargic. Since she's never sick like that we took her to the ER because it was about 8:00 p.m. on a Sunday, the Dr said she had an ear infection even though he barley touched her and didn't even get a good look in her ear because he was scared of her (she was crying like crazy). He gave her antibiotics, 2 day's later no change she was getting worse high temp, didn't move just stared at the sealing, no eating, we took her back different Dr looked her over got to her mouth looked in and said "Ahhh look here" I looked turned out she had Coxsackie. Had never herd of it before, just gave her a little childrens motrin and she got better.

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....

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: Now this one really got me laughing. I'm a born-again Christian, but the images that brings to mind of a "Spiral Mighty Jesus" - kinda makes me think of an Almighty Jack-In-The-Box. ;)

Specializes in PeriOp, ICU, PICU, NICU.

These are too entertaining. :chuckle

The best one I've had recently was a guy (approx 35 yrs) who when asked what the problem was informed me that "he had been looking in the mirror and noticed the black part of his eye getting large then small, more so when he moved his face backwards and forwards and now he had a headache".

At which point I had to excuse myself, so I could walk away and not laugh in his face!!:rotfl:

When I was in clinicals we had a lady come in (and by the sighs and groans when she was spotted I know she was a ff) and her complaint was that she had holes in the corners of her eyes, right on the bottom lids! *gasp*

Apparently, tear ducts are not as well-known as you may think.

Hello to all of my sisters and brothers on the frontlines of health care ...the ED! As much as I hate to admit it...stupid people are fascinating sometimes! I'm just glad to know that they don't all live in my town...coulda sworn in a deposition that they did!

My most recent winner is the gentleman, released THAT WEEK from prison to a work-release house. At triage he complained of a toothache, demanded immediate narcotic administration...sneered at the Tylenol our protocal allowed. When his name was called for treatment he was nowhere to be found. Four hours later he returns to triage with glazed eyes and twitchy to say that his tooth didn't hurt any more and "Oh yeah, sign this paper that says that I've been here at the emergency room for treatment." When confronted with the fact he had been M.I.A. for numerous hours he said he had walked to the convenience store...within sight of the hospital...for TYLENOL. Needless to say, his house warden pulled a drug test on him and he got a one way ticket back to jail.

Let's see, "Jaw clicking" comes to mind, as does "I felt bad today, but feel fine now, just curious what it was."

Yes, we do have to treat these people by law. We cannot refuse treatment to anyone that "think's they are having an emergency, no matter now minor". We can however triage them to be seen sometime in the next millenium. The people who come to be seen for such things are generally on medicaid (Medi-cal where I come from) and so they aren't paying for it, we are.

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