Quote of the Night
Tonight's winner is from the still-quite-intoxicated young man who borrowed his friend's new motorcycle and wrecked it, suffering an open fracture and a nasty road rash in the process. He didn't take kindly to my suggestion that one shouldn't operate a motorcycle after having anything to drink, much less the large quantity of alcohol that he had obviously consumed.Nor did he appreciate my suggestion that a helmet might have prevented the significantly disfiguring facial scars that will ultimately enable everyone he meets to forever remember him as That Dude With the F***ed Up Face.
Well, I didn't really say that. I just suggested that he should always wear a helmet when motorcycling. I made up that last part. Nevertheless, he obviously wasn't in the mood for any preventive medicine discussions:
"Are you going to lecture me, or are you going to fix me?" he snarled.
Well, actually, I'm going to do both. I'm good like that.
Nurse, can you get me a scrub brush please?
Labels: debridement, drunks, pain, patients, teenagers
posted by scalpel at 3:11 AM
1 Comments:
Hi Scalpel - You really must've wanted to say it though, especially since you know it wasn't the first or last patient that will come into your ED for blatantly stupid things that should never have happened. I think alcohol just exacerbates those feelings with the staff.
This didn't involve alcohol but one of our ED docs was totally pissed because this little boy had a serious closed head injury that he had to be flown out to a larger facility for and how easily this could've been prevented. She did speak to the mother about bicycle helmets.
I totaled a guy's brand new car once. No alcohol involved - just stupidity. I thought it would be fun to race friends to our agreed upon destination - only we never made it. The 3 of us should have died - not even belted- car jumped an embankment, nose dived down into a valley and rolled. I know it sometimes seems like there is no rhyme or reason to why some people come through this stuff and others die for much less. Our guardian angels were definitely busy that night.
Sounds like your patient was lucky to be alive.
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