Yuck-weird ER stories

[simba20]

I'd go into detail, but no one really needs to know.

Basically I got "stopped up" due to pain meds for a toothache(Tylenol 3). I tried natural remedies (foods, juice) but after a week things were still blocked. Too scared to give myself an enema and worked myself up into a frenzy that somethign was seriously wrong because I have NEVER been constipated (even when I had pain meds for my c-section), I went to the ER, where they did x-rays, and then sent me home with a script to......................................
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.......take an enema.

Which I held off doing for another four days (had to work up the nerve).

I can attest that when I finally did, it was worse than childbirth. I thought I was goign to die when things finally moved out.

I will NEVER wait again.

This happened two weeks before this past Christmas.

 

[dakcp2001]

OP here, just checking in! I am a novice nurse (just graduated, so basically I know nothing!) I did butterfly bandage the wound myself, and applied neosporin over it. I have been keeping it dry and changing the bandage often (I wash my hands OFTEN and dont want it wet) I had a tetanus in January, so I think I am good! It is looking much better! That first night was bad because it started bleeding again in the middle of the night, so I had to get up and put pressure & start the whole dressing thing over. But today, a few days post can-cut, it looks clean & dry and the edges are staying together nicely! I am working at the hospital tomorrow, so my Charge Nurse is going to take a look and make sure it is ok! I am Per Diem so no health insurance! boooooo! But if I need anything she plans to send me to the ER. It will be a scar, but well, what can you do?

But I love all the stories, I have been having a good laugh at least!

 

[DisneyFirefly]

When my brother was probably about 11 or 12, he got a Go-Bot (think tiny Transformer) stuck in his eye. Oddly enough, that was how my family found out that I needed glasses! Basically, he was told to play video games as vision therapy (!) and I got jealous, so I said I couldn't see the board in school. It turned out that I really couldn't.

My sister was about 7 when she took a large box and sledded down our basement stairs onto the concrete floor. The box tipped and she fell face first into the concrete. She fractured her orbit and looked like my mom had beaten her up for weeks. This was right before school pictures, too

When I was about 7, I stepped in front of an open fire hydrant and got blown across the street and hit my head on a curb. I have no memory of how I got home.

There was more, too. Those are just three of the highlights.

 

[ilovepcot]

All the earlier talk on here about people getting cut with glass reminded me of an incident a year or so back.

I work with glass and had gone into a stained glass shop for supplies. The man who runs the shop didn't come out and greet me as usual. In fact, he muttered something I couldn't understand from the back of the shop. I browsed a bit and he never did come out...very odd for him! Finally, I needed him to come cut some glass for me and I headed to the back of the shop to tell him. Wow!!! He was attempting to put his arm back together. A huge area of flesh, tendons and muscle were hanging....I'm talking about the entire arm being laid open from his elbow to his shoulder! Seems a huge piece of glass "slipped" and laid his arm open. He wasn't bleeding heavily...in fact, hardly any blood at all. He denied any pain...in fact, said it was numb. He was trying to use heavy string, DIRTY string, to wrap around the arm and hold it together. I offered to drive him to the ER. Nope! Said he'd go when it was a more "convenient" time. He cut my glass for me and sent me on my way. I'd always been told he was a little "out there". Yep!

 

[IDoDis]

When my brother was 11 and I was 10, we were running through a field on our way home when he suddenly stopped and started screaming. I ran back to see what had happened. I looked down and saw a large rusty nail coming out of the top of his shoe. He has stepped on a board that had a large nail facing upward that had been hammered through the board. The nail went through his shoe (a rubber-soled shoe like Converse) and up through the center of his big toe.

I didn't know what to do because we were still a few blocks from home. I ended up running the rest of the way home and came back with my mom (in the car). We had him hobble to the car and then off to the E.R. He ended up losing his toenail and got some kind of bandage, crutches, and a tetnus shot in the hip.

I still remember my poor brother who was just wailing with every hop as that board was still hanging down and pulling on the nail as we hobbled him to the car. He rarely cried, so to see him in that much pain really freaked me out.

 

[JoShan1719]

My mom once cut her wrist on a can. Looked exactly like she was trying to kill herself. She had a hard time convincing the Er that she wasn't! She still has a scar from it almost 30 years later.

Similar story with my mom. She was walking down the street and tripped. She landed on a broken coke bottle (giving away her age here) and slit one of her wrists, basically. She still has a scar but you can barely see it unless she points it out.

 

[abdmom]

OP, I gave myself a deep 2 cm cut on my right thumb about 33 years ago. I still have the scar and it still hurts. If I could go back 33 years, I'd go to the ER.

 

[tuckerkeys]

Ohhhh I have a bad one, a really bad one...If you are a man you should probably STOP reading this right now!!

Ok. This was right after the summer of 2008. My husband decided to take 1 of our dogs out on a run while riding the bike. This is usually done by me b/c I know how to handle this dog on the bike, she can be quite strong...

Well, they weren't even down the street when the dog saw a cat. My husband apparently hadn't gotten her in check and she took off with him on the bike and he SLAMMED down on his " area " ouch!

He came home with blood running down his leg into his shoe. Upon further inspection he had split open his, um, 2 round things? ( I hope this is a friendly description sorry!! ) clean cut right between them!

At this point it was after 8pm. Our ER is notorious for having waits anywhere from 5-12 hours. He did NOT want to go! He was super embarassed! So, he convinced me to go to the CVS, get some butterfly strips and skin glue and I tended to him on the living room couch while watching True Blood!! He slept with ice on his area and had some pain killers I had saved from a wisdom teeth extraction I had had previously..

The next morning He went to our local emergicare place. The Dr. who saw him said I did a great job and said what I did was what the ER would have done anyway, and we had just saved our insurance at least $1500+

He healed beautifully and the pain was minimal after the 1st day. He'll leave the bike riding with the dogs to me though b/c he doesn't want to go through that again!!

 

[golfgal]

Dh tried to catch a softball with his eye. He kept telling me he was fine, I kept looking at the gaping hole above his eye and saying "no honey, you need stitches". 8 stitches later...

 

[Luv2Camp]

Do you know those stories that you shouldn't try to domesticate a wild animal? Well, my younger brother had a pet raccoon for years. I was 20 and pregnant with my DS, and over at my parents' house for Thanksgiving. I went into my brother's room to tell him that lunch was ready, and the raccoon leaped behind his bedroom door and jumped on my leg. He tore a couple nice chunks out of my leg, which sent me to the ER for stiches and a tetanus shot. They check his raccoon for rabies, but they let him keep it in the end. 23 years later, I still have the scar on my leg. I am horribly scared of raccoons, but it makes for an interesting story!

 

[BonnieA]

This happened to me over 30 years ago but it's not something I am going to forget.
We were relocating, movers would be coming the next day. I was trying to get thru the garage by getting some things out of the way. I had to move a big chair. It was a very low to the ground chair and I pulled to towards me. The chair ran over my foot pulling back the toenail on my big toe. It was pulled all the way back, and then it flopped back down in place.
So off we go to the ER. First thing was a tetanus shot. Next the MD wanted to relieve the pressure under the nail, so he was going to put a hole in the nail. Now this had happened only a short time ago, there was no pressure under the nail yet. I'll never forget how he made the hole. He took a paperclip, straightened it, sterilized it with a flame and poked it into my toenail. That was the worst pain I have felt. I suppose if there had been pressure built up under there it wouldn't have hurt.

 

[amyjo920]

I used to have a lot of crazy ER stories as a Paramedic, but lets just say that when someone complains of rectal bleeding, I now make sure to ask if they have put anything in there. I guess if you don't ask they don't feel the need to provide the info. Ewww!

 

[scottishduffy]

I used to have a lot of crazy ER stories as a Paramedic, but lets just say that when someone complains of rectal bleeding, I now make sure to ask if they have put anything in there. I guess if you don't ask they don't feel the need to provide the info. Ewww!

I work in an OR. We get the joy of pulling that stuff out. Yuuuuuuck.

My favorite thing about people from the ER is hearing the stories of what happened.

"I ran into a car"..... "Sir, do you mean you were hit by car?"..... "No. I ran into a parked car and that is how I broke my jaw."



My personal tale is the tale of breaking my hand. You know, when you are small, your mother always tells you not to put your arms out of the car window? I really should have listened to her. I was in a car with some friends and put my hand out of the passengar side window to wave to her little brother. My hand hit their mailbox when I did this, thus breaking my hand. The nurse at the ER had the nerve to ask me if I was punching off mailboxes on purpose. The bottom of my two tags was my retort to that stupid question.

 

[Maridw]

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

Some of these stories are "Here's your sign" stories.

When I was a baby - 8 mo and my sis was 6, my mom cut her hand between her thumb and forefinger. She went the the ER on base and the doctor looked at it and told the tech to put a butterfly on it. While the tech was cleaning it up - running in under a faucet, he looked at my mom and asked her if she could feel it. She told him no and he said he would be back in a minute. He came back with a different doctor who looked at it and found that she had cut the nerve. He proceeded to stitch the sheath the nerve was in and told her not to use her thumb for 6 weeks. My dad was out of the country and it was just the three of us. She managed, but just because if she didn't, she would not have the use of her thumb.

 

[snoopybabe]

Years ago in North Carolina I was in a hurry trying to cut a frozen bagel with a big knife for my DS but cut off part of the top of one of my fingers. The ER nurse after listening to my NY accent told me "That's why we eat biscuits down here honey"

 

[arminnie]

Between my late mother and father, myself and sister I think I know all of the ER personnel on a first name basis!

My favorite story is when I went by ambulance to a hospital where I was finally diagnosed with gallbladder problems. I had to transfer to another hospital for surgery. My sister picked me up and we went by the house to get my stuff. I had an IV port (or whatever you call it) in my arm - I'm a hard stick so they decided to leave it there for the next hospital.

My sister fell at the house when her knee went out. I couldn't pick her up so we called 911. The guys who came were the same ones who had taken me to the hospital the day before. They looked at me and said they had orders to transport me from hospital A to hospital B - but here I was at home requesting aid for a second person!

So my sister and I both end up at the same ER. It was the WORST hospital in the whole world (St. Vincent's Little Rock) and I finally just went to my room by myself as there was no one to ever take me there. One time there was not a single nurse on the floor. What a nightmare.

I've learned one thing - it SO makes a difference what hospital you go to.