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 Pediatric Pulmonology and Allergy.

Here's my ridiculous ER story: I squirted oven cleaner in my eye. It really was a very tiny amount but due to all the warning labels slapped all over the can to "seek medical help immediately", I called poison control and they told me to go to the ER. My eye was red with a little bit of discharge. A really sweet nurse irrigated my eye and that was all. They wanted me to wait to have the eye checked for abrasions by the opthomologist (who was in surgery) but I was feeling fine after the irrigation and figured that if the eye started bothering me later I would see a doctor. So I signed out AMA and that's where the story ends. I did feel bad taking up a bed when other patients were so much sicker than I was, but I had first tried irrigating my eye at home under the faucet and it wasn't doing the trick.

What I'm wondering, after reading this entire thread, is what stories PCP's can tell about patients who belong in the ER and go to the doctor's office instead.

Specializes in LTC, Home Care, Medical Offices, Plasma.
Now really. Do you expect anything else from Nursing Home nurses. Granted there are a few that really love their work and really love the elderly.

All the rest Ive met are losers who cant cut it working anything else.

:angryfire Attiudes like this.. just burn my butt. I have seen LTC nurses that would send someone to the ER for the littlest thing, and can only speak for myself when I say.. when I send someone to the ER for Eval... 9 out of 10 times, they are admitted. Nursing home nurses arent all trying to lighten their load... AND... we still have to get orders from the doc to send to ER. Sooooooo... its not all the nurses fault!

:sofahider

i had a guy come in one time, had a broken tooth.

doctor went in looked at it and said go to the dentist.

had another girl come in faking a panic attack so the cop wouldnt give her a ticket. as soon as the cop left the er she stopped pretending and left. without ever getting past triage.

LMAO sitting here laughing...family thinks Ive lost it! Ok so here are some of mine

mom calls 911 for diaper rash, 6 pm firday night have seen her doc it turns out 4 times this week but is not happy with the 4 different creams they have given her for the baby...and we are going to do what??????? In triage...I snorted coke, the left side of my face is numb, am i having a stroke?....and this buys you a 900.00$ ct scan on the taxpayers! and of course the belly/back/neck/headace/gen body aches I have had for years/months/weeks but now for reasons known only to god is an emergency!

and my fav...not to nursing home bash...have been there worked way to hard!

pt brought in beacuse he started vomiting, with ngt in place, tip of tube is now comming out of mouth...so picture pt w/ tube still taped to nose still in nose, but tip is now hanging out of mouth.....now why may I ask could the nursing staff not remove tube, and then replace it? Basic nursing skills here! It is what i did! did not even take pt off gurney, turned him back around in the time it took to print d/c instructions...if tube comes out put back in!

I was shadowing under an ER doc one night and we saw an old woman that said she has been dizzy for 6 months. My thoughts were that she was crazy!!!

Specializes in Hospice, Med/Surg, ICU, ER.
I forgot the 30 year old that came in by EMS at 0300 hours for constipation x 3 hours! I didn't know you could be constipated after 3 hours, but what do I know? He didn't really want to come to the hospital, he just wanted the medics to give him a laxative! (Hello, ever heard of the drugstore!!!???) EMS brought him in (none too happy at being dragged out of their beds for this). The doc asked me what we should do. I told him to give the guy a gallon of Go-lytely to go and tell him to drink a cup every 10 minutes until it was all gone. I guarantee he won't be back anytime soon.

LMAO!!!! :roll

You are a bad, BAD person. SHAME on you! :D

I once had a hispanic guy come to triage wanting braces...no I am not kidding! I called the interpretor just to make sure I understood him correctly!

I actually had someone bring their dog to the ER once, cause it was bleeding & they didnt know what to do. It was the cutest patient ever!!

One night, about 2am, a 80 something man came in, feeling dizzy w/ a BP of 60's/40's, after 20min. of telling us he didnt know what happened, he confessed, he thought if he took 4 of the little bllue pills "viagra" it would "work better" than if he just took the one! The poor guy won't be doing any of that anytime soon.

I have worked in LTC & in a hospital, & while yes some nursing home nurses are complete idiots, most of them have to be damn good to be able to pass a thousand meds to a hundred people in an 7 hour shift, by themselves cause everyone else they worked with were CNA'S.

"I was sitting in the PTA meeting and my hand suddenly turned blue for no obvious reason"The pt had unilateral "blueish" color to her left hand, pt denied any pain, tingling, numbness, had good bilateral radial pulses and I noticed the edge of her fingernail was also blue...I got up got some alcohol cleaner out of the dispenser and rubbed it on the patients hand...and wiped it off with a white cloth! The girl had gotten new jeans that were the dark blue and had been putting her left hand in her pocket!!

I've followed this forum for a little while but never registered, but did tonight just to share this story...

It might not be a ridiculous thing to come in for...but holy cow...amazing.

I had floated down to the ER (from the ICU), and their favorite place to put us is in the Psych area. I got report on a guy who was schizophrenic and had been in the bathrub batizing himself for over 6 hours. Now he was agitated and pacing. The doc wanted him calmed down and had me give him 2mg of Ativan IM. No problem, all done. About an hour later, he stumbled out of his room and asked to go to the bathroom. I told him to go ahead. So he wandered into the bathroom, and a couple of minutes later he comes out. Now, he is obviously in a stupor due to the ativan, so he kind of stumbled out of the bathroom a bit disheveled. All of a sudden his pants fall down, and the two security guys and I just stood there and stared in total disbelief....the guy had a Suave Shampoo bottle shoved over his private parts (Lavender scented Suave, I might add). However, it must have been there for quite awhile because he was TERRIBLY swollen. Becuase he had to do to the bathroom, he had cut the end off of it, leaving little jagged pieces at the end. All I could think of was that it looked like the plastic collar you put around a dog's neck when they get stiches.

Seeing as I didn't work the psych pod often, I went to the charge nurse and told her the problem...

The solution? She handed me a pair of trauma shears and said "Go for it". It took 4 security guards to hold the guy down (one on each limb) in order for me to cut it off. To this day, the people who float to the ER come back upstairs with a story of "The cute little blond girl who had to cute the shamapoo bottle off!!"

Jen

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