Yuck-weird ER stories

[ReneeA]

My DD walked really, really early (right at 7 months old), and was running before she was 8 months old. My kids are only 18 months apart, and DD was chasing DS through the house when she was 8 months old. He slammed her hand in the door and I took her to the ER for a XRay just in case.

They were very, very suspicious of my story. Asked me to repeat it over and over again. I finally figured out that they didn't believe my story of her running and chasing her brother because she was teeny and super young. Finally I said, "I'll put her on the floor and you'll see what I mean." Put her down and she zipped across the room at full speed. I repeated my story again, and they finally believed me.

 

[sunnyday123]

When I was 12, I was walking down our super-cool paneled hallway in my even super cooler Gloria Vanderbilt jeans that were some kind of stretchy jean mutation. With my very sharp pencil. Turned the corner and felt a pinch, but didn't think anything of it because I didn't see anything. Then I realized the inch long point and top of my pencil were gone, and my leg felt really warm.

I broke the top of the pencil off into my leg, the warm feeling was blood gushing out of my leg, and there was no hole in my jeans because of the stretchy material.

It took two orderlies, and a nurse to hold me down until they could numb my leg. My Dad was violently ill, and the nurses had to sit my Mom down in the hallway because it bled so badly-and my Dad had been a Paramedic. It took the Dr.s forever to get it all out, and I still have a mark on my leg that looks like I colored it in with pencil, and everytime I mention it, my Mom says "I don't want to talk about it."

They threw my pencil sharpener out that night.

 

[SkyGirl]

Several years ago I went to the ER with a broken rib which I got .... sleep walking!

The nurse totally didn't believe me, but I was lucky; the doctor was a sleep walker himself and told me some hilarious stories about waking outside, naked!!

 

[mousebymarriage]

When I was about 8 or 9 years old my mom was hanging new living room curtains. She told me not to touch the curtain rods before she left the room, yeah you guessed it, I touched the curtain rods. The curtain rods were the white metal ones with the sharp edges that "clip" into the metal bracket on the wall. Anyway, I was twirling one of the rods like a baton and doing really well until, the edge got too close to my thigh and sliced it open. I have a 6 inch scar that looks like a side ways Parentheses ")" on my right upper thigh. It wasn't too deep but, mom took me to the ER anyway and they did have to stich it up because the skin was just hanging. Moms face looked like this when she saw it!

 

[SandrA9810]

Even one stitch can cost 600$ after all is said and done at an ER clinic. I know, my credit report proves it.

Living in an itty apartment, I would tie a long rope to the bookshelf next to the door to let the dog out far enough to use the bathroom. Since there was no fence. Well she managed to get her bowl wrapped around the rope some how, and she knocked the dish outside the door. Which is a step down, and of course broke the bowl. Trash was on the other side of the building, and it was late. So I set the dish on the step, underneath where the door opens.
The following morning, Kari went out to the car, and I stepped outside to tell her to grab something else. Doggie thought she was going some place, and decided to run out the door toward the car. Pushing the rope into me, and I stepped straight down onto the broken bowl that I thought I set out of the way.

Kari was the klutz of it all. One morning before she had to go to work, I kept telling her to tie her shoes. She finally did, which were boots that have the hooks on the top. She went to carry something out to the car, and the next thing I hear is her screaming. The loop from one shoe caught on the hook of the other, causing her to trip and fall. Since she had something in her hands, it prevented her from catching her fall.
She had to call in late for work to take her to a clinic because she tripped over her shoes.

 

[bumbershoot]

around the same time, we were eating pop corn, and the second i turn away from her, she sticks a kernel up her nose...She blew and blew (yeah like at that age they know how to blow ) somehow we got that thing out of there...Gee what memories...I can laugh now

My brother was very little, and was eating tictacs. Green ones. He stuck one up his nose and couldn't get it out. And then it started melting, and releasing spicy-hot mint into his nostril. He was only little and no reasoning could help him...my mom did take him to the ER, but by the time we got there, it was melting enough (with green mint coloring coming out of his nose) that it fell out. Poor little dude.


I took a fingernail off during an argument with my brother. Was trying to close my bedroom door and brother was pulling it open. I was pushing my robes aside with right hand while pulling the handle with the left, and my brother let go. Bye bye nail. Had to wait for my mom to get TO work, then FROM work (our neighbor heard me scream and came to be with us), then over to the ER...neighbor had no permission to authorize care...it wasn't pretty. That was between 5th and 6th grades. I was the only 12 year old who could tell when it was going to rain based on how her finger felt....

And when I was around 27, I was moving a table to my car, while wearing sandals, and too late I realized that I was carrying a table that could open up, and I was carrying it with the "seam" the WRONG way. And there went my toenail, just like my fingernail years before.

Went to MultiCare...the doctor looked at it and said "ew". Seriously? EW? And this was AFTER the nurses *never gloved up* while insisting on taking xrays as I was bleeding profusely. I never understood why I needed xrays (what are they going to do, cast it?), and NEVER understood why they had bare hands while I was bleeding on them.





OP, if it bled, and I'm sure it did, you wouldn't have had to worry about tetanus anyway. Tetanus is anaerobic, it cannot survive in oxygen. If a wound is bleeding, it's open to the air. So anaerobic organisms wouldn't survive or thrive. No worries. Now if you closed it up BEFORE it bled, then there might be a worry...

And I've actually known a woman who had tetanus (don't know how she got it). She's Christian Scientist, and refused medical help. She couldn't eat much, had to drink shakes through a small straw, and lost quite a bit of weight...got so thin even her pastor and others in her church were reminding her that it was a personal issue if she chose to get care...but she stuck it through and came out fine.

 

[rie'smom]

I have done this EXACT thing...I stuck my hand in a drinking glass as I was washing it...then suddenly I hear a *POP*..I look down, glass is broken in half, and there is suddenly a lot of blood gushing from my hand.

I basically cut my right hand, right under my pinky joint. It took forever to heal, as I also had no insurance. I now have a scar that is pretty noticable.

I did this to my hand in the exact same way. It was years before I had feeling in that area.

When I was in 2nd grade, there was some broken glass in the backyard. I loved the way the sun's reflection made rainbows, so I decided more glass would make more rainbows. I proceeded to step on it in order to break it. After a few steps, I felt a sharp pain near my ankle, looked down and blood was gushing like a fountain. Knowing I had made a major boo boo and my parents would have a cow, I went into the bathroom and applied pressure. It took quite a while to stop bleeding. I was pretty woozy.

A few days later I went to the doctor for something else. He saw the cut and asked why I had not had stitches. My mom was in shock. Apparently, I had knicked a branch of the tibial artery. He said I was lucky not to have bled to death. That was 45 years ago and I still have the scar.

 

[fraggle551]

I was just out of the shower in the morning going down to the basement where the laundry was to get clothes for school. My mom had cleaned out and set the fish tank on the ground the night before, and the lights in the basement accidentally got turned off on me while I was walking to the stairs. Well somehow, through one side out the other of the fishtank, sliced an artery in my foot and had a giant piece of glass sticking out my foot while blood was pumping out of it and hitting the wall 15 feet away.

Ambulance came (and my best friends are the ambulance crew in my town) and had to take my to the hospital because my moms car was in the shop and I didn't have my full license yet. I was 16 at the time and was more upset that my friends were going to see me naked then I was over slicing an artery in my foot!!

The ER doc that had to dig out the glass and stitch me up said it was definitely one of the most bizarre cases he had ever had. As a matter of fact I was in the ER last week with my grandfather and we saw the dr. He still remembers me . Apparently he is very good looking and once they gave me all the painkillers so they could dig out all the glass, I kept telling him so! I don't remember that part, but that is what my family tells me. And the guys in the fire dept all now refer to me as 'tank'!

One of my fears to this day is now falling or getting injured while i'm naked and having my friends see me naked, again!

 

[pixiefairy]

Oh ouch to all these stories!!!

My eldest son stuck those old building toys "tubers and zots" up his nose in Kindergarten. They were these squishy little foam building pieces. Why he shoved it up there is beyond me..but they called me to see if I could get it out, I could not, so off to the doctor and the long tweezers we went.

My sister stuck a purple skittle up her nose while trying to "smell" it. Same doctor as above story...same long tweezers involved.

My nephew was messing around with a sharpened pencil at school...standing it up on his desk and then slamming his hand down as the pencil fell. Unfortunately...he did it one too many times and it stayed upright just a LITTLE too long...and pencil through the palm of his hand. I will never forget seeing those xrays while I was pregnant with my daughter. Luckily...he didn't mess anything up permanently.

 

[mickeymedic]

Some of these stories are the basis for the saying: "Never do anything you would be too embarassed to explain to the Paramedics."

 

[tinatark]

I have a couple of friends who are ER docs... they both interned at an ER in Memphis - apparently, multiple, "lost" tampons are a frequent cause to visit an ER... one said a lady came in to the ER, after TWELVE were removed, requested another exam room because hers "stunk" - ya think?! LOL...

 

[starrzone]

My mother takes great pride in decorating for Christmas, and she made a garland to go over the top and around the sides of our kitchen door. This garland was truly gorgeous; she must have spent hours putting ribbon, decorations, and other accessories on it.

Well, one evening 4 days before Christmas 2007, she saw that the garland had slipped from people opening and closing the door. She's a short woman, so she got up on a stool to straighten the top of the garland while my father was on the floor helping her by holding one side up. Well, I guess his hand was in the door at the exact moment my mother slipped off the stool...the door slammed shut and his hand was caught inside. The tip of the index finger on his left hand was taken right off.

When they told me the story, the first thing I thought was thank GOODNESS my mother didn't hit her head when she fell! My poor dad, though; he's left-handed and does a LOT of writing and typing in his job. Luckily, though, he went to an awesome physiotherapist at the hospital and he's doing great now. I just wonder how my mother told the story to the physician in the ER when they asked what happened...

P.S.- my father is a very busy man, and is ALWAYS on the computer, mostly typing e-mails. Right after they got home from the ER, he was on morphine for the pain. When I walked in, he was typing an e-mail...I laugh to think what he wrote while all doped up on morphine!

 

[sunshine1178]

On the racetrack, female horses sometimes have their "special area" sewn shut to avoid "sucking wind" when they race. A couple of years ago, one mare wasn't too happy about the procedure, and kicked the vet across her stall. While he was in the ER for stitches and a cat scan, just about every staff member came in to hear the story. Not surprisingly, all of the women took the mare's side!

 

[TSUalum93]

Great thread!

There was the time I bought my son a vegetarian egg roll. I broke it in half so he could eat it. The next thing I knew he had pieces of the stuff inside all over his finger which was also up his nose. After a call to the doctor we went to the ER. Friday night at a major hospital in Brooklyn, NY. We waited a long time as we were of course not high up on the list. A resident checked him out and did not see anything. The attending came over and said -- he looks like a kid who would shove food up his nose. Now I thought this was hysterical. It might not translate well but the way she said it made it really funny. She then took a look and saw a piece of carrot on the edge of the abyss in his nasal cavity. She used a tool -- it looked like the plastic comb my mother used for her hair with a pick on the end to pop it out . . . The carrot shred landed, encased in a ball of mucus right on the divot between his lip and his nose. The attending looked at the resident and said . . . Ewwww. I am not touching that. We all cracked up. One lady gave us dirty looks as she held her sick child. I felt a little bad because it was obvious her daughter was not feeling well but we were all laughing -- me, the doctors. It was funny.

Once I was dumpster diving for coupons at a 7-11. I did not want to climb in . . . Just hoist myself up so I could pull the papers up from the top. I came down with a huge bang onto my rib cage on the ledge. When I went to the ER later that night due to the pain I told them I ran into the bars at the jungle gym at the local playground while horsing around with my then boyfriend (now husband). I badly bruised several ribs.

But perhaps my favorite . . . I was told I probably would not be able to have children due to a condition that resulted in a lack of monthly cycle. Well I went to the doctor and was told I was 33 weeks pregnant. I was of course beside myself. I had lost weight because I had started a new stressful job (and I was heavy to begin with). I never felt the baby kick. I never had morning sickness. I was sent directly to the ER. A very kind nurse told me that things like this happen more than we hear about. She told me on her very first day as a nurse in that hospital some 20+ years earlier, a young girl came in due to severe constipation with her mother. 2 hours later they told her mother that she was a grandmother. Yep. Not constipated. In labor.

Made me feel a little better. At least I found out with 7 weeks to go . . .

And now you know the rest of the story.

Maddy

 

[SandrA9810]

So my cousin's restaurant name is the "Rose Tattoo bar and grille".
Well one night, my grandmother was eating there, except she kept getting an upset stomach and wasn't feeling well. So my aunt called the paramedics. So of course they're wondering, what the heck is an 83 yrs old woman doing at a Tattoo parlor.
My aunt had to explain that it was a restaurant and the name came from an old movie, but they did get a nice chuckle out of thinking my g'mother was getting a tattoo.

 

[tammymacb]

I wasn't the patient. I was the nurse. But, I had a girl come in early on a Sunday morning. She had a 3cm laceration on her butt cheek.

She told me "she was posing for pictures for her financee, fell off the bed, and landed on a beer bottle.."

 

[danalee]

not sure old my little cusion was at the time, but she just started to talk, just words here and there. Anyway my mom and I watched her one night for her mom and I was like "mom this kid stinks, her face stinks" lol well my mom was mad at first then she smelled her too. So we kept smelling her and she kept saying "pilliow"...

jump to the next weekend when we had her again and it was like "PU big time" so when her mom comes to get her we were like what is up with the stinky baby? all the while she kept saying' "pillow"

Long story short the mom didnt know what the problem was and it her breathing was getting worse, we all thought it was coming from her mouth, well a trip to the ER showed that sit wasnt her mouth, it was the stuff up her nose! she had a foam pillow that she carried around and apparently would pick pieces of the foam apart and stick them up her nose! it was the most horrid smell ever
soon there after her "pillow" got lost

 

[HerdOHuds]

I was at school cutting out a large shape from corrugated cardboard for a family event in a few days. I was using a box cutter. The cardboard caught the blade for a moment and then (as I was cutting toward myself) it broke free and I ended up with the box cutter in my hand and a hole in my skirt.

I thought "Darn. I bet I put a hole in my stockings too!" Then I lifted the skirt and found a hole in my thigh. I had to be driven to the ER and got 5 stitches.

Another teacher I know did the same thing but when the blade cut him, it was his arm. He waited several hours of applying pressure and it still bleeding before he finally went to the ER. He had cut an artery. He was lucky he went when he did.

Then there was the New Year's Eve that I was carrying laundry down to the basement (Laundry! No alcohol involved!) and slipped on the top step and rolled head over hiney to the bottom. I was alone in the house and there was no phone in the basement. So, with a crushed wrist, I crawled back up to the living room and called DH to come get me and take me to the ER.

That was fun explaining to the drs. and nurses over and over again that I hadn't been drinking. Just doing laundry. Luckily it was early enough in the night I didn't have to wait forever for treatment. I did have to wait 2 days for the surgery to put in the 7 pins!

 

[princessmom29]

My brother was very little, and was eating tictacs. Green ones. He stuck one up his nose and couldn't get it out. And then it started melting, and releasing spicy-hot mint into his nostril. He was only little and no reasoning could help him...my mom did take him to the ER, but by the time we got there, it was melting enough (with green mint coloring coming out of his nose) that it fell out. Poor little dude.


I took a fingernail off during an argument with my brother. Was trying to close my bedroom door and brother was pulling it open. I was pushing my robes aside with right hand while pulling the handle with the left, and my brother let go. Bye bye nail. Had to wait for my mom to get TO work, then FROM work (our neighbor heard me scream and came to be with us), then over to the ER...neighbor had no permission to authorize care...it wasn't pretty. That was between 5th and 6th grades. I was the only 12 year old who could tell when it was going to rain based on how her finger felt....

And when I was around 27, I was moving a table to my car, while wearing sandals, and too late I realized that I was carrying a table that could open up, and I was carrying it with the "seam" the WRONG way. And there went my toenail, just like my fingernail years before.

Went to MultiCare...the doctor looked at it and said "ew". Seriously? EW? And this was AFTER the nurses *never gloved up* while insisting on taking xrays as I was bleeding profusely. I never understood why I needed xrays (what are they going to do, cast it?), and NEVER understood why they had bare hands while I was bleeding on them.





OP, if it bled, and I'm sure it did, you wouldn't have had to worry about tetanus anyway. Tetanus is anaerobic, it cannot survive in oxygen. If a wound is bleeding, it's open to the air. So anaerobic organisms wouldn't survive or thrive. No worries. Now if you closed it up BEFORE it bled, then there might be a worry...

And I've actually known a woman who had tetanus (don't know how she got it). She's Christian Scientist, and refused medical help. She couldn't eat much, had to drink shakes through a small straw, and lost quite a bit of weight...got so thin even her pastor and others in her church were reminding her that it was a personal issue if she chose to get care...but she stuck it through and came out fine.

Sorry, but you ABSOLUTELY CAN GET TETANUS IN A WOUND THAT HAS BLED! If you have a deep wound you NEED to be up to date on tetanus becuase it CAN survive in a woulnd deep enough for stitches and be potentially deadly.Just because one person survived it doesn't mean it's not a killer. Please, please don't be the reson somebody dies due to false information! Anerobic organisms cna multiply after the wound has been closed if even one didn't get exposed to enough oxygen to die. How do you think so many people died from tetanus beofre the vac. came along?? If all it took was a bit of blood form the wound to stop it, then ti would not be a major medical concern.

 

[phillmolly]

I am so queasy from reading all these stories!