Doctors see some weeeeeiiiiiiirrrrrrrdddddd stuff on a daily basis, especially with the people coming through the emergency room.
Ever suffered a strange injury? See if they measure up with these ones shared by AskReddit users?
1. That’s a new one
“Sabre tooth cat (smilodon) bite.
Local university has a paleontology dig with Pliocene (IIRC) era fossils. An undergraduate was helping out in lab and tripped and fell into a fossil reconstruction, lacerating her forearm. Needed a few stitches.
This was before ICD coding was required on everything.”
2. Beware of cheese
“Not an emergency room but, I had patient come into my clinic because he was sure he broke his foot. I asked him what happened and he told me he dropped a really heavy Costco sized wheel of cheese on his foot.
To be fair, those are tremendously heavy.”
3. Oh my god!
“My mom told me a story about how this dude had a ruptured hernia that he’d ignored for a while, and then sneezed one day and his intestines flopped out of his body. Like out onto the floor. So his wife scooped em up in a towel and he held the towel while they drove there. My mom heard that bit, but told me she near pooped herself when this dude came walking in holding a bloody towel and his wife yelled ‘MY HUSBANDS GUTS FELL OUT.’ “
4. Ouch
“I had a patient who sneezed and farted in rapid succession and dehisced her (previously thought well healed) hysterectomy incision. She said blood shot across the room.
I also had a patient with a herniated small bowel fistula (like a basketball sized section of his bowel hanging out) that would unfurl like an accordion if he laughed/sneezed/tensed his muscles when laying down. I always looked up new jokes before I saw him so we could watch it pop out when he laughed.”
5. McChickens
“Not a normal ‘injury’ but it’s stupid. We had someone come in because they couldn’t pee for two days. X ray showed so much stuff. This person was literally filled with crap. So much it blocked their urethra. This patient never mentioned they’ve been constipated for a few weeks. They explained that they started a new weight loss diet that’s supposed to be chicken and a vegetable for every meal.
They thought their new diet was not making any waste and was being used as energy, so the not pooping just never triggered a ‘hmm this isn’t normal’ response. Turns out they had a diet that only consisted of bunless McChickens for breakfast lunch and dinner. Go figure.
After draining almost 2 liters out of this poor soul’s bladder we were ready for phase two: milk and molasses enema. Mixed up the goods and brought a bedside commode, just incase the bathroom is too far. We give the enema, 15 seconds later the loudest stomach gurgle erupted from the depths of our patient. Quickly scrambling trying to get this person on the commode. Anyways, don’t eat only McChickens for a month straight.”
6. Broken
“Broken Penis. A lady was riding him, she came up too high, and then down. He heard it pop. It had a slight bend to it and blood was coming out of the tip. It bled so much that the walls were covered with blood. He had to hold pressure to stop the blood from coming out. He found humor in the situation telling us “My hand is starting to get tired, can you hold my penis now?” Dacino
You break it. You buy it.”
7. Lawnmower accident
“X-ray tech here. Guy had something stuck under his lawn mower, so he reached under to remove it and… you can see where this is going. Had to get a standard 3 view hand X-ray with blood just POURING onto the image receptor. Thank God for purple wipes and bleach.”
8. Bulking up
“We had a call for I&D of bilateral deltoid abscesses. He apparently had thoughts of being a body builder, but instead of lifting weights or knowing someone who could hook him up with some quality steroids, he decided to bulk up by using some protein powder at GNC…
…and mixing it with water, drawing it up into a syringe, and injecting 20-40cc daily directly into the muscle. If bulk was what he was going for, it definitely worked, temporarily. A rip-roaring localized infection makes you look plenty swole. They got almost a liter of puss mixed with liquified protein powder out of each deltoid.
This also wasn’t the first time we’d been called for this problem.”
9. Survived
“Call came in as auto versus bike, GSW. That is a motor vehicle colliding with a bicycle and then the bicyclist was shot. Apparently, the bicyclist was riding his bicycle and was struck by a car. The driver of the car got out and examined the damage to his car, grabbed the shotgun out of his trunk, and then shot the bicyclist. Bicyclist survived.”
10. That’s a lie
“I’m a Registered nurse, had a dude come in with a travel sized shampoo bottle stuck up his butt. Said he was trying to give himself a soap suds enema and it got lodged up too far and he couldn’t get it out. He went for surgery within the hour. I don’t know if I can believe his story.”
