Ever been to the ER? Story time!

[Pyroboy597]

Inspired by the thread on concussions that is currently going on, I have created a thread for ER stories. Most people have gotten hurt doing something and ended up going to the ER, and the stories are worth telling. I will copy mine from the 'How do I tell if I have a concussion?' thread a little later. I know some of you must have some nasty experiences under your belt.

Don't be shy.

[warpig13]

last time i went to the ER was due to a paintball injury. during a scenario, i slid into a bunker, and my knee went over a think tree root, gashing it wide open. i was driven to the ER, filled out the forms with my dad, AND WAITED 2 HOURS IN THE WAITING ROOM WHILE I BLED ALL OVER THE FLOOR! some lady with a lame cough went before me.....but thats not the best part. the best part was the huge sign over the ER door that said "this is not a first, come first serve place. people who are in more need of assistance than you are will go first".

[grEnAlEins]

I got a concussion playing indoor ultimate frisbee in PE in HS... long story short, I fell/got tackled onto my head
I bit a small part of my tongue off when I was little (fell and hit my jaw with my tongue between my teeth )
I have problems with nosebleeds, and needed a few "packings" (I had one hit over 4 hours of blood time and almost passed out )
I got cellulitus (sp?) from a wrestling mat (again in HS), and was put onto multiple IVs to kill the the little buggers growing under my skin all up the inside my leg, they said that the problem could have resulted in the loss of a limb if not treated for another day or so (I waited two or three days)
That is about it, I have lead a fairly sheltered life. Nothing major or life threatening. And I figure only 4-5 trips is low, but I may be wrong

[Phantom_Mag]

Multiple seizures from epilepsy as a child.

[sbpyro]

Got into a fight in HS during activity period.
Was pounding the living daylights out of the kid when two football players grabbed me and tossed me into the hall. A little delayed reaction to when they grabbed me I spun and punched through the safety glass in the hallway door slit opened my wrist. Had the teacher come out and yell at me and then sent me to the principles office. I walked down the stairs and to the principle's office (ran into my japanese teacher who asked if I was okay) sat down put my head in my hands and realized I was bleeding profusely. Had to walk back down the corridor I had just came through and saw the trail of crimson all the way back. The school nurse insisted I run my wrist under cold water. Nearly blacked out before the ambulance came (had to wait til my mom was contacted). Ended up with 8 stiches. (got lucky an 1/8 of an inch over and it would have cut a vein.
Gets better the high school gym is basically one basketball court + 10 ft (5 on each side of the court) long by one basketball court + 20ft (10 on each side) wide. with about 6 doors equally spaced on 3 sides with windows (so prospective students can see what a beautiful facility we had frickin aquarium). Well about 3 months after my first incident, they decided it would be a great idea to play steal the bacon. For those who don't know what that is you split up the class in half and assign each kid a number. A football is placed in the center of the basketball court. The pe instructor would call a number and each kid with that number would try to get the football from center court to their end of the court. if you made it you got a point if the other kid tagged you their team got the point. So we have been playing for about 15 mins, they called a number and the two kids were just circling around the football (most of the points had been scored via tag out) to make things more interesting they call my number now I hustled to the center while my counter part took a leisurely stroll.
I get to the center as my team mate is on our side of the court. And while him and teh other guy were circling I scooted under neath his legs and grabbed the football. I turn and run as fast as I possibly could. Near the goal line I saw a little flash in the corner of my eye so I turned to look thinking it was the other team chasing me down. and it was not the case I turn back forward and low an behold my face is about to go through one of the doors to the hallway. Mostly safety glass and all. I put my left hand up to push the door open and sure enough I put a hole through the glass. I get a matching cut on my left hand. (Got lucky again as it did not cut deep enough to hit my veins.

[gimp]

haha, I thought you ment engine room. I was like, yeah. I go there every day. It's usually crowded and it smells funky.

[tropical_fishy]

I spent a good portion of my childhood in the ER from doing really really stupid stuff. Mainly falling off stuff/flipping out of trees or off swings/doing gymnastics without a mat/touching the electric fence (I'm kidding about that one, it just gave you a little jolt, nothing too strong). My latest visits were for a staph infection in my leg, an ulcer caused by stressing out my junior year of high school, and my mom almost breaking my ankle with the car.

[slade]

i cut off a piece of my thumb punching through a glass window when i was about 10.

[Altimas]

I hit a stump heafirst on a sled, broke my nose in three different places and tore a whole right above my mouth. It took 3 hours to get there in the snow.

[slade]

oh, and when i was a little kid i stabbed myself in the mouth with an arrow.

dont ask.

theres also the time i had to get stitches when i stepped on a piece of glass, and broke my arm in two places but didnt go to the hospital for about 2-3 days.

[digitard]

Both my parents work in our 2 larger hospitals, well my dad did until he decided to spend a year on WAKE ISLAND doing medical work to have a change of scenery for a bit.

My ER stories are this:
- Accident happens (most recently I got a REALLY bad kidney stone and couldn't walk)
- Called up my dad and asked if he was working
- Met him at the ER front door
- He took me back to FAST TRACK (he pretty much ran that area of the ER)
- Got put on IV and doctor came and saw me
- Gone within an hour

Never had to wait... had to love it.

[Lohman446]

I normally don't bother to go to the hospital. All it results in is upsetting a doctor when you fail to follow there instructions of taking it easy. I posted this story on AO some time back.

Week and one day before a big tournament around here and there's a wagon ride at my sisters house. I'm shuttling kiddies back and forth walking along the wagons going like 4MPH or so. There a pair of wagons behind a tractor, no big deal and I'm walking between them. Well the second wagon does not have the tires inset as far as normal wagons. I'm talking to this hot chick on the wagon when I turn. The rear wagon front wheel catches my foot and rolls slowly up my leg. I can't get it out since this wagon is pretty well loaded with people and it rolls up my leg, forcing me down, and I end up sideways wedged between the wagon and the gravel road. Since the driver cannot see me it takes awhile to get his attention and the wagon stopped. Luckily its dirt and the thing just pushes me rather than running over all the way.

I manage to stumble to the side of the road and keep my feet below me. There are bunch of kids and I'm doing my "its only a scratch" routine. I go back to the barn and there are several EMT / nurse personal there off duty who take turns listening to my lung and making comments about how pale I am. I decide to smart off and tell them its just shock and it will go away.

I walk to my car cause I'm going to drive myself to the ER but they won't let me do that, so someone has to drive me. I have thm drop me off at the door and stumble into the ER. The nurse at the desk puts me in a wheel chair, has me wheeled into a room and gets an IV tube started in about three minutes time. After several X-rays and a couple cat scans the doctor comes up to me and goes something like "You have a bruised spleen, bruised ribs, a sprained ankle, and a partially collapsed lung. You need to come back tomorrow afternoon to verify your lung has quit collapsing. Any questions?"

You should have seen the look on his face when I asked him if I could go to paintball practice the next morning . I declined pain medication as I was driving myself home, signed an against medical advice form, had dinner with my dad when I took him home and went home. Yeh, I did play paintball the next morning

[bentothejam1n]

i think my goal this coming football season is to get a trip to the hospital (preferably not the ER)

[kosmo]

Alright, if you went to the ER for less than 25 stitches, you had no business in the ER. Go to a doctor. Thats why the wait is a couple hours long.

As for my trips to the ER, as well as several other notable ones from family:

I was 12 years old and playing touch football during lunch break at school, and I got pushed from behind and did a perfect face-plant onto a rock. I destroyed my left cheek, and pieces of the bone ripped apart my sinus. I have no recollection of what happened, I remember standing there, and the next thing I know I was in the nurses office waiting for the ambulance. Pretty good concussion, and a bit of surgery. I still cant really breathe through my nose too well.

Later that year, I caught pneumonia. I successfully fought it off with prescription drugs, but about 2 months later I got it again, this time I almost died. I was trying to recline in a lazy boy and the phlegm in my lungs managed to completely block off my bronchial tubes for a minute or two. That sucked big time.

Next trip, my little brother ripped my hand and wrist open with a broken beer bottle, from right below my middle finger to about 3 inches below my hand. I dont remember exactly how many stitches it needed, but it was a lot. I dont really hold a grudge, considering Ive hit him with a shovel and a baseball bat before. Oh and I broke his arm, it was really wierd. His wrist bone collapsed in on itself like a building imploding, and now one of his arms is about a half inch shorter than the other.

Next trip was in junior high industrial tech class. I was making something on the jig saw and managed to cut straight through my fingernail and into the bone. It didnt hurt at all though. I stood in the line at the teachers desk of people asking for help with various things until he noticed I was bleeding all over the floor. Oops.

Then my next trip was probably the worst for sentimental reasons. One of my little brothers decided to hang himself in our back yard. We dont know exactly how long he had been up in the tree, but it was less than an hour. I cut him down and helped my dad do cpr on him. We got his heart going again, but he never started breathing again and his organs failed that night. We were holding his funeral a few days later, and right before the services started, a hornet stung me on the hand. Thats when I learned I was allergic to hornet stings. My hand started swelling, and within minutes the swelling started to move up my arm and I started having an asthma attack. That sucked too, I dont like not being able to breathe.

As far as family members trips:
My youngest brother was trying to climb on to the kitchen counter via the dishwasher, and put his toes in the hinge to step up. Then he grabbed the door handle to pull himself up, and opened the door, cutting his toes down to the bone. He was only like 3 or 4 at the time, so they strapped him to the little kid stretcher. He snapped that thing in half struggling before they got him to the ambulance.

A different incident with him, he decided to ride a tricycle down some concrete stairs outside of our house. He flew forward over the handlebars and sent his front teeth up through his jaw and into his nose. That was messy.

Then there was an incident when 5 of my friends were leaving my house. There were 4 guys in the car and one girl. The girl was sitting on the front passengers lap. They got broadsided by a drunk about 10 seconds after they pulled out of my driveway. The two in the back seat were relatively fine, but the driver was paralyzed, the girl was killed instantly, and the guys lap she was on became a vegetable. Oh, and of course the drunk was uninjured.

[Pyroboy597]

Alright.

1. My dad had finished mowing the lawn with our tractor when I was not home. I got home, and trying to navigate through the garage I put my weight onto the side of the muffler to get around something else. Muffler was hot, really hot. Second-degree burns all over my hand, had to wear a sock thing on it for a month or so.

2. My friends and I were screwing around on a swingset. I was sitting on the slide talking with my hands on the rails. The rails were made of some old wood, and one of my friends pushed me. A piece that had cracked got pulled up when he pushed me and impaled itself through my hand. If you look at your left hand, it went in south of the crease between my thumb and index finger on the back, and out about an inch or so in from the edge of my palm. Did not bleed or hurt at all, it broke the nerves in the edge of my hand and was in so tight that no blood could get out.

3. Classic running and falling on a marble floor incident where I got tripped playing tag or something and slammed my shin on the floor and split it open straight across the bottom.

This thread has been one of the most interesting to read in a while.

Edit: Kosmos man, youv'e got a lot behind you, sorry to hear about your brother :/