Status Updates From 'Tis the Season (A Collecti...

Advice from a frustrated M.D.

Do you know how high the numbers are, of patients we treat for papercuts to their tongues during the holidays?

Use a sponge or buy self-adhering envelopes.

Coming to ES because you lick too fast or ‘have a nasty taste in your mouth’ after sealing too many Christmas card envelopes is not an emergency!

--S.J.-G., M.D. California

We treated a patient for an overdose, and following his three-day stay on ICU, he was arrested. He wasn’t busted for drugs, though.

He picked up the four-foot-tall Christmas tree that was in the ICU lobby and took it with him. Security chased him out an emergency exit, and the cops found the guy in the alley.

--D.W. Mississippi

I’m a RN who runs triage in our ED. Patients see me first, and if they want to be seen, I assess them and enter their name in our system. Registration goes to the room later, to get the rest of the patient’s information.

Well, one night it was snowing heavily, so we didn’t have but maybe two or three patients over a few hours. I was at my station, reading a magazine, when a man walked inside.
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Tip from the PD:
If you’re going to do something illegal,like,maybe throw a NYE party while your parents are out of town,you probably should NOT make a public Facebook page.

Some of the charges from arrests we made at the party: illegal consumption of alcohol by a minor,drug and paraphernalia possession, providing alcohol to minors,disturbing the peace, resisting arrest, public indecency, and public intoxication.

I’m a nurse on our Pediatric Oncology floor and for Christmas, one of my patients received a basketball hoop that we hanged over the door. His ball somehow managed to get stuck in the net, so I (standing tall at 5’2”) tried to jump to knock the ball through the net’s opening. The cute new doctor was in the room and said he’d get the ball in a minute, but I just had to be the hero.

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My A&E’s ‘Top Five’ complaints on New Year’s Eve:

5.) Alcohol poisoning

4.) SA

3.) Emergency dental complaints

2.) MVAs

1.) Medical clearances performed for officers

It never fails. EVERY year, idiots come in with cracked, broken, or missing teeth, admitting that they attempted to open alcohol bottles with their mouths.

Use a bloody bottle opener, dumbasses.

--M.G.

Close to midnight, we received a patient between the ages of 3-5 for a foreign body in the esophagus.  His parents were arguing with each other—when his mother wasn’t crying hysterically, that is.

It wasn’t difficult to determine what the child had swallowed.  As his father carried him, and with every step his father took, the child jingled. 

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The second-to-last run of my shift was pretty annoying, too, and I doubt anyone has told you anything like this.

Officers requested that we transport a patient for a psychiatric evaluation. The patient had been found harming himself and stated he wanted to harm others. He needed treatment for lacerations to his arms and hands. Some of these lacerations were deep and tendons were visible.

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If you’re going to attempt to burglarize a residence, 1.) make sure the homeowners are gone, and/or 2.) arm yourself with more than a giant, plastic candy cane decoration that you took from the front yard. Our subject sustained two bullet wounds when the homeowner shot him in the shoulder. The owner was also upset that his sidewalk display was left uneven,

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I know it’s an old urban legend-type story, but over the many years I’ve been a firefighter, we have responded to at least two calls of men trapped in chimneys while dressed as Santa Claus.

My advice to anyone out there would be: just don’t do it.
--K.G. Florida

We registered 18 patients for knife-related injuries between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day last year. These injuries were strictly related to the holidays and excluded domestic or gang violence. All 18 patients stated they had either cut or stabbed themselves or others while attempting to open gift packaging.

Calm down out there, guys. That Magic Bullet blender isn’t worth a $3,000 hospital bill.

T.H , NY

On New Year’s Day, I registered a woman for head pain. The patient said she had been violently vomiting, when she jerked forward and smacked her head on her toilet bowl. She also requested treatment for her hangover.

X-rays showed a hairline fracture on the woman’s frontal skull. She literally fractured her skull by hitting her head on the toilet as she was vomiting.

Became a little “samey”.