health

Doctors share the stupidest injuries they've ever seen. Holy GOD humans are stupid.

With most of my willpower, I do my best to stay away from Reddit.

Only because once I find a thread that I’m really into (e.g. If they put you in jail and give you a laptop with internet connection and you have to make $2000 during a month otherwise you will be killed. What would you do to make that $2000 ?), I will be there for hours.

Nothing gets me like cult buys, the rogue bride who ran away from her wedding, or anything related to medical professional confessions.

Hence, I am introducing you to my latest Reddit thread obsession:

ER doctors of Reddit. What is one of your favorite “This dumbass” cases you have experienced in regards to the patient?

It really speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

After too much an appropriate amount of time trawling through answers, I have collated the best of the best. From the classic WTF moments to stories that should not have even made it onto Reddit.

Questionable gun-related injuries

User, gunnarjmike reflected on the time using a gun really backfired on one particularly bitter wife.

“The woman who got into a fight with her husband, took out her handgun and fired into the ground to ‘teach him a lesson’. She shot herself in the foot.”

Then, there was this little gem, from someone WHO COULD GO TO WAR FOR THEIR COUNTRY.

“I had this Marine come in with a big hole through his left foot. And as I’m asking him what were you doing at the time and how did it happen. He replied, ‘I was at the range and I wanted to see if my steel toe boots were bulletproof, I guess not doc.'”

S.E.X

Real talk: these are always some of the best injuries.

Let’s begin.

“When working in an ER in a rural area…We had a man come in with the broken off end of an adjustable wrench, the ring part that is there so you can hang it up, stuck on his erect penis. He was using it as a cock ring. We ended up having to use bolt cutters to remove it. Bolt cutters are not the most delicate instruments. Needless to say, his penis was chewed up pretty good by the time we removed it. I hope he learned his lesson.”

This one Redditer perfectly summed up the reaction of any person who has a penis, “Thank you kind sir you have officially scared my penis.”

Sex worker, Samantha X won’t let anything go near her bum. (Post continues after audio.)

Then, my good lord, we have the woman who makes me want to bang my head against a wall for an hour.

“One woman with five kids was asked at her midwife appointment if she needed contraceptive advice, and replied ‘Oh no he always pulls out’. She genuinely believed her five soon-to-be six kids were immaculate conception.”

These can’t be categorised

As I have explained above, a lot of these stories don’t fit neatly into a box of injuries. You will see why.

“I remember a patient who came in with eye irritation. From the beginning it was clear something unusual was going on, there was an alarming amount of plant material packed under his eyelids. While rinsing it out for him he explained he was vacuum sealing marijuana and opened the lid of a tube to look inside…He received a face full of pressurised marijuana most of which seemed to collect under his eyelids. After pressurising a container full of weed and promptly opening it inches from his face to look inside.”

Then, we have the person who I can’t believe has managed to keep themselves alive for this long.

“One time a patient came in complaining of severe eye pain with visual disturbances in both eyes which started about three weeks prior. ED doc asked if they wore contacts and they said yes, and that they knew why their eyes started hurting.

“They hadn’t been cleaning or removing their contacts before that initial three weeks. Then they kept f*cking wearing them for those three weeks until they came to the ER. They were another couple days away from losing their vision permanently.”

Finally, we have something that sounds stupid but if you have a brother, as I do, probably not surprising.

“When my brother was a kid, he took the cigarette lighter from my dad’s car and burned his arm with it. It was a bad burn he held it there for a few seconds. Anyway my dad took him to the ER. Doctor was nice about it, patched him up as best he could I guess. They leave. Soon as he gets in the car my brother does it again.

“I just remember my dad screaming ‘YOU DID NOT COME FROM MY LOINS, MY SON COULD NOT BE THIS STUPID!’ as he pulled my brother back into the ER.”

All things periods

Truly, I understand that periods can be freaky deaky. Even if you have ‘the talk’, there’s a lot of stuff that you have to learn on your own (e.g. putting a tampon in for the first time is not as easy as the packet makes it look).

BUT.

I do have to wonder with this:

“A 30-something year old lady came in with vaginal bleeding. Nothing else noteworthy going on. No abdominal pain, no stinging when she peed, no abnormal discharge, no fevers, and the bleeding wasn’t particularly heavy.

“Her last ‘bleeding episode’ was four weeks earlier, and this happened every four weeks.”

Dear god.