Crazy shit patients say/do

[PotatoMuncher]

I always wondered why we don't have a thread like this for us medics, nurses, etc. We've all had patients who have astounded us in one way or another. They normally make for a great story later on. Well, I figured it's about time to start one up.

Post dumb/crazy stuff your patients have said or done in the past, without violating HIPAA.



As of thirty minutes ago, I had a patient accuse me of wanting to take her out back behind the hospital and hang her from the highest branch (Not my best story, but they'll come later with more posts).

[Projo]

Gay guy had an Iguana up his rectum and his partner couldn't get it out. I felt bad for the ER Doc, look of sheer Panic on his face. Felt even worse for the family of the victim when they arrived. They had no idea the victim was gay and were super perplexed at how the Iguana got lodged the way it did.

[Projo]

Here is a similiar event involving an eel.
http://www.anorak.co.uk/246882/strange-but-true/eel-swims-up-mans-anus-and-eats-his-bowels-pictures.html/

[hutchb25]

I love these threads!

I'm an EMT-I on an ILS ambulance. My unit got toned one night, just as I was on the verge of falling asleep, for a patient evaluation at this one corner gas station per request of law enforcement. We don't go there often, but when we do it's -always- been weird.

We get there and the cops have this guy in their cruiser with his shirt pulled up over his face, handcuffed. He's bouncing around with classic stuff: "Fuckin cops! Think you're bad ass? Take this shirt off me! What's it take to be a cop, a 5th grade education?" On and on and on. I guess he'd been pulled over for driving intoxicated and put up a fight, and they wanted us to check him out. He's also a known junkie.

Cop : Shut up. The ambulance is here. Are you going to behave if we pull you out so they can check you out?
Carrot Top : I HATE YOU COPS. YES ILL BE NICE. REAL NICE. PIGS
Cop : Ok. If you even breathe funny on the medics, you're getting tazed and going back in the car.

They pull him out and I'm looking at freakin' Carrot Top, if his career were to flop and he were to go on a three year crack binge living under an overpass. -And- the guy's barefoot. I say hi and begin my assessment. Suddenly, with no less than three car fulls of local PD and county sherriff standing within a ten foot radius, Carrot Top looks at the BIGGEST one with his crazy bug eyes, and tries to kick him in the head.

With my spider-like reflexes I put about fifteen feet between me and him. Within a split second the guy has like six cops on top of him, tying him in knots and using knight sticks in ways I didn't think they could be used. After being beaten for several minutes they stuffed him back in the car and hauled him away. We got toned a couple of hours later to come evaluate him at the jail...he still had no life threatening trauma, but he was a lot more cooperative. Even then though he was making direct verbal death threats at one of the cops.


Some people just aren't very bright.

[azrael99]

THAT kinda.........weird no ? why not a hamster ? NO don't answer

i ain't a nurse, and i never treat any weird . the only thing in can say is from the patient side.

the emergency room doctor:
what do you do this time ?
me:
cut my wrist pretty bad
doc:
how ??
me:
by cutting a box
doc:
how? and why ?
me:
the box was too big for recycling, the box was though and the knife slipped in the direction of my wrist
doc:
are you sure you don't have something to say to me ?
me:
yup, it hurt like hell, and i can't feel my finger
doc:
anything else ?
me
if i think what you think, don't worry, if it was that case i know where i should have aim at.
doc:
this ain't funny and serious
me:
i know but it was just a stupid accident
doc:
luckily for you the knife was sharp, it would have been worse
me:
i know it sharp, it mine
doc:
who did your bandage ?
me:
myself
doc:
with one hand ?
me:
yup, and some toilet paper and ductape
doc:
*no comment*

*then he started to help me remove the bandage*

[bonanacrom]

Crazy shit ? After having four heart attacks ( died twice ) and getting a stint placed I dragged every machine they hand me plugged into behind me down the hall, into then out of the elevator and out the exit. ( after 14 hours I really wanted a smoke )

[Niblick]

They had no idea the victim was gay

Luckily a translator was on hand to find out the sexual orientation of the lizard. Sorry, your use of the word victim there is off IMO. The iguana clearly was violated in that situation. Perhaps Patient would have been a better choice, unless I'm all kinds of misunderstanding. Poor thing.

[painiac]

They had no idea the victim was gay and were super perplexed at how the Iguana got lodged the way it did.

Why he fell on it, of course! Isn't that the only way foreign objects ever end up stuck in people's rectums?
Also, obligatory: "Rectum? Damn near killed 'um!"

[duodecima]

Crazy shit ? After having four heart attacks ( died twice ) and getting a stint placed I dragged every machine they hand me plugged into behind me down the hall, into then out of the elevator and out the exit. ( after 14 hours I really wanted a smoke )

Had someone cross a 4 lane divided highway in hospital socks, gown, with IV pole (IV attatched) to get a pack of cigarettes. They then returned to the hospital, only reason we realized this happened was that I saw them crossing over to come back as I left work.

One thing I will say about smokers, they sure do get out of bed after procedures!

[docdredd]

Ok the monkey story can be told now..

I was a line medic attached to an infantry company and we were in Sadr City Baghdad in july 0f 2004. I had just gotten off 2 back to back 12 hour patrols (because there were never enough medics) and had hit the hay back on the FOB. Now I always hated how aid station medics put sick call hours out that people had to follow so I had told my men that I always had a open door. I didnt care if it was 3am if they needed something they were to come see me. So I had been in bed for about an hour and a half when One of my Joes is shaking my foot saying
Joe:"Doc wake up man Im bleeding"
Me: Whats going on man ( still sleepy as shit)
Joe: I got bit by a monkey....
Me: (rolling back over) Stam*** stop messing with me Doc can play games in a few hours..
Joe: No Doc im serious ...
Me: I look over and my buddy was missing a chunk out of his hand the size of a quarter. and bleeding all over the place. I ask what the hell happened to you?
Joe: I told you I got bit by a monkey.
Me: Joe we are in the middle of Iraq where did you find a monkey and what the hell were you doing to it?
Joe: long silence... I bought it from Haji and was feeding it peanuts....
Me: So why did it bite you?
Joe:..... I ran out of peanuts.

On another note do you have any idea how many books I had to read through to figure what medications to give some one with a monkey bite? That little nugget was not covered in AIT at Ft Sam.

[painiac]

I have a couple, and I'm sure I'll think of more.

1. We've known for a very long time that asking, "do you have any medical history?" does not elicit much useful information (many people will just say "no"), so we ask every ER patient a series of more specific questions, "Do you or anyone in your family have any history of heart disease? Diabetes? Lung disease?" etc.

80-something year-old guy presented to ER with shortness of breath and hypoglycemia. I ask him the series of questions about his personal/family history, he denies most of it. Denies history of heart disease. What I see when I'm doing an exam gives me pause. "This huge scar in the middle of your chest looks like you had open-heart surgery. Didn't you tell me you don't have any history of heart disease?!"
Patient: "Oh, well, I did but I don't anymore."
Me: "..."


2. Woman in her early 70s came to our ER for chest pain and shortness of breath. Her cardiac enzymes were mildly elevated, so she was admitted to our ICU and a cardiologist was consulted.
He orders some tests,then the next morning he looks over the results and goes to talk to the patient. He goes in and introduces himself as the cardiologist, tells her he doesn't believe it's anything serious like a heart attack, and explains to her that her chest pain appears to be a stable angina, etc.

The nurse is in the room with the patient a few hours after the cardiologist left, and the patient motions her closer and asks in a hushed voice, "what did that doctor say was wrong with my va-guy-na?"
The nurse somehow manages to hold back hysterical laughter and explains that the cardiologist was talking about ANgina, not VAgina.
The best part is, the woman had already called several family members and friends to report that something is wrong with her "va-guy-na".

[PotatoMuncher]

Ok the monkey story can be told now..

I was a line medic attached to an infantry company and we were in Sadr City Baghdad in july 0f 2004. I had just gotten off 2 back to back 12 hour patrols (because there were never enough medics) and had hit the hay back on the FOB. Now I always hated how aid station medics put sick call hours out that people had to follow so I had told my men that I always had a open door. I didnt care if it was 3am if they needed something they were to come see me. So I had been in bed for about an hour and a half when One of my Joes is shaking my foot saying
Joe:"Doc wake up man Im bleeding"
Me: Whats going on man ( still sleepy as shit)
Joe: I got bit by a monkey....
Me: (rolling back over) Stam*** stop messing with me Doc can play games in a few hours..
Joe: No Doc im serious ...
Me: I look over and my buddy was missing a chunk out of his hand the size of a quarter. and bleeding all over the place. I ask what the hell happened to you?
Joe: I told you I got bit by a monkey.
Me: Joe we are in the middle of Iraq where did you find a monkey and what the hell were you doing to it?
Joe: long silence... I bought it from Haji and was feeding it peanuts....
Me: So why did it bite you?
Joe:..... I ran out of peanuts.

On another note do you have any idea how many books I had to read through to figure what medications to give some one with a monkey bite? That little nugget was not covered in AIT at Ft Sam.

No fucking lie, I had a Kurdish soldier come into my room basically saying the same thing. A small monkey had bit him because he teased the little guy with a loaf of flat bread. I didnt believe the guy and told him to go to the local hospital if he was so worried about it. A few hours later while we were getting ready to roll the tanks, I saw that monkey run across our COP.

I spent the next day and a half reading everything the internet and my medical books had to offer about animal bites.

Stories like these can only happen overseas.

[docdredd]

1. I also had a soldier of mine, who was in a long distance relationship with a girl. Catch a simmunition round right in the left testes ..... wait for it.... On the DAY she flew 500 miles to come see him for some sexy time...

The poor fellows scrotum was so swollen he couldnt walk and ended up looking like a bruised grape fruit the next day.


2. Another time 2 of my joes were practicing knife fighting with live steel and ended up slicing a 3 inch gash down the ribs of his partner.


3. Had a fellow come knock on my barracks door with a dental pick shoved through the palm of his hand at midnight. ( was cleaning a privately owned pistol that he wasnt supposed to have in the barracks)


there are a ton more . I love my Joes to death but I spent more time treating self inflicted wounds than I did enemy action against them (Not really but it felt like it at times.)

[painiac]

Thought of a couple more already.

One of the first questions we ask each ER patient is if they're allergic to any foods or medications that they know of. If they are admitted, we ask again. If they go to surgery, anesthesia asks them too. This seems excessive, but you'd be surprised how many different answers you can get to the same questions from the same person five minutes apart.

1. I was taking care of a guy who was about to go to surgery for a laparoscopic appendectomy. He'd come to ER complaining of abdominal pain, and told them he didn't have any allergies. He was admitted to med/surg for an outpatient surgery, and told us he didn't have any allergies. Anesthesia does their pre-surgery interview, and he says he has no allergies. This consistency is very good.

As we're rolling him out of his room and down the hall to surgery, he looks up at me and says, "oh, hey, by the way: if I take percocet I stop breathing. Do you guys need to know that?"
Me: "...uh, yes, that would have been a very good thing to know. I'll be right back!" I jogged down the hall ahead of them to let anesthesia know so they don't kill him.

2. This is my post, re-posted from an old thread

We had a patient hospitalized for chest pain, who had an episode of recurrence during the night.

He was totally with it, and listened while the nurse explained she was going to get him some morphine, agreed that this would be a good idea, then when she came back he confirmed his allergy list of only being allergic to penicillin, calmly watched as she injected a small 2mg dose, and then promptly went into respiratory arrest!

After a successful resuscitation of ambu-bagging and Narcan, he came to and mused that "Well, now, there was some drug they gave me one time that made me stop breathing, and come to think of it, I think 'morphine' sounds kinda familiar."
No shit... needless to say, we added "MORPHINE" prominently to his allergy list.

[landser]

I think as a former medical professional and first responder this is in poor taste.... I will now put on my flak jacket for stateing this.

[docdredd]

I think as a former medical professional and first responder this is in poor taste.... I will now put on my flak jacket for stateing this.

Your entitled to your opinion, as long as you dont have a fit when we continue

[Niblick]

I think as a former medical professional and first responder this is in poor taste.... I will now put on my flak jacket for stateing this.

So you never vented any crazy stuff that happened to friends or coworkers?...you may have registered on the wrong forum

[Rebel Pariah]

Not a medic or anything of the sort but this is some funny shit following now

[painiac]

I love this thread already. I'm at work tonight, so I'll probably keep thinking of more to post.

1. Guy in his mid-20s was out drinking with a buddy, then was a passenger in his drunk buddy's car. Except the buddy lost control and went off the road (in town, no less), somehow crossed over 50 yards of flat grass with no obstacles without regaining control, and crashed into an old lady's house. The passenger was unrestrained, and his face made a head-sized bubble in the windshield. He was relatively uninjured, but had a laceration that exposed the side of his eyeball so we were about to ship him to a specialist.
He was still on a backboard with a c-collar so is staring up at the ceiling, and we're hooking him up for an EKG as a standard precaution because of the chest trauma. As the guy hooking him up reaches up to attach the right arm lead, the cables drag across the patient's thigh and waist and he shouts, "YOU'D BETTER NOT BE DOING ANYTHING TO MY JUNK!"

2. We once had a guy in his late 50s who was brought in by ambulance after falling off of his roof.
His wife had been nagging him for several weeks to go out and put up the Christmas lights. The night he finally got tired of listening to her nagging and climbed up on the roof just happened to be in the middle of freezing rain.
He got away with just a bruised hip.

[silversnake]

As an occasional patient and relative of several others, I don't mind this sort of thread at all so long as it's sufficiently anonymous to protect patient confidentiality. Of course, I'll contribute a few of my "medical professionals say the damnedest things":

"Oh, that's OK. It's just internal bleeding. His body will re-absorb it." - Nursing student

On one occasion, my wife (girlfriend at the time) went to a walk-in clinic because we were 95% sure she had mono, but wanted to confirm because work would be more lenient with the time off and such and we wanted to make sure it wasn't anything more serious (though that's bad enough when you're a struggling young couple). Anyway, two days later we still hadn't heard back from them on the test results and she's still sick as hell so she calls the clinic and gets whichever doctor is covering at the moment. She asks about the test results. He responds "Let me go get your chart, hold on a moment." A minute or so later he's back on the phone and says "I don't see that any testing was done for mono, but I do see that the AIDS test you had done two days ago came back negative." He never even confirmed her identity, let alone the impropriety of giving someone the results of a test like that over the phone. We won't even get into the fact that they did an AIDS test without her informed consent.

"Wait, you don't want opiates?" - the ER attending when my wife told him that she didn't want any and was just there because the migraine had lasted 6 days without stop and she wanted to make sure there wasn't something more serious going on like a stroke or brain tumor or something. He followed that gem up with "you're probably just anxious" as to the cause of the 6 days of pain before getting on with some diagnostic imaging and some Imitrex.

[docdredd]

Ok one more before bed.

1. I was a BRAND spanking new medic just out of school and at my first unit. We had a field problem 2 days after I arrived so I ship out with a bunch of guys that have no faith in me because im the FNG. Any way the second day one of my joes comes up to me complaining of cold symptoms so I dispense him some decongestants, some Tylenol and some cough drops all neatly labeled in these small drug bags with the dosages and everything written on the side, i explain the dosages tell him when to take what and he goes away happy. about a minute later I look up and see him down throw back his head and down 3 DAYS WORTH of tylenol. I run up to his and ask what he was doing... he looked confused and said that he was taking the meds I gave him...... he had swallowed all the meds I had given him for the next three days all at one time.... after I had spent 10 min explaining how and when to take the meds.... so on my 3rd day in the unit I got to do a stomach Pump in the middle of the woods followed my an ipecac and a charcoal purge ....

[Projo]

They had no idea the victim was gay and were super perplexed at how the Iguana got lodged the way it did.

Why he fell on it, of course! Isn't that the only way foreign objects ever end up stuck in people's rectums?
Also, obligatory: "Rectum? Damn near killed 'um!"

LMAO, I couldn't agree more.

[landser]

This will be about as productive as a dumb things cops say or doctors do thread.

[PotatoMuncher]

I think as a former medical professional and first responder this is in poor taste.... I will now put on my flak jacket for stateing this.

To be a medical professional and post this, you must have the patience of an angel.