Early in my training I was given the opportunity to spend a month in one of the busiest emergency rooms in the United States, at night. The fact that it was at night made it special because that's when the majority of fucked up stuff happens to people. Every day I saw something different and heard stories from patients that Ripley's Believe It or Not wouldn't even explore. As a young pup I kept my mouth shut and stayed out of the way as best as I could. But in a busy ER there is nowhere to hide. I spent a lot of my time doing boring patient interviews to determine which medications they took on a regular basis. By the way, telling me what color your medicine is doesn't fucking help me at all! Take 5 minutes of your sorry ass lives and learn the names of the poison you are putting into your body.
It just so happens that my month was during the winter and the temperatures were routinely below freezing at night in this town. So as soon as the sun went down every drunk in a 5 miles radius came piling in with fake injuries so they could warm up and try to get a prescription for some Oxycontins to smoke. I must say that they added a special fragrance to the hallways that I could only describe as an ashtray full of curry diarrhea. About 2 hours after each bum was kicked out they would come stumbling back through the doors again and the cycle would repeat. I must say that the amount of taxpayer dollars that are wasted on these fuck asses is astonishing. I know you are thinking that some had hard luck stories and that I'm being too judgemental on them. Well fuck you because if you dealt with these degenerates every day like I did you would agree.
It would be easy to share some stories about all the babies that stupid mothers brought in because they were crying or high school girls who ate a bottle of Tylenol in a futile attempt to commit suicide. Seriously, if you're going to kill yourself Google it first so health care professionals don't have to waste their time pumping your stomach full of charcoal. The idea of suicide and self mutilation blow my fucking mind. Most of the time they are just weak ass cries for help that make you look stupid. But one night in particular one of those attention getting acts got a little "out of hand".
I was doing some boring paperwork when the page came across for the trauma team that a teen was being life flighted in with a serious injury. It called for all available trauma staff to get the trauma bay prepared for his arrival. As the student pharmacist, my role was to watch. So I waited for a few minutes so that I wouldn't be in the way during prep and hopped on the elevator to head down to the trauma bay. As the doors opened the flight nurses where wheeling the kid by and all I could see was the silver shock blanket that looked like a trash can lid. As I followed the bed into the room the blanket was removed and revealed a heinous site! Initially I thought he had shot himself in the hand with a shotgun. My vantage point was poor so I could only see what was supposed to be his fingers. As the residents worked on him I moved myself closer to the action because I'm a nosey little fucker and I wanted to see that hand!
The closer I got the more gruesome the scene became. I could now see that were weren't any fingers at all. but it didn't stop there. As I tracked the wound up his arm all I could make out was meat. There were no features or structure remaining from the tips of his fingers all the way up to his elbow. It looked like one of those 3 pound logs of hamburger meat you buy at the grocery store. The only difference was that there were very distinguishable chunks of bone sticking out everywhere. I was in shock at the extent of this injury and was so confused as to how it could have happened. I got my question answered when I took a closer look at his arm right above the elbow. There appeared to be a shiny object attached to it. Maybe it was some kind of tourniquet or device to stop the bleeding? Nope, it was a fucking industrial meat grinder. That's right, he had a meat grinder attached to his arm just above the elbow. His arm had been ground up just like that medium rare cheeseburger you ate last night.
The worst part of the story was that the boy had purposely placed his hand in the machine thinking it might cut his fingers and the emergency stop would kick in. He wasn't smart enough to know that it would suck his arm in and grind it until someone else turned the machine off. Needless to say he lost his arm but got to keep the same miserable life he already had.
Way to think it through buddy......
