March 5, 2011
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Reality stranger than Fiction
She was bleeding, a terrifying experience for any woman early in her pregnancy.
He was drunk, dumb, and deranged, an irritating experience for any ER doc…
Fate crossed their paths, and the rest just makes for an interesting story.
The story starts with Preggo, who called her physician. Her doctor told her to come straight to the ER and get evaluated since she had lost a significant amount of blood. Her boyfriend/husband/baby-daddy came with her as they waited to be seen.
I saw and evaluated them. She was scared and frustrated with the situation, not knowing what was happening but assumed the worst. She must be miscarriaging! I tried to explain that many women bleed in the first trimester, but we will run tests and get an ultrasound to check everything out. I don’t blame her for being scared, and maybe a little bit neurotic and angry, this is a bad day for any woman.
Granted anytime a woman has vaginal bleeding, I really can’t see it as being fun, unless it is like this…
Unfortunately for my nervous patient, this all occurred on a Friday night in the ER. Thus, many other patients also were being seen, many of them because they had drank themselves stupid with alcohol.
She was taken to ultrasound, still pretty much having the worst day of her life. This is where the nuttiness starts.
Random drunk (RD) starts yelling to nice nurse (NN)
RD: “I’z gozza go fu za baaaaasssroom!”
NN: “That’s why we brought the urinal in there for you sir”
RD: “Huh?”
NN: “The urinal. Right there. The thing your hand is resting on… yes, that. The thing you are now holding in the air, please urinate into that.”
RD: “But I hazzur ter go piss.” (he said as if she didn’t quite understand)
NN: “I understand, sir. Please go into that container.”
So she goes off to take care of one of her many other patients. I also leave into another patients room. Random Drunk, confused by the cryptic message from the nurse, assumes that she wanted him to wander the halls in search of a bathroom.
Now I’m only guessing from here what went on in his drunken stupor,
but I’m pretty sure it went something like this…***Entering Drunk-o-vision***
…he staggers across the hall into the bathroom…
“Ah, verily have I found the location for relief of my ever-so-full bladder. Henceforth I shall relieve myself.”
…sound of peeing on the floor, with perhaps some urine actually making it into the toilet, or maybe the sink…
“Chastise me? How dare they, why I have not had more than a mere pint of the finest spirits and my insight is hardly altered. Now I must return to the room from whence I came.”
…the intimidating quest of finding his room has begun…
“Egads! My hospital residence has disappeared! Well, I am sure that this room here was the one from whence I came. And they thought for a moment that I was too impaired for such a minor task, what silly healthcare professionals they are!”
…He staggers into the pregnant womans room…
“Why, what is this! Some fine upstanding citizen has left new clothing for me, or perhaps these clothes are mine. Hmm, either way someone has soiled these garments with copious amounts of blood. No matter!”
…Drunk starts putting on the (significantly smaller) pregnant womans clothing…
***Drunk-o-vision off***
So this is the exact time where she is being wheeled back from ultrasound. We hear “WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING!” We quickly go to the room and find him putting her clothes on. He’s confused that we are yelling at him. She is confused as to why a random drunk guy is putting on her clothes.
So we apologize profusely to the young woman, who, as it turns out is doing fine and her baby is doing fine. So she is actually now quite happy and pleasant. We offer to dry clean her clothes or new clothes but she pretty much infers that she’d be happy if we just burned them after she saw the large drunk man in her soiled clothes.
Time passed, everyone did fine, and I had just another day in the ER.
Oh, here’s some pics of Drunk-o-vision I found on google images… Pretty close I’d say.
Comments (2)
Now that’s funny!
this story reminded me of an ENT resident in my home country who got drunk during a christmas party while he was on call. he went to a patient’s room and insisted that it was HIS bed. patient panicked and moved out of the bed, sending expensive chemotherapy meds crashing down on the floor. ent resident was suspended. the evils of alcohol!!!