30 Most WTF Cases That Walked into The Emergency Room
1.
Not medical, but dental. Had a woman who was obviously an addict come in for a tooth ache. I had to help her fill out the new patient form because it confused her too much. Every health question was met with ‘what’s that?’. We finally get her back in the room to start X-rays and holy smokes. No wonder this lady had a toothache. She was LITERALLY growing ALGAE on her teeth. It was horrendous. We ended up having to refer her to a dental hospital because the work was so extensive. I couldn’t eat anything with seaweed in it for years. It looked just like the stuff on her teeth.
2.
My friend was an ER doctor. Had a guy come in with a flashlight stuck up his b**t. When my friend came back from his break he asked the other doc how the patient with the flashlight up his b**t was doing and the other doc asked him, "Which one?" It was a busy night!
3.
A patient who filled a condom with Hard as Nails (a glue that sets hard as nails) inserted it while the glue was still not set. Then it set and it took every surgical instrument we could think of to extract it.
5.
I once had a patient who came in with her baby daughter. The daughter was a baby, maybe one by the looks of it. The lady told me all these things about how she was anti-vax and blah blah. She then asked me to “fix” her baby. You guys, it was d**d. She was holding a goddamn corpse.
6.
Too many! The guy that used tampons as earplugs at night, forgot to take them out and had a shower. He didn't realize how absorbent they were! The woman complained of a sudden and severe irritation 'down there'. She had sequin knickers and wore them inside out, several of them had come loose and worked their way inside. The lovely old lady who came in with 'stabbing pains in the chest', upon inspection we noted that she was indeed being stabbed, by the lamb-chop bone in her bra. The young lad that had a speculum stuck in his mouth. We don't where/how he got it but apparently, he was trying to pretend to be a duck. (For the guys out there that don't know, a speculum is a medical tool that is most commonly used for examining vaginas).
7.
I had a patient that wouldn’t let me take his temperature with a non-contact device on his forehead. He was worried about “blasting radiation into his pituitary gland”. First of all, you’re 90 so I’m sure by now your pituitary gland is a little bag of sand by now; and secondly, where did you get this info? Facebook?
8.
A 79-year-old man presents to ER with an aerosol air freshener can up his a**…told the doctor it “slipped in" when he went to sit on the toilet…it was so far in there he needed full abdominal surgery to remove it because even the colonoscope couldn’t reach it!
10.
We had a patient who came to the ER after a car accident and had a metal fence pole all the way through his right chest, in the front, out the back. He previously had his right lung removed so he walked away with no injury after a pipe through the chest.
11.
Not my story but my friend is a paramedic and got called to a house where someone thought a person "might" be d**d. The guy had hanged himself at least 3 weeks previously. Think advanced state of decomposition. She said she can remember thinking, "What do they expect us to do? Resuscitate him?" Obviously, she didn't say anything and just contacted the police. I assume some people just panic and don't know who to call in this situation.
12.
Before I had a liver transplant, I suffered from a condition called "Ascites" that makes you retain fluids and your belly looks like you are 11 months pregnant (I am a guy). Every week I'd go to the hospital to get the fluids drained (usually around 10 to 11 liters). Since it was a teaching hospital, more often than not there was an attending nurse and a very young doctor. The procedure required an ultrasound machine, operated by the nurse, and a 9" needle to penetrate the abdomen and find the sack with the liquid. Most young doctors had never done anything like it and they were nervous and a little bit disturbed. Once this very young doctor got physically sick and white as a sheet. He also couldn't find the sack. He kept prodding and getting more and more panicked. By then I was an old hand at it and I had seen it done properly at least a dozen times, so I asked him "do you mind if I give it a shot?". At first, he blabbed something incoherent, so I added, "I won't tell anyone, I just can't afford to leave without being drained, this is the one day a week when I get to feel normal for a few hours". He finally agreed and I took hold of the 9" needle. Watching the ultrasound screen, in a few seconds I found the sack and we started filling 2-liter bottles with the liquid. It was a 12 liters day, requiring six two-liter bottles. My father-in-law drove me there that day, and he was watching the proceedings, but it was too much even for him. He passed out and had to be put on a gurney. Both the doc and my FIL were traumatized. The nurse joked with me about it. I eventually got a liver transplant and that issue went away. I am almost at the 20 years mark.
13.
I’m the patient here. Guess what I did? Yeah, I ate a flower with a bee on it. Not only did I get stung, but guess what else? The flower was the one thing I was allergic to. I couldn’t breathe because I still had a petal AND a bee stuck in my mouth, and my tongue basically blew up. I did not eat any greens, or anything purple because the flower was purple.
14.
Not me but my dad who was a physician. He said he hated the ER, this was back when there were no "ER specialists" just doctors on call. I asked him why, and he said he was sick of "removing" things that had no business being where they were. I said, "like what?" And he said, "like flashlights, baby bottles, and squash." I asked no more.
15.
I work in learning disability care and once had to accompany a young lady to the hospital who was complaining about pain when urinating. Somehow she had inserted peas into her urethra and attempted to fish them out with a bobby pin - over a week before she went to the ED.
16.
My wife works in the ICU and a large lady came in once and they had to give her a sponge bath and they found an old oreo under her b**b.
17.
A woman came into our ER with a very swollen finger and in a lot of pain. While doing a lot of dishes, a box of spaghetti fell over, as she tried to catch it to avoid it falling into the sudsy sink, one strand impaled itself under her fingernail. Since her hands were so wet, the spaghetti slid all the way to the top of the nail. It. Was. Horrifying. Everyone was cringing! The doctor had to cut a slit into her fingernail to fish it out! We all had funny reactions! The woman said it was so painful that she wanted her finger cut off! She had instant relief when the doc cut the nail and relieved the pressure.
18.
I once had to explain to a patient that there was no need for us to check his b12 levels because he was actually not on a vegan diet. Still, he insisted on being a vegan because he only ate poultry regularly, while other meats or fish only "a few times a month" and also it was always organic. He genuinely thought he was a vegan and therefore needed his b12 level checked. I ended up saying, "b12 deficiency is only a problem for those vegans who don't eat meat."
19.
I'm not a doctor, but I was once in the doctor's office waiting for a check-up when this woman bolts in with her young child, screaming that she was bleeding. Her kid was on her period.
20.
I once handled a man that had inserted the p**is in an active vacuum cleaning pipe, it swelled a lot and got stuck. Totally purple after removal.
22.
Was on a med-surg-gyn-weird diseases floor. Had a patient come in with Pemphigus. A skin disease. A not often seen one. Also had a patient come in with a rare genetic disease that both parents were Caucasian, but the baby had very dark skin and hair and their features were Caucasian. He was also in a wheelchair and his skin was very delicate and broke down easily. Can’t remember the name of it, De. … something. But it was very interesting. I also had several patients with cystic fibrosis, under this one doctor’s care. They aged from teens to 36. Very old for a patient with CF. He was very invested in their care. One patient came in and he was dying. He asked that any nurse not comfortable with his morphine dosing schedule, not take care of his patient. He was of the opinion, that they could pretty much tell you when and how much they wanted or needed, and where to get it. He later was in the news as the doctor who broke the genetic code for CF. He was based in Orlando, Fl. He was an amazing doctor!
23.
P**is fish…. A fish swam up into this man’s urethra. He had been on vacation and WAITED UNTIL HE WAS BACK to get looked at!!! That was nearly 20 years ago and I will never forget that poor guy.
24.
Not a doctor. Sat in the waiting room at the health center, waiting for my doctor when a worker from the building project next door came in. He had his hand wrapped in a big towel and just stood in the line for the receptionist. He left a large trail of blood running from the towel. Not dripping, running in a small stream. Luckily someone more or less shouted to get him some attention. When a couple of nurses came running the dude said something like: "I just cut myself a bit", not really seeming to realize it had to be bad. Either he was cool as a cucumber or in chock. Probably the latter.
25.
I had a severely psychotic patient who was convinced she had consumed human flesh and was always trying to induce vomiting. She was eventually discharged. Later she was re-admitted when her relative (a new mother) had caught this patient preparing to eat the baby.
26.
Mostly ER. 1. Dead babies brought in. 2. 17 yo girl stabbed in the heart by someone who tried to steal her cellphone, dead on arrival. 3. Lady attacked by a pet python. I clamped onto her wrist and wrapped itself around her neck, luckily she survived. 4. Guy took Viagra, effects did not wear off, 36 hrs later he came into ER because to pain was too much. 5. Police officer shot in the face, had to have total reconstructive surgery. And so much more...
27.
As a paramedic with over 25 years in the job, I have witnessed a lot of things. One that sticks with me is a call I dealt with over 20 years ago. A lady dialed 999 and the call was passed as "broken finger". It was only when we arrived we found that she had actually broken a fingernail, and was wanting us to fix it as she was going to a dinner party and wanted to look her best. For context, the patient lived in a large house with a private drive and considered herself to be in the upper class. My crew mate did indeed 'fix' the broken fingernail back on, with a big comedy bandage you would normally expect to see in a cartoon. Our patient was not impressed by this, as it made her look ridiculous, and she uttered that immortal line "I will get you sacked for this". My crew mate, being less subtle than me, educated the lady on the inappropriateness of the situation (in words of very few syllabus) and it would be a shame if we did get sacked and details of this call 'leaked' to the press. I don't believe a complaint was ever made...
28.
I work registration in the emergency room…I’ve seen some weird stuff in the month and a half I’ve been here. We had one woman come in with a lit cigarette and a newborn…she had given birth in her car, and decided to wait to come in so she could finish smoking.
29.
Saw this guy who ‘accidentally’ injected an EpiPen into his junk. He got worried and came into the ED. He claimed it was totally an accident and just wanted to see how the thing worked, but his friend told us he was out of viagra and wanted to see if the EpiPen works as a replacement, since it’s epinephrine/adrenaline. Spoiler alert, it doesn’t.
30.
Urgent care registration staff here. Had a man come in because he "needed a boil on his arm checked out". I didn't ask him to, but he unzipped his jacket (no shirt on underneath) and showed me his arms. This was NOT just a boil, he had rubber surgical drains coming out multiple sites on each arm. He had left an out-of-state hospital where he was being treated for purulent cellulitis without notifying doctors or getting his Rx for antibiotics. He said he had to get to Montana for a friend's funeral and didn't have time to stop long. Our doctors told him his case was too severe and he needed to go to the ER because he was septic. He refused an ambulance ride and said he'd drive himself. We checked hospital records later that day and the man never checked in at the ER. He just continued his drive across state lines. Maybe there were eventually 2 funerals in Montana that day.
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