Monday, June 14, 2010

In honor of Dr. Grumpy....

The good doc posted a story about a patient getting hit over the head with a poodle.

So, in honor of Grumpy, and to show that weird shit really does happen, and to distract myself from a very sore throat, here are...

The Five Weirdest Cases I've Seen So Far

5. A suburban homeowner, after mowing his lawn, comes down with a rare fungal infection in both eyes. The fungus in question is found in the soil, but only rarely in *our* soil.

4. Worms in your brain, worms in your brain. Actin' like a fool with those worms in your brain.

3. That kid who had the drill bit from the oil rig land on him.

2. The poor bastard who had somebody else's trailer hitch fly off their truck and crash through the window of the car in which he was riding (back seat; not driving), pegging him smack in the frontal lobes.

And the number one weirdest case I've seen so far?

This happened so long ago that I'd forgotten about it until I saw Ibee Grumpy's story (I posted a very short version in the comments there):

We admitted a very sweet, quiet young man who'd had some pretty extensive reconstructive surgery and scar revision on his face, neck, chest, arms, and hands.

He'd been driving one morning on a rural road Deep In The Heart. We got a whole lot o' nothin' out here, and where there's a whole lot o' nothin', there's a plethora of roadkill. And where there's roadkill, there are vultures.

Poor guy was zipping along at 70 or 80, humming a happy tune, when he sees a vulture on the road ahead of him. Normally vultures take flight when they see a car coming. This one was late in getting off the ground and so crashed through his windshield and into the guy's upper body and face. The damage came not from broken glass, but from the death throes of the injured vulture. Vultures have big, big claws and beaks.

(You'd think that would be unusual, but really? Not so much. Since then I've met two other people, one of them one of my neighbors, who've had windshields broken by vultures. The difference in this case was that the vulture was apparently heavy enough to break *through* the windshield rather than just sort of sliding off.)

Luckily, he was in a place with remote 911 service and not out of reach of a cell tower. Can you imagine having to explain that to the EMS folks who respond to your call? "No, really, dude. It was a vulture. Right here. See?"

I take it as credit to the unit as a whole that nobody laughed at this. We all just stood there with big, round eyes like saucers and said "....crap."

He told me a couple of days later that the insurance company was kind enough to total his car, given the damage not only to the glass but also to the upholstery and dashboard. "What do you remember about the accident?" I asked. He said, "I remember somehow getting the car to the side of the road, and a lot of blood, and some awful noises. And feathers. In my mouth. Vulture feathers. They don't taste good."

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

A drunk driving home in his pickup spots a snake in the road and decides to stop and rescue the snake so that someone does not run it over. Somehow is his drunken state he manages to pick up the snake without getting bitten and instead of moving it to the side of the road he decides to get back in his truck and drive the snake to a safer location.

During his drive he decides to switch the snake from one hand to another (his first snake bite) he pulls to the side of the road to let the snake go and he receives his second snake bite. He puts the snake in the bed of his truck and somehow calls 911.

He goes to the ED and later calls his friend to go get his truck. Later his friend shows up in the ED with a snake bite as the first drunk failed to tell him the snake was still in the bed of the truck!

messymimi said...

Just when you think you have heard it all...

Thanks for the reminder that things could be worse.

Molly said...

Have you written any of these for professional books? I ask because I just read a book about six months ago that talked about an identical lawnmower fungus incident.

Dr. Alice said...

May I just say... BLECCHHH. Your cases are definitely more interesting than mine are. I sure feel sorry for the vulture feather guy and the trailer hitch gentleman.

ulsh72 said...

Here in Central Pennsylvania, We had an ambulance call for a Turkey Buzzard (our equivalent of your vultures) that crashed through a windshield at highway speeds. The family was fine, just small lacerations and glass everywhere. They were from out of state, so we had them sign refusals, then brought them back to the station for showers. First time I had even heard of such a thing...

-PA EMT.