Trips to the ER

[Lugh]

Ok,

 

Everyone has been to the ER for a rather silly or embarassing reason...

 

Like when I was packing for a week long camping trip I had a moth fly in my ear.. I had to go to the ER to have it removed. The nurse freaked out, but we managed to flush it out with no damage to my ear except that the canal and drum were hyper sensitive for about two weeks.

 

 

So, what is your "most embarassing" ER moment?

[rknapp]

I've only been there once and it was for a broken leg. My skate got caught in a crack or chip in the ice at the end of practice one night, so I fell right on my ankle. I got back up and tried to skate again... fell right the hell back down from the immense pain. I never got changed, I just went straight to the ER with my dad and sat there waiting for a couple hours with my parents, all decked out in my ice hockey outfit. Even still had the skate on the broken leg (turned out be a hairline fracture just below my left tibia) to try and keep the swelling down. My grandma was visiting, but she stayed at home. My dad told me to tell her that I had clean underwear on in case she asked

[Krista]

Well... to make a long story short.. I tried to dunk a basketball... and failed. My knee cap popped out of place and I tore my ACL and had to go to the ER and such. I also fell off my horse and broke my ass bone and arm, but I'm sure a lot of people do that as well. I have many more that doesn't involve a trip to the ER though. :wacko:

 

 

Krista

[Graeme]

I have been to ER twice with a dislocated jaw. The first I was at university and a friend took me over. The second time I can't remember, but I think I went by myself (even if I wasn't able to talk). I now know how to fix it myself -- they had warned me that because it had happened once, it was more likely to happen again, and it does (regularly).

 

The embarrassing part is how I dislocated my jaw in the first place....

 

 

By yawning. I yawned so wide, my lower jaw came out of its socket and my mouth was stuck open.

 

[rknapp]

I have been to ER twice with a dislocated jaw. The first I was at university and a friend took me over. The second time I can't remember, but I think I went by myself (even if I wasn't able to talk). I now know how to fix it myself -- they had warned me that because it had happened once, it was more likely to happen again, and it does (regularly).

 

The embarrassing part is how I dislocated my jaw in the first place....

 

 

By yawning. I yawned so wide, my lower jaw came out of its socket and my mouth was stuck open.

 

.... THAT'S AWESOME! I can only imagine the reaction on a little kids face if that happened and you just stared at them, haha!

[Lugh]

LOL

that's almost as good as the moth in the ear!

[Myk]

I have been to ER twice with a dislocated jaw. The first I was at university and a friend took me over. The second time I can't remember, but I think I went by myself (even if I wasn't able to talk). I now know how to fix it myself -- they had warned me that because it had happened once, it was more likely to happen again, and it does (regularly).

 

The embarrassing part is how I dislocated my jaw in the first place....

 

 

By yawning. I yawned so wide, my lower jaw came out of its socket and my mouth was stuck open.

 

Don't feel too bad about that Graeme, I've heard that is an extremely common thing....and yawning is the most common way of doing it!

 

Last time I was at the hospital I had an appendicitis. Every time I think about this I get a little smile on my face cause I remember the resident saying... 'You look way too happy to be having an appendicitis!' lol, I was happy I had guessed right and the whole thing was just a bit exciting for me....my bp was 160/120

 

When I was a kid I got into a fight with my brother, as brothers do. Anyway I threw a game at him to keep him from coming after me and well....it gave him a nice gash in the forehead. My parents punishment was to have me watch him get stiched up.....fairly effective in my opinion but it didn't stop my brother from picking fights

[Kurt]

Okay... it wasn't in the ER... but when I was having the second surgery on my wrist one of my teachers was on the other side of the curtain while I was getting prepped for surgery. His son was also getting prepped. He told me that I had a test the day I returned to school, just a few minutes before they rolled me away to be put under. I remembered nothing of the conversation and was not in any way prepared for the test. The barstard made me take the darned test, and I failed it miserably. He did not let me retake it, and the test really hurt me. Now... this was band class, and we had a test every quarter on composers from history, and they were worth quite a bit of points. And, I could not play my instrument (the trumpet) because my arm was in a cast that went just below my shoulder... the barstard gave me a C in the class that semester.

 

The only time that I have really been in the ER was for when I was climbing a fence, to get out of my friends house becuase their father came home and they were no allowed to have friends over when they were not home and broke my growth plate in my wrist and fractured two other bones, and tore a ligament and some cartilage... 3 surgeries, 5 casts, and 3 summers of my life ruined later, I am all better!

 

Kurt

[Adrian Michaels]

Ok... I've only been to the ER once. (Knock on wood)

 

I was like 10 years old, and my parents had this stand and a craft sale thingy... I was sitting around with my grandma, and playing with a piece of shredded paper (The kind that come of document shredders)

 

I somehow got distracted in whatever I was reading, and I accidently got the paper balled up and stuck in my ear. I rushed to the bathroom, and tried to get it out, but I only made it worse.

 

so we had to go to the ER, and the doc pulled out this really scary looking chrome knitting needle, and fished it out. I felt really dumb.

[Conner]

I was 8 at the time. I had climbed a tree in a neighbour's backyard to see a bird's nest. It must have been 50 to 60 feet up the tree. Well, I got to see the nest, but fell out of the tree on the way down. To this day I remember watching the ground spinning around and then lost conciousness. I don't remember actually hitting the ground. So this was like 1958. In those days you didn't worry about little things like neck or spinal injuries. The neighbour, who had seen me flash by his kitchen window, rushed out, picked me up and carried me home - that was about 4 doors down the street. I was in and out of conciousness. The next thing I knew there were like 20 people in my house. The whole affair had turned into a community event. My mother was a basket case. Everyone was giving her medical advice. Some woman made me drink cold tea. :wacko:

 

Eventually an ambulance arrived and off I went. This was pre-medicare in Canada and ambulance attendants were no where near trained like they are today. No siren for me either. It could have been because I wasn't in dire straights or anything. Mind you, no one with any medical training had examined me as yet. The only evident injury besides looking really out of it was a broken arm.

 

I remember nothing of the ER experience. I do remember that they couldn't set my arm until the following day because I had drunk the tea. They didn't want to put me under. In those days you went under for lots of injuries that you wouldn't need to now. They did splint it, though. It was one uncomfortable night. I ended up spending 6 weeks in Montreal's Chidren's hospital as a few complications had developed.

 

The nurses all loved me and I came home spoiled rotten.

 

Conner

[Graeme]

This was pre-medicare in Canada and ambulance attendants were no where near trained like they are today. No siren for me either. It could have been because I wasn't in dire straights or anything.

You are SO unlucky. When my youngest boy was taken to the hospital via ambulance because of respiratory problems, and then transferred from our local hospital to the Royal Children's Hospital, they put the siren on for him, even though it wasn't necessary. Of course, he was four years old, and I suppose they make a special effort for their VIP customers.... (every four year old is a VIP, as I understand it).

[PartsBoy]

Well, my last trip to the ER was pretty embarrassing due to my own stupidity. I was outside at work cutting down a promotional sign off of a pole that was attached by plastic wire ties. I was on a ladder and was having trouble getting a good angle to cut the ties and re-positioned my left hand to hold the sign. When the tie broke free, the knife went right into my left hand between my thumb and index finger. I finished cutting down the sign (fortunately I wasn't bleeding much) and went in to tell my manager what happened. After some ribbing from my coworkers , my mother came to take me to the ER where the nurse proceeded to poke and prod the cut, and at one point tear it a little wider then finally I got 4 stitches for my efforts :2hands:

 

Aaron

(aka 'ginsu' until I left that job and wasn't allowed to handle sharp objects )

 

PS. I have that problem as well Graeme, the first time that happened to me I was too embarrassed to go to the ER and figured out how to relocate it on my own

[Menzoberranzen]

None of my ER trips were embarrassing because of the medical stuff...but I broke my wrist when I was 15 and a friend drove me to the ER. Anyway, the resident who was taking care of me was drop-dead gorgeous and while we were waiting for him to come back with my X-ray results, we were talking about how hot he was. Of course, he came in behind us, we didn't know, and then I spent the longest, most awkward fifteen minutes of my life as he put on the cast.

 

Menzo

[woody]

Didnt end up going to the ER i dont think but the most embarrassing hospital experience was when i was 9 and i managed to break my arm in a Jumping Castle(which is embarrassing enough) my parents didnt believe it was broken either so i didnt end up going in till the next day.

The funniest part was just before i went to have it x-rayed my older brother managed to convince me that when your arm gets put in a cast, the way the cast removed is with a giant saw and that the doctors sometimes slip and and people lose limbs. So naturally when the doctor told me id have to have my arm in a cast, i took off running out of there like a bat out of hell. My older older brother still tells the tale of going up the escalator into the hospital only to see me coming bolting down the other way being chased by a couple of nurses, i managed to get all the way outside and onto the street before they tracked me down

[pietro]

I was 12 and while being chased down a flight of stairs at school the heel of my leading foot caught the very edge of the bottom step.

 

In the ER my trousers were whipped away for them to X-Ray my foot and ankle, I was dumped into a wheelchair and my injured leg lifted up onto one of those boards sticking straight out and whizzed through seemingly countless corridors to the orthopaedic dept. In those days there were no niceties like a cloth or a blanket to drape in your lap, certainly not for kids anyway.

 

I am sure you can understand my embarrassment when, after being deposited in another waiting area by the nurse, my Mother, naturally accompanying me, demanded to know just why I had to wear that underwear that day and I realised to my horror that they were particularly loose and rather skimpy. Believe me, nothing was left to the imagination.

[sat8997]

I

[Benji]

I have been to ER twice with a dislocated jaw. The first I was at university and a friend took me over. The second time I can't remember, but I think I went by myself (even if I wasn't able to talk). I now know how to fix it myself -- they had warned me that because it had happened once, it was more likely to happen again, and it does (regularly).

 

The embarrassing part is how I dislocated my jaw in the first place....

 

 

By yawning. I yawned so wide, my lower jaw came out of its socket and my mouth was stuck open.

 

 

OMG!! I'm sorry Graeme but that is just TFF!! ......

[Lugh]

You guys... (and gals).. these are sooooo funny.... see why don't you see stories like this on ER?

[Graeme]

I do have another one, but I can't remember a lot of the aftermath (the reason of which will soon become obvious).

 

I would've been around nine, I think. My family was heavily into Little Athletics, even though I wasn't any good at it (apart from the 800m walk -- I could walk 800m almost as fast as I could run it).

 

What I preferred to do was read books. This was great for education, and I learnt lots of things.

 

At one particular training session, we were doing shot put. Pick up that weight (they had slightly lighter metal balls for the youngsters like me), put it to the side of your neck, and then heave it as far as you could.

 

Sounds simple enough, though I could never seem to get it to go very far.

 

However, I had been reading that if you throw an object up at an angle, you can achieve a longer overall distance. The instructor had been teaching us to push the shot put "out". ie. almost straight away from the body. I had the brilliant idea of pushing the ball "up" at an angle, and achieving a greater distance that way.

 

I was a scrawny young kid, so I push the ball with all my might, and then looked around to see how far I'd thrown the shot put.

 

I can remember looking around.

 

I can remember not seeing the ball.

 

I can remember something landing on the top of my head.

 

I can remember blood.

 

I wasn't seriously hurt (obviously there was nothing inside the skull to be damaged) and I can't remember if they took me to an ER, but I can still remember that moment of enthusiasm as I looked around to see how far I'd thrown the shot put... following by a thud as the shot put landed on my head.

[rknapp]

Now my husband has been to the ER more times than I

[Conner]

Lol anyway, I just remembered another ER trip of mine. Funny that I forgot it since my mom likes to show off the scar. When I was little, just after I learned to run, I managed to run right smack into the corner of a wall. This was back in the days when walls had sharp metal edges in them, so you can imagine the amount of blood that was everywhere......

 

Took a good smack to the head, did ya? Well, that explains a lot.

 

Conner

[Krista]

Ok, so I have a new one to tell. I'm clumsy, but this one was completely not my fault. I was standing in line, planning to turn in a quiz paper and when I tried to take a step forward as I was the next in line I fall. Someone had been standing on the back of my flip-flop and when I went to move my balance was shot to hell and I did a huge face plant onto a tile floor. My phone went into the hair, the Professor said she went all, Matrix to keep from being knocked out by my purse...

 

My wrists are sore, but they're fine for the most part. Only stiff from landing awkwardly. I busted my bottom lip as well, but all my teeth are fine.. none of them are missing or chipped.. which is actually lucky.. lol. What sent me to the ER was my nose.. It hurt and I just knew it was broken as it was bleeding everywhere... not a drop got on my clothes though, which took effort. My nose wasn't broken though, just bruised.

 

So, today, I have a purple face. My nose, cheeks, and lips are slightly swollen. I have what looks to be two black eyes, but it's only the swelling from my nose. I'm getting a follow-up on my nose to make completely sure that it's not broken as it looks extremely painful still.

 

The Dean of Students was the person that took me to the ER.

 

 

So that's my newest ER story... lol. I left out all the cussing as that didn't make me seem lady-like. Also, all the crying.. that I did as I wanted to sound tough.. lol.

 

Krista

[colinian]

I've only been taken to the ER once. It was about 2-1/2 years ago when I was 15. I was helping my dad clean out the gutters. We have a big aluminum extension ladder (not a step ladder, this is like the ones that firemen use) that can get up to the eaves of the roof on the second floor, almost 25 feet off the ground. Dad had put the hose into the top of the downspout and came back down to turn on the water. After he was satisfied that everything was cleared out, he asked me to climb up and pull out the hose. I'm pretty sure he even said "Be careful, Colin." Instead of climbing all the way up, (hey, I was 15 and lazy) I decided that 3/4's of the way up was far enough. I grabbed the hose and stared pulling. It came out, slowly, and then got stuck. I used both hands to give it a good yank, and all of a sudden it came loose. I lost my balance and my feet slipped off the rung (they're round rungs, not flat). I grabbed the left rail of the ladder with my left hand and hung onto the hose with my right hand. I was like an elevator car, sliding down the ladder holding on with my left hand, then eventually I fell off a few feet off the ground onto my back. With the hose still firmly held in my right hand. The palm and the inside of the fingers on my left hand were skinned and it was bleeding a lot, my chest and legs were all banged up and sore from banging against the ladder as I slid down, and my back and head hurt from hitting the lawn when I fell off backwards. Everything hurt like hell.

 

I guess I'd shouted, because when my dad got to me I was standing holding my left hand away from me so I wouldn't get more blood on my clothes, The hose was still in my right hand. My folks freaked, and drove me to the Kaiser ER. Now, everyone says how long it takes waiting in ER as you bleed and/or barf all over the floor, but they took me in immediately. I was X-rayed, poked, prodded, and ultrasounded. The doctor decided I probably didn't have any internal injuries, he cleaned out my left palm (not enjoyable!) and put a lot of some ointment gunk on it and bandaged it and gave Mom the rest of the tube of ointment and a roll of gauze and adhesive tape. He asked me what happened, and I told a shorter version of the story. My dad said something like "Sometimes I don't understand why you do what you do, Colin." I told him that the good thing was I'd saved the hose. That made the doctor and nurse laugh, my folks just rolled their eyes.

 

I couldn't use my left hand for over a week. I never realized how hard it is to get dressed with only my right hand available. Thank God I'm right handed!

 

The other good thing was that I had an interesting story to tell at school, illustrated by my injured left hand all wrapped up in gauze and adhesive tape. I was the center of attention for a couple of days, and that was great (I'm sort of a performer/comedian).

 

Colin