I'm Having a Baby!

A patient was brought to the hospital because he overdosed on Tylenol and was suffering from a bit of liver damage.
Here is an excerpt from a nurse's notes:
"Patient had a BM, during which he said he was having a baby, and sure enough there was a
toy doll in his BM... Nurse is insistent that this patient needs referral to psych."
When I asked the patient if he had anything else inside him he started cackling wildly and yelled "LOVE!" Not believing he had only love and a baby inside him, we had his abdomen X-Rayed. He had some lose change as well as a tiny plastic object. When shown the X-Ray, the patient identified the plastic object as a bottle for the baby.

Holy Matrimony!

It was among my first shifts in my residency and somehow they made it past security. A young couple stormed up to the doctor's station in the ER. He was dressed and groomed to look like James Brown, she was sporting giant headphones and quietly rocking out to music. James Brown declared:
"We need to get married right now! Right now! Right Now!"
I looked down at my watch, 3:45am. I looked back up toward this couple. His nose was about an inch away from mine, she had her eyes closed and slowly swayed to the music flowing out of her headphones. They both looked extremely stoned.
"WE NEED TO GET MARRIED RIGHT NOW! RIGHT NOW! RIGHT NOW!"
"We don't really do that here. This is an ER."
"WE NEED TO GET MARRIED RIGHT NOW! RIGHT NOW! RIGHT NOW!"
I looked helplessly to the charge nurse who smiled back at me. I offered a meek "I'll see what I can do".
It then dawned on me. It's 4am, they need to get married, and despite being stoned figured out the only place in town with a 24 hour chaplain. This couple was brilliant and they deserve a chance. The chaplain was woken up, but did not know what the protocol was for this sort of request. He was just a chaplain in training, a resident like me. The chaplain did the only thing he could do - wake up the head chaplain for the county to seek council. As it turns out, you can't get married in a hospital unless you are a patient in the hospital.
"Sir, I'm sorry but we can't marry you today because you have to be a patient to get married and you are not a patient."
"WE NEED TO GET MARRIED RIGHT NOW! RIGHT NOW! RIGHT NOW!"
Security escorted the couple out of the ER.
30 minutes later....
"WE NEED TO GET MARRIED RIGHT NOW! RIGHT NOW! RIGHT NOW!"
Alarmed, I looked back at the charge nurse who was now holding two patient charts. One with a chief complaint of chest pain, the other with shortness of breath. James Brown and his mellow rocker chick were both on gurneys. They had hospital bracelets on. Impressed by their tenacity, we called back the young chaplain. It was now 5:30am. The chaplain in turn woke up the head county chaplain once again for advice. By this time a best man appeared. Amazingly, he too looked identical to James Brown.
"WE NEED TO GET MARRIED RIGHT NOW! RIGHT NOW! RIGHT NOW!"
The chaplain called us back. As it turns out, you can't get married in a hospital unless you are a patient AND you have been admitted to an inpatient service.
I'm not sure who it was that broke the news to them. Immediately, a brawl broke out in the ER between the charge nurse, a security guard and the best man (who had just finished smoking crack and felt particularly peppy at 5:30am). The bride quietly swayed back and forth with her headphones during the whole fight.
Eventually, they were all escorted out.
To this day, I deeply regret the lost opportunity.

My Face Caught on Fire

A 55 year-old woman with severe emphysema connected her oxygen tanks to dozens of feet of extension tubing so that she could be outside her house while still on oxygen. To compensate for the extended tube distance, she had to keep her oxygen on very high flow. One day, a friend drove in from out of town to visit her. She ran outside to give him a big hug while sporting her oxygen tubes on her face. Ordinarily this would not be a problem, however, the woman's friend had a lit cigarette in his mouth.

I Ran Over My Leg

A morbidly obese woman driving an airline shuttle bus swerved out of a car's way while driving on the freeway. The bus tipped onto the passenger side's wheels and continued traveling with the driver's side of the bus up in the air. The seat belt could not contain the large driver who fell out of her seat, through the passenger doors and onto the freeway. The rear wheel of the bus ran over her leg. Aside from a couple of minor scrapes she was uninjured. (There are police and ambulance reports that corroborate this story).

Valentine's Day

Grouping similar things seems to be a natural human tendency. Perhaps it comes from preschool activities, or some other form of subconscious childhood training. This tendency holds true in the ER. That's why last year, on valentine's day, the triage nurse put all the men who were stabbed in the chest by their significant others next to each other. The comradery among the 3 men in the trauma bay swapping girlfriend-with-a-cleaver stories was an uplifting moment during a night-long holiday shift.

Man With Limp

45 year-old male in a hallway bed with chief complaint "I was shot in the foot 10 days ago". Before even meeting this patient I reviewed his foot X-Ray that showed a shattered bone. As I walked towards the shot gentleman I immediately noticed the infection growing out of his exposed bullet wound.
"Sir, how can I help you today?"
"I was shot in the foot 10 days ago"
"Sir, why didn't you come to the ER 10 days ago?"
"'Cause I was BUSY!"
"Busy doing what??"
"Busy lookin' for the Mother F***er who shot me in the foot!"

Head Vs. Lamp

If you ever wake up in the ER and you are in custody after having swallowed a bunch of crack, you can try something a patient tried last night:
Step 1) Firmly grasp the overhead lamp with both hands.
Step 2) As hard as you can, pull the lamp down squarely over your head.
If by this time the light hasn't shattered and you are not unconscious, repeat steps 1 & 2 again and again and again until one or both of the aforementioned conditions have been met. The patient successfully evaded the big house and went to the psychiatric facility instead.