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BRINGING YOU THE FACTS....--You Never Knew --You Needed to Know!----SNIPPETZ MAGAZINE

YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THESE
EMERGENCY ROOM STORIES!

by Lindsey Harrison
“Emergency rooms . . . were the nightmares your nightmares had while they slept.” 
– Nicole Deese, America author

As little kids, we’re all asked the same question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Many us of probably said a ballerina, an astronaut or something along those lines. As we grew older, some of us moved away from those career paths onto other perhaps more attainable or realistic jobs. Seriously, we can’t all be ballerinas or writers for the prestigious Snippetz Magazine, no matter how badly we want that to be true. And it’s really not fair because being a part of those exciting career fields can be as much of a dream come true as anyone could ever hope for. But there are other careers out there that are just as fulfilling, if not as prestigious as the ones we mentioned above. For instance, what about paramedic or emergency room nurse? Those unsung heroes of the frontline are knowledgeable beyond what any regular human should be and witness moments that are literally life-altering. Sometimes they pull off incredibly brave and nearly miraculous live-saving feats and other times nothing they do can win against the hands of fate. And then there are times when something so completely random and unbelievable happens that the rest of us mere mortals struggle to wrap our heads around the situation. THOSE are the times we at Snippetz are interested in because why not? Isn’t it fun to hear about stories from people who have quite literally seen it all? We think so and that’s why we’re bringing you some of those stories here. You know you’re interested, so if you’re looking for some impeccably written and insanely entertaining stories straight from the trenches of the back of the ambulance or emergency department, look no further!

One caveat: we don’t have all the actual background details of each story so we took a bit of artistic license. It’s fine.

BOYS WILL BE BOYS (IS THAT EVEN STILL A THING?)

It’s unclear how long ago the following story took place but it’s likely it wasn’t too long ago. Anyway, here’s what happened. It was a typical day on the construction site for “Hank” and “Arnold,” two construction workers who started to feel a bit antsy because there wasn’t much work to be done. As often happens at such times, Hank got an idea. He decided it would be interesting to see if stapling a baseball hat to Arnold’s forehead could keep the hat on in any weather and possibly be the next big invention to take on the show “Shark Tank” and help make them millionaires. The hitch? They didn’t have any staples. So, instead of staples the pair settled for nails and a nail gun. 

Turns out, it wasn’t the next big invention and the construction workers didn’t end up taking their idea to “Shark Tank.” Instead, they went to the emergency room to have the nail (and the baseball hat) removed. Luckily, Arnold didn’t suffer any lasting damage and left with just a small hole and some stitches. He and Hank also received a word of warning NOT to try to come up with any more inventions.

THAT’S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS

Now, we’re not saying that we’re the brightest crayons in the box or that medical issues are always the easiest to understand and deal with, but this next scenario is a bit hard to understand. We’re headed back to the hospital to hear about the escapades of “Walter.” Walter was a man who had just been diagnosed with diabetes and needed some extra help learning how to inject himself with insulin. That’s fair, right? It’s not easy shoving a needle into your body, let alone doing so multiple times each day. Anyway, Walter got some help from a nurse who used an orange to demonstrate exactly how his insulin shots should be administered. Nodding his head in understanding, Walter was discharged from the hospital and sent home to hopefully take care of himself all on his own. 

However, Walter ended up in the hospital roughly a week later because he had not seen an improvement in his diabetes. In fact, it was much worse. Naturally, the nurse (who just so happened to be the nurse who helped him the first time around) asked him if he had been administering his insulin properly and he responded in the affirmative. She asked him to show her how he was doing it and produced an orange on which he was to demonstrate. He took the orange, injected the insulin into it, peeled the fruit and then ate it.

In case the problem is unclear, injecting the orange was meant to be a simulation of how Walter was to inject the insulin into himself. Guess he didn’t understand quite as well as he thought, did he?

BEAUTY (AND AN ARROW) IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

Guys, it’s never a good idea to shoot things at your eyes, OK? Can we all just agree on that for a second? But in this next story, to be fair, the guy – whom we shall call “Marcus” for the purposes of this article – wasn’t trying to shoot himself in the eye. Here’s what happened: Marcus wandered into the emergency department one afternoon with a small puncture wound to one of his eyes. After being asked what happened, Marcus responded that he was merely trying to see what it would look like if someone pointed an arrow at you . . . but not just a regular old arrow that you’d perhaps hold in your hand. No, Marcus wanted the full experience and so he wanted to see what it looked like if he should draw the arrow using a bow and aimed it at a mirror to see his reflection. Surely, that would result in the desired effect, right? Wrong. Marcus accidentally fired the arrow at the mirror, which bounced off and hit him in the eye. At least he had enough sense to take himself to the hospital afterwards.

ELEMENTARY, MY DEAR WATSON

For this next story, we will hear of an emergency room nurse named “Watson” (appropriate, no?). Watson was working with some colleagues in the emergency room (duh, we already said that) when a patient was brought in who had collapsed after ingesting a drink from what appeared to be a soda bottle. Given that it was only partially full, Watson made the assumption that whatever caused the man to collapse was possibly in the soda bottle. However, Watson (not using very good detective skills) opened the bottle and took a huge whiff of the contents. Before we go any further, we feel the need to pause here a moment and bring in some rules learned in Chemistry 101, namely that you should NEVER take a big whiff of ANY unknown liquid to try to determine what it is. Instead, you should waft the fumes from the open container towards your nose with your hand so you only get a small sampling of whatever odor may be present.

Back to the story. Watson has just sniffed the container, right? He then announced that he smelled almonds. Well, that our dear Watson, is a good indication that the substance in question is cyanide. Why, you ask? Well, couple the almond scent with the fact that the man who drank it had collapsed shortly thereafter and it’s a pretty easy conclusion to reach for anyone with a reasonable amount of training in such things. And yes, emergency department nurses are among those people who have such training.

Watson’s coworkers were apparently not quick to let go of such a major faux pas and he had to spend the rest of his shift in a chemical protection suit as punishment.

MAYBE IT’S TIME TO CAST THAT CAST ASIDE

This next story may be a bit much for some of our more sensitive readers but if you think you can handle it, we recommend reading it even if for no other reason than as a cautionary tale to always follow up with your primary care provider as recommended following any emergency room visit. One day, a woman named “Rebecca” was admitted to the hospital with a broken leg. That much was clear since she already had a cast on the leg. What was unclear was why she was at the hospital since the leg had already be set and cast. However, Rebecca was apparently still having pain in that leg so the team in the emergency department decided to cut it off and see what was going on. Well, it turns out that Rebecca had broken her leg more than a year prior and had been wearing the cast ever since, instead of getting it removed after the appropriate amount of time (usually something like 6-8 weeks). The pain she was feeling was actually maggots that had hatched under the cast and had eaten away the flesh on her leg, exposing the bone underneath. We are POSITIVE those emergency department personnel were NOT expecting that.