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 ER, PEDS, CASE MANAGEMENT.

hmm... gosh there are soooo many, one that sticks out in my mind... an 8 ball in the a**hole.... the guy actually brought another ball just like the one he had inserted inside so we'd know what it looked like! Xray showed it had travelled way up north and a surgeon was called in for consult. Right at shift change, the patient asked for a bedpan and uh.... delivered the goods... saved him a helluva surgery bill. we've had the hangnail, the acrylic nails, the almost amputated scratches. I had a girl come in the other night for a "knot" on her breastbone that'd had been there a year. Was sent home on Motrin.

For those patients who think that if they call 911 for an ambulance they'll get back quicker??? Our new question on encode is "is this patient triageable? The looks on their faces when EMS pulls up to the Triage door?? Priceless!!! I actually did have a guy come in one night having a dystonic reaction from taking his cousin's Klonopin. His vitals were fine, breathing was fine, just didn't like the way he was feeling. Told him I didn't have any beds available at the time, he was okay, blah blah blah. He walked out with his family, called 911, had them pick him up across the street from the hospital, they encoded, I took the call, he ended up back in triage. Told him he lost his place. Being a nurse, I couldn't tell him to just take some benadryl ( I can't prescribe). He lied from the get go to me, told me he hadn't taken anything, when he got back to bed, told ER doc he hadn't taken anything, ER doc asked him why he was lying, that he had told triage nurse he'd taken klonopin, he finally said OK OK he got benadryl, sent home and was told there's a good reason for NOT taking medicines that aren't prescribed to you. Whoever said it was right, stupid people = job security.

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

And the medication for "Spiral Mighty Jesus" is "p-nut butter balls".

Better known as phenobarbital.:rotfl:

Specializes in CHPN Hospice & Palliative Nurse.

i'm not joking. the most ridiculous thing i ever saw was a person that came in for sunburned lips!!!! and they really were not that bad. i'm amazed at what people present with in the ed.

(Medi-cal where I come from)

Did you know that is a kind of Dog food?

Specializes in ER, PEDS, CASE MANAGEMENT.

another good one, happened just this morning. A girl came into the ER for a pimple that just wouldn't surrender to her constant squeezing and tugging. One side of her face was swollen, a script for bactrim and a smile as she was discharged. Putting toothpaste on it would've been lots cheaper.

Had a guy come in the ER with cut up arms. Bleeding quite a bit. Took him directly to a room and triaged him there with a doc and another nurse looking on.

ME:"What happened?"

PT:"Cut them on a friends window."

ME:"Oh, were you helping him put them in?"

PT:" No, I just wanted to talk to 'em and they locked the door on me."

Needless to say I called the police. They were looking for him but thought he would be at the University ER. This guy out smarted them and went to a suburban level 2 trauma center. Unfortunalty for him, we have cops aswell. After suturing him up, he was in a happy mood, thinking he outsmarted everyone. i discahged him and had the police standing by. Police. A small, 5'2" police lady of about 100 pounds for a fellow 5'10" 190 pounds. Of course he ran and scared daylights out of everyone in the ER until myself and afreind of mine (LPN) brought him down (safely of course). The police woman hadn cuffed him and told us to bring him. We aren't cops but we started to take him to here car to get him out of our ER. He started talking smack about the police woman (nasty-personal stuff)and the police woman gave him a shot or two on the nose. He gets violent and the other police show up and take him out. He was wanted for threating his friend who had seen him rob a store and told the police. A real winner.

Never know what is going to walk through that door. THAT'S WHY I LOVE THIS JOB!!!

Specializes in Rural Hospital (we do it all).
I have some silly things people called the Poison Hotline for:

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

...................................................................................

EMS brought in a 42yo man reaking of ETOH and perfume with both hands superglued to his pubic hairs. Anonymous source stated pt had recent hx of cheating on wife with complaints of domestic disturbances from neighbors.

"And what brings you in this fine morning, Sir ?"

A 15-year-old Mexican girl who showed up in the middle of the night asking for a pregnancy test. When I asked her what made her think she might be pregnant she answered that she and her BF "did it three times." The interpreter and I looked at each other and literally had to bite our tongues to keep from laughing.

Another was a phone call from a young woman asking what "ways of having sex" would make a boy or a girl.

Common: phone calls asking "Are you guys real busy? I've got a cold and I don't want to wait."

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:

A lot of the time, dispatch is at fault...we were recently dispatched ten miles in the wrong direction after we had dispatch repeat the address THREE times. We also often get really weird directions from dispatch or they will give us a street address instead of a business name...we all know where McDonalds is, but very few of us know that it is at 123 Main Street or whatever. Since so many businesses are not marked with address numbers, it would make it so much easier to tell us the name of the business as well as the address. Also, we have a lot of neighborhoods that are just poorly numbered or names...we have a Main Circle, Main Avenue, and Main Place all in the same area and they all cross with one or the other...we even have a street that has houses numbered 111, 113, 115, 119, 121, 117, 123...CONFUSING especially if you don't know that the street is all messed up.

We are trying to encourage people to get emergency porch lights...it's just something that screws into the socket and then the bulb screws into it...you flip the switch quickly three times and the light flashes...makes it nice when you are trying to find a poorly marked house at night.

Also, dispatch doesn't always relay information to fire/rescue like they should. Last week we got paged out to a "man not feeling well" who turned out to be a really brittle diabetic that had fallen down the stairs and had a compound fracture of his left femur...the man's grandson who is a PA told dispatch what was going on and was HOT when we didn't respond full lights and sirens and didn't walk into the house will all of the equipment we needed. We know he gave dispatch all of the information because we pulled the tapes and heard every word he said...the dispatcher didn't feel like it was important to tell us he was diabetic and she couldn't understand how the grandson could diagnose a fracture without x-rays, so she didn't tell us that either...

Had a patient who found 2 ticks come in with ticks in plastic container. They hadnt bit or imbedded, but they were spotted, so MOM was concerned. What are we supposed to do with them anyway? :rolleyes:

You can have ticks tested to see is they carry Lyme Disease but to bring them to an emergency room is just crazy.

Elizabeth

now why in the world would you even think that it would be silly to go to the er for that? i had a kidney stone years ago. it was probably the worst pain i ever felt in my life!

i also had a kidney stone and went to the er. i was doubled over in pain at work. sharp stabbing pains! it was absolute misery! thank goodness for morphine! i think that iv pain meds are the only way to initially get the pain under control. good choice going to the er. :rolleyes:

had a guy come in c/o toenails cut too short. Dr gave him Vicodin & antibiotics. yes I said Vicodin for short toenails.

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