Saturday 7 July 2012

Teenagers

I may be going soft, because I just can't bring myself to call these next two boys stupid.  I think they're just too young and innocent to know that what they were doing was unbelievably stupid, reckless, and dangerous.

Last night while his parents were out of town, a 16-year old kid helped himself to the family car.  He picked up his 15-year old pal, and the two went joyriding.  Well, they went joyriding after helping themselves to some of their parents' liquor.

Dumb?  Yes.  But what's even dumber is not having enough driving experience to be able to handle the older car, losing control, and driving it off the road and into a tree.

Fortunately, neither of the kids was seriously hurt.  But if you've read this blog at all, you know I'm not done yet.  Of course it gets worse!  

After the crash, the boys got out and walked around, no doubt assessing the damage to the car to see how much damage there would be to their asses when their parents got home.  I can only assume the driver considered wearing shoes while walking on broken glass optional, because he told me he felt like he had broken glass in his foot when he tried to walk.  I took a look and indeed he had a tiny laceration on the sole of his foot.  I ordered an X-ray to confirm - you don't have to be a radiologist to see the problem here:



Those rectangular things sitting in the soft tissue of the sole of his foot are not one, not two, but three shards of glass measuring up to 1.7cm in length.  I injected his foot with numbing medication, lengthened the incision a few millimeters, and fished out all three pieces of glass.  Here's his X-ray afterwards:


Aah, much better.  It's a good thing teenagers are indestructible, right?

10 comments:

  1. Doc, you're not getting soft. You're just a good person :)

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  2. It's a good thing that glass shows up on the X-ray!

    Silicon is not that high atomic mass and I'm not sure I would have put money on it showing. Maybe it's the calcium from the lime that's radio-opaque.

    I have to say that I think drunk-driving is stupid even in a kid. If you are old enough to reach the pedals you should know not to even joy-ride after hitting the liquor cabinet. They could as easily have hit a bus-queue as a tree. Thank goodness the injuries were something you could fix!

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  3. Ugi, not trying to be a nitpick, but i think you mean silicium.

    where i live, the legal age for drinking (at least for stuff with a maximum alcohol content of 14vol% is 16, and you can get your drivers licence at age 17, but are only allowed to drive without an adult with a drivers license at age 18.

    i think this system has it's advantages to the US system where people learn to drive 5 years before the legal drinking age. kids make their first experiences with alcohol savely away from car keys. and once they learn to drive and are old enough to go out by car on their own, alcohol has long lost it's mystery and they know they are not missing anything substantial if they stay sober to drive their friends home savely. most of them anyways. there are idiots everywhere of course.

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    1. Hi Wiesoauchimmer.

      Ordinary soda glass is typically made by fusing silica sand (silicon dioxide) with soda (sodium oxide) and lime (calcium oxide). The bulk ingredient is the sand of which we know the oxygen does not show up on X-rays because people are full of water. Thus if sand is going to show on an X-ray then it is the silicon that needs to be visible.

      I'm not sure where you got silicium from but it seems to be an antiquated name for silicon. I wonder whether you were thinking of "silica" which is just another name for silicon dioxide. The fact that the silicon is in the form of silica won't make a difference as far as X-rays are concerned. It's the size of the atomic nucleus that makes an element transparent to X-rays or not.

      Here in the UK you can get a "provisional" driving license from 17 but that only allows you to drive if there is a qualified driver in the passenger seat and you need to display "L" plates to signify that you are learning. You can drive on your own as soon as you pass your test but the test is pretty tough with both a written and a practical part. You can drink legally from 18 but oddly I think it's younger people who mostly take drink-driving more seriously. My impression is that it's older middle-aged men who have been driving for years and think they can handle it who are more likely to drink and drive. It is possible to have too much self-confidence!

      PS something odd went on so I hope this doesn't post twice.

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  5. Hello doc!

    Your stories crack me up only because as a nurse I see these stories when I'm at work. But has anyone in these blogs told you you sound like house?? It sounds like you work idiots who mess everything up n then you come into the picture like house and clean it up

    Zohra

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    1. Zohra - I'm no big fan of the show, but you are not the first to say that I sound like him. I suppose it's a compliment...maybe?

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  6. Ugh if you had read the blog you would know he dispises house... Because its one of the worst "doctor drama" crapshows on tv.

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    1. Dear Kippyco,

      Perhaps it is possible that Zorah does not read every post that Doc writes. Zorah did say that they read Doc's stories while at work, so being a nurse myself, I know that there really is not enough time to thoroughly read blogs through on the job. Please do not be offended by what I am saying, but I think you should consider the fact that some people don't read everything. Perhaps you do read everything that Doc posts and that's great, but there isn't a need to criticize someone else if they don't know something about Doc.

      Also, I am all for constructive criticism, but saying that House is 'one of the worst 'doctor drama' crapshows on tv' is pretty far-fetched. You're allowed to voice your opinion as a person and I respect that you do, but I have to disagree with you. I have seen an episode or two and personally, I don't think it is not as bad as you say. Yes, some of the action that goes on is pretty unbelievable, but the show as a whole isn't as horrible as you make it out to be.

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  7. I saw this on your FML profile pic, and I was curious as to what the foreign objects were. Ouch. As a vet tech, I've seen weird shit in x-rays before...one time we removed a trichobezoar that was blocking a dog.

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