The amount of medical blogs have been increasing exponentially over the past couple of years. That's pretty exciting because with the increase in volume comes the increase in quality. Many of my favorite blogs, ones which I will be posting links to in the near future, speak to the heart of medicine as well as the difficulties that medical personnel face. Especially when faced with things such as the DMV or unruly patient's. Speaking of unruly patient's, I think I will share a war story with my one reader. I used to work in an inner city emergency service where it was routine for gunshots, stabbings, gang related violence as well as all sorts of medical emergencies from the unfortunate individuals who did not seek medical treatment until it was too late to occur. Boy, have I got some stories.. As I was reading through other blogs today an encounter with a giant came to mind.
Late one night during an especially busy shift my partner and I had just finished eating when we were summoned to a gang infested area of our lovely city where we didn't go without at least three metro police officers escorting us. The precession arrived at the house and was promptly met in the front yard by the largest person I think I had ever seen. He was 6' 10'' and appeared to be very muscular. His hair was in a semi-afro parted in the middle with a comb protruding from the left side. I immediately concluded that the comb was impaled in his scull but was afraid to ask, actually I was afraid to step out of the truck to take a closer look until we found out what was going on. As the individual stepper closer it was apparent that he was our patient. He had that really crazy look in his eyes, the one that people have just before they pull the trigger or jump off of a bridge and he was walking in a somewhat bizarre fashion. Finally, my partner and I got out of the truck, with our mag-lights in hand just in case, and approached the gentlemen. As we began to speak he walked past us, opened the side door on the truck and stepped into the ambulance and closed the door. At about that time one of his family members added "He crazy." My partner along with the police officers exchanged looks and opened the ambulance door to find the patient lying face down on the stretcher. I asked what was wrong and he said he was tired and felt like sleeping. He denied any complaints and his family said he called 911 but they didn't have any idea why. During our ride to the hospital the patient didn't say anything else. When we arrived at the hospital the patient, who's name I didn't get, stood up and let himself out of the truck and walked into the ED. We followed and explained what we knew to the nurses and doctors while the patient proceeded to lie on his stomach on a gurney and asked everyone to "just be quiet." Later on that morning we returned to the hospital and inquired about our patient. The charge nurse told us that he evidently just wanted to sleep. All of their test were negative and he didn't complain of anything. They finally kicked him out after three or four hours off good sleep. Maybe it was the family that was crazy and wouldn't let him rest, who knows?
That was weird. Anyway, there's a war story for ya.
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