Busted and Almost Busted...

I worked night shift last night and what an experience. When your mom says nothing good happens after midnight, take her advice and believe her! :-) Two patients come to mind. First patient was a mid-30s male who was brought in by ambulance due to right foot pain. As the patient was in triage, a local ER called and said they had just discharged that patient from their ER and he asked if he could make a phone call. He did and called EMS to come pick him up and bring him to our ER. As the story unfolds, there is a warrant out for his arrest and the other local ER had called the cops to pick him up at discharge, so in order to dodge the police he called EMS for a ride to our hospital. There ended up being nothing wrong with his foot, at least by physical exam or by x-ray. But unfortunately, for him, the cops knew of his whereabouts and as he was discharged he was cuffed and sent to jail! I guess this guy wasn't so smart after all. Can you say BUSTED!

The second patient I had was a late 20 year old male who had been assaulted 5 hours prior to his visit at our ER. The patient had gotten into an argument with another man who then decided to beat him with an ax handle and bite him. So this man presented with deep flesh wounds to his left thumb secondary to a human bite along with a laceration to his scalp and his bottom lip split wide open. The patient refused staples/sutures in his head lac, which I was comfortable with allowing it not to be closed, even though he could have used two staples. I threw four vicryl stitches in his lip and debrided and thoroughly rinsed the bite as it could not be closed. This may not seem like a funny story, but as I was talking with the patient and his sister while I was suturing, his sister kept asking tons of questions. One of my favorites was, "will his teeth get hard again?" I had know idea what she was talking about, so I asked her. She said in her slurred extremely southern accent, "when he got punched, his teeth got knocked loose, will they get hard again?" I thought I was going to roll on the floor laughing but I kept my composure and told her that his teeth didn't seem to be loose, but to follow up with a dentist. The juicy part of the story comes when I asked him if he filed a police report and was pressing charges. He said he did not want the cops called, he didn't care. So I didn't think much of it, but it is hospital policy to report it to PD anyway and they would decide whether to investigate. PD was called in his community and the cop already knew about this man. He had been at a local ER and saw two cops walk in so he left because he was scared he would be recognized, which brought him to our ER 45minutes from his home. As the plot thickens, the cop continued her story- my patient had allegedly been a part of an assault on a man that happened a week ago. That patient was transferred to UAB with severe burns and multiple lacerations and had sustained other injuries. So my patient had worked with another man to beat that guy up. Now, my patient was assaulted by his accomplice in the other attack because one had decided to turn themselves in. But all parties were still under investigation, so my patient was never interrogated by the cops and they said if he wanted to press charges, he could file them at their office. I highly doubt my patient will do that since he's already scared he's going to be arrested!

Many other funny stories, but I'm tired of typing right now.... More to come later!