Monday 31 October 2011

Truth is stranger than fiction

I know that "The truth is stranger than fiction" is a cliché, but it's completely true.  I can't make this stuff up - I'm just not that creative.

Last time I was on call, I got a call at 3 AM (I HAAAAATE those) about a level 1 trauma (that's generally a person who is very close to dying), a woman who had fallen down the stairs and was unconscious.  Even at 3 AM, my heart starts beating a little faster when I hear the patient is "level 1".  However, my palpitations soon changed to amusement. 

The woman arrived a few minutes later without a scratch on her.  The second I laid eyes on her, I knew that something didn't exactly add up.  And then the paramedics launched into her history: she was drinking at home and passed out, so her husband (also drunk) decided to carry her upstairs to bed.  Halfway up the stairs, he dropped his cell phone.  Now what would you do:

A) Ignore the phone and continue carrying your bride towards her peaceful slumber
B) Bring her back downstairs, get the phone, go retrieve her, and start over
C) Grab the phone and risk dropping her

I think by now you've guessed he chose "C".  And he dropped her.  She landed in a jumbled mess of inebriated unconsciousness at the bottom of the stairs...still passed out drunk.  The paramedics didn't know if she was unconscious because of the alcohol, massive bleeding in her brain, or both.  Of course, it turns out that she was completely fine, except for her blood alcohol level of nearly 0.2. 

Don't drink and walk.

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This one may be a few years old, but it makes me giggle every time I think about it.  A young guy covered with tattoos (in my neck of the woods this usually indicates a gang member) came in shot in the buttock.  Nothing is quite as amusing as a grown man crying like a schoolgirl because he was shot in the ass.  I usually ask these rock stars what happened, and here's this guy's explanation:

"I was gonna shoot this asshole, but he grabbed my gun before I could shoot him and that motherfucker shot me in the ass!"

Yes, yes he did.

1 comment:

  1. Wow. Some people /really/ are stupid. I'm talking about both guys, but what really caught my attention was the story about the guy with the tattoos. When I was in med school and I was on men's trauma, we would usually find gang members there. One of them had been shot in a leg, and when he asked the reason why he was there, he said: "I was walking down the street, minding my own business, when all of a sudden, someone in a motorcycle shot me". I would really expect all of them to lie like that.

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