Every high school on planet earth has the "Girl went to the ER with a ___________ stuck in her vagina."

Mine did.

I've wrestled patients for 20+ years.

Thou shalt not intentionally chemically paralyze awake and unsedated patients.

I can't say much because of potentially identifying information, but no.

Well say no more, but here's to hoping it's statistical anomaly.  

It's become a running joke that people get accidental or intentional edged weapon injuries when I'm running the OR over the last couple weeks. Not all come up for surgery, but I've personally seen 6 in the trauma bay and/or OR in the last 10 days.

It cannot be a boring way of making a living, that's for sure.

Today I had a self described “grown ass man” whom was homeless and had pissed his pants tell me “fuck you don’t talk to me like a child I’ll whoop your mother fucking ass”. I replied “you may be older than me but last time I checked grown men don’t piss on themselves. Then security and I kicked him out since he didn’t want to leave after an extensive workup that came back fine. I don’t feed the homeless whenever I can help it because it makes them abuse the ER’s that much more. Obviously a diabetic with low sugar will get a tray. My guy today had money to smoke weed, so I wasn’t worried.

I recently had a couple year sober crackhead come in with SOB, she was being super dramatic and rolling all over the bed. No one could get an IV in until I used the ultrasound. Her behavior reminded me that: once a crackhead, always a crackhead.

Earlier this week I had a patient that had rosc from family cpr prior to EMS arrival. He still had to be intubated but I was damn impressed.

I went to the Waterbury ER (shitty part of my state) 2 years ago for a kidney stone, while in the waiting room I was in pure agony, literally vomiting from the pain. Well I didn’t want to vomit on the floor so I went to the bathroom since I had been waiting for nearly a half an hour. Get to the door, and it’s locked. Wait outside the room for another 15 until I realize the emergency light is lit for the bathroom. While still in agonizing pain I went and found a nurse and told her I think someone needs help in the restroom. She unlocks the door and opens it, the light is off and there is someone half sitting half laying on the shitter. She turbs the light on, and there is a black guy laying there with his pants down, a porn magazine on his lap, dick out, and a needle in his arm all while he is passed out cold. He had shot up heroin while jacking it on the shitter in the dark.....

My office is right next to the ER and I access the hospital via the emergency room.  The helicopter pads on top of the emergency room building.

Today I was walking through the ER right as a helicopter was landing. One of the nurses announces when a major trauma is 15, 10, 5 and 1 minute out. I walked through through the doors as the final "Level 2 Trauma arriving in one minute" was repeated.  I got to the staff elevators as the flight nurses and patient were disembarking.  The patient was severely fucked up, as one might expect. No idea what happened and I didn't really even wonder about it until now.  I just stay out of the way and go about my business.

Every time I see or hear the helicopters take off and land, it kinda grounds me really. No matter how shitty my day is, whoever that helicopter is going out for or coming back with is having a vastly more shitty day than I.  And their entire family is possibly having an even worse day.  One of the helicopters leaves at least once a day.  Sometimes there have been 3+ trips.

Even though I've had stressful days there, I've never had a bad/ shitty day.  I hope I never do cause that's gonna mean I've been on a helicopter and likely won't even remember.

Late 80s in Minneapolis, after a night of much drinking by all, roommate came into my room at about 3am asking if I had a needle and thread. “What’d you do, Hank?” I asked.
“Cut my hand” he slurred, holding up a hand dripping blood. As a kid he’d lost a leg just above the knee and now had a fake leg. His thigh fit into a hard shell with the artificial knee joint below. He loved to break bottles over it when drinking, and that night one shattered in his hand, deeply slicing it open.
I got him into the bathroom when I saw his face just turn white and he passed out. Another roommate went to get his car and as someone grabbed him under the arms I grabbed his legs. On the way down the stairs I could see him slipping away but I had his legs firmly held. Then it dawned on me. “Shit, his leg’s coming off!”
We bundle him up and get him to HCMC. As we haul him into the ER, his one leg is completely loose and dragging along at a very unnatural angle. The nurses’ faces had very “oh shit...” looks. “It’s ok...his leg fell off” I said, thinking it’d calm them as they rushed to us. “I mean it’s a FAKE leg....he just cut his hand....”
He spent the next week splayed on the couch taking painkillers and just smiling.

Well, the NEJM does have some great procedure videos that are taken from their site and hosted on YouTube. Good to brush up on procedure if not done a lot and non emergent.

During day 4 of a bad stomach bug I finally went in to get some IV fluids. Once they got me into a stall I had to make the shuffle from the ER bay, past the nurses' station, to the bathroom 10 times in ~20 min. The first few times went unnoticed but I could hear faint cries of horror from the folks subsequently using that same facility while in my curtained cubicle. Then the calls for the janitor went out over the PA system.

I waited as long as possible, knowing I'd have an audience for my next walk of shame. Sure enough all the nurses were not-so-discretely waiting to see who the phantom culprit may be. At some point you have to embrace your new found celebrity and I decided to acknowledge my fans. Upon making my next return shuffle I decided to wave, thinking that taking a bow would be too hazardous to my tepid bowels.

The doctor finally came in and wrote an order for morphine, anti-nausea, Imodium, and an IV bag. I think they just wanted me to go to sleep and leave their wing's bathroom alone.

I got cut on a box blade someone had jammed into a coin slot on a shopping cart at the I'Park Mall in Seoul.  I wrapped my thumb up with some stuff from the store first aid kit, then caught a ride to my neighborhood hospital to get a tetanus shot and get it stitched up.

While I'm there for about four hours waiting, two Korean guys and one Korean woman come in.  The guys are all bloodied up and there's a lot of shouting and grumbling back and forth.  Seems like the two guys got drunk and decided to fight over the girl on a stairs somewhere and fell down.  And of course they put them in the room with me.

After a short while, I decided I might as well watch the floor show so I sit up to see, but they shut up as soon as they saw the white guy watching them.  LOL

By the time they got to stitching up my thumb, the painkillers had worn off, so I grunted when they stuck the needle in.  Korean doc asks, "You can feel that?"  I answer, "Yeah, but just keep doing what you're doing.  I just want out of this joint."

A couple of years later, I got drunk on margaritas and slipped on black ice.  I fractured two ribs and collapsed my left lung.  I walked down to the neighborhood hospital the next morning, same place, of course.

There was an outbreak of norovirus at the time so the ER was full of people puking and crapping.  I got X-Rayed, seen by the thoracic surgeon, got some meds and went home.  Next day, I'm running 103.  You definitely don't want to have a fractured rib and norovirus at the same time.  Horking up your guts with a broken rib is unpleasant.

And yeah, I got to walk back to the hospital that afternoon for norovirus treatment.  LOL

These stories are all great so BUMP for more please.

Ive worked in the ER of a level 1 trauma center teaching facility for 17 years. Ive forgotten most of the good stuff.

Going to the Academy in Seattle and needed treatment for an injury. So local ER was only place I could go every night after class. I was 220 miles from home.

I’d sit and talk with the whores till I got called.

Ed

Click on that link and an ad for KY lubes appears on the bottom of the page, fitting.

We're gonna need pics

It was maybe my 3rd day out of the academy as a NYC Cop. For the first 6 months, most of us (75 rookies went to the 34th Pct after the riots) walked foot posts, and maybe jumped in with a sector team, once every 2 weeks.

My assignment this night... baby sit an EDP (nut-job) in Columbia Presbyterian ER.  The Sgt. from the earlier shift was gonna drive me down, and bring back the girl I was relieving. After a couple blocks, we stop in front of a deli, and the Sgt. says "whatever you drink, get 4. If you smoke, buy some Skoal, or Copenhagen. You're NOT gonna be able to leave this retard for even a  second."

I walk in to the emergency room, and find the bay where my "newest best buddy" was cuffed on both wrists, to either side of a gurney. As I walked toward the room, I could see him sitting up, abruptly, and slamming his head and shoulders back down. His eyes were shut, and he seemed to be praying in spanish. (while foaming at the mouth)

I recognized the girl-cop as one of my fellow newbies. As I was walking to her, she grabbed her jacket and practically ran past me without saying a word. (I developed an unhealthy, yet incredible lust for this particular girl-cop over the next couple months... but that's for another time  )

So, It's me and this, poor bedeviled soul for the next 9 or 10 hours. Someone had drawn a bulls-eye in red marker on his face, with the center being a big, red dot between his eyes. He was shirtless, and in black marker, someone had written "my ko-kaino es no bueno" from his chest to his stomach.

The entire time I was there, he was screaming, or singing Christmas songs in spanish. All while either rolling off the gurney, pissing on the floor, shitting on the floor, or jerking off. (for 3 hours)

He passed out twice, for about a half hour each time. The nurses would throw me some gloves, and we'd stretch a canvass tarp over him, and try to secure him to the gurney. When he woke up again, it only took him about 15 minutes to wriggle out of it.

It was a hell of a night.

A couple months later, the above-mentioned girl cop and I had adjoining foot posts, and we were getting a slice of pizza for lunch. A tall spanish kid, in a three-piece suit was walking out with his pizza, and came over to our table. He was like "Officer One Leg? Officer Mendez? (the girl cop).. I'm so glad to see both of you at the same time. I really have to apologize for my behavior at the hospital that night.." We were like Who is this dude?  He said his name, which we didn't remember, then said HE was the one handcuffed to the gurney, and flipping out on dust, and coke.. And that he's NEVER done any drugs and alcohol since..

And thus, another of the many introductions to a career in The Greatest Show on Earth..

My wife was too embarrassed to tell the triage nurse that she had fecal impaction that they thought she was drug seeking from how she described it and kept telling me to be quiet when I'd try to intercede.
Four hours of sitting with the losers in the waiting room who were climbing all over the furniture while the staff checked out every sniffle and booboo, they finally called us in at 1am, realized what was wrong, gave her some Fleets and digitally loosened things up and sent her home with a "next time, tell us wtf is wrong when we ask, you would have been out of here much earlier..."

At least I had my tablet & charger and their wifi is fast enough to stream Netflix, she left hers at home.

Kharn

Damn, I just watched it.  

Ass toys have a big flange on them for a reason.

Kharn

I have seen a 12 year old get a helicopter ride for getting hit in the chest with a baseball.  No LOC, no chest trauma, not even any bruising.  Kid was sitting upinthebird enjoying the hell out of everything when we got there to take him to the trauma room.  Baseball field was maybe 15 minutes away by ground transport.  Best we could figure was the parents pissed off EMS so they stuck them with a $15,000 helicopter ride.

After working in the ED for a couple years, probably the strangest thing I see is people with real non bullshit ailments that are actually polite to the medical staff.  Probably the reason most long term ED nurses are so mean and irascible is because they are constantly being cussed out by drug seeking losers that come in to the ED via ambulance for a stubbed toe.

One of the funnier episodes I remember was a combative drunk who threatened to rape one of our old school ED nurses.  After we did our thing and tied him to the bed it was decided that a Foley catheter was medically necessary to obtain a urine sample.  Security(me) was asked to assist since the patient was still thrashing around.  The same RN he threatened to rape was the one that had to perform the procedure.  And wouldn't you know it, when she pulled out the Foley tray who ever packed it had some how forgotten the disinfectant and the lubricant.  Not to worry, because the RN had been around the block long enough to know how to improvise in an emergent situation.  She grabbed a hand full of alcohol preps and used them for both disinfectant and lube, the guys eyes damn near bulged out of their sockets and we had to hold him still to keep him from hurting himself against the restraints.   Didn't feel at all sorry for the guy, he was a regular that did the exact same thing every time he came in, wildly combative attempting to hit/spit on staff and threatening to sexually assault every female that came near him.  Eventually he stepped in front of a speeding car and suffered a severe head injury. Between that and the almost a year in the ICU and long term recovery center his personality changed and he got over his substance abuse problem, I only saw him twice after that and he was a different man.  Almost pleasant.

Dad worked as a scrub tech through college in the early 70s at a hospital in the TX Panhandle. They had one guy come in with sheets of skin just hanging off him. He had caught a large CNG line with a ripper.

9 years ago I arrived at Baylor Dallas via Careflite with 2 of my severed fingers riding on my chest in a Wal-Mart sack