Two cases: One was a careless tragedy, the other I call "Where's my beer?"

Two cases related to beer

It was one of those nights in the emergency room when I wished I could clone myself and let one of me take a break. We worked straight through our 12 hour shift without a break. A few seconds to run and wee-wee was the only seconds we got to ourselves that night. That is the way it is when you choose to work in the most exciting job around. We faced the unknown and the “who’d a thunk it” on every shift.

This was going to be a tough shift for me, it was 6:00pm until 6:00am. I had not taken time to nap that day before my night shift began so I knew there would be lots of coffee drinking going on, but it was so busy no one had time to make coffee.

We had crying babies with the croup and people with the flu. It was flu season and that is the recipe for fuller than normal emergency rooms for months on end.

Less than an hour after our shift began we had a trauma cardiac arrest coming. I called overhead for the portable x-ray people to come and I paged the house supervisor as everyone prepared for whatever was coming.

A 46 year old man had been coming back from a day at Gulf Shores. He drank too much and was driving his motorcycle. He was going way too fast as he came through the Wallace Tunnel towards Mobile. He lost control at the bending exit of the tunnel. He slammed into the wall at a high rate of speed. When he reached our ER, there was nothing that could be done to save him. His chest was crushed. He looked so much younger than his age, it broke my heart to see him lying there lifeless. 

His family had arrived at the hospital shortly after he arrived. It turns out he had a friend that was returning home at the same time and had witnessed the wreck and notified his wife. His wife and daughter were trembling as they entered the family conference room. They screamed the loudest and longest screams as they held one another after hearing the news. Oh how it shook me up. How can a human being not get emotional witnessing such an event. No matter how many times this happened, it never got easier for me.

As things settled down, I looked up to see a new patient walking in as he was assisted by another man.  At first glance I thought he might have an injury to his leg. But when he sat down, I knew why he had come to visit us. He could not sit on his bottom, but only sat on the edge of the chair using one butt cheek. His friend signed him in and I couldn’t wait to see the chart.

Abdominal pain was what brought this patient in, but he gave no details. It is so predictable when these patients come to us with abdominal pain. They are evasive and often angry, like this patient. Unfortunately Dr. A was not on duty that evening. He loved playing with the minds of these patients. 

It was a first for me. I stood and stared at that x-ray. It was shocking to us all. There it was, a large beer bottle, with the label on it. That had to be so uncomfortable. While it was the source of many funny lines for the rest of the shift, it was also very dangerous for this patient. He could have easily gotten a rip or tear in his rectum and had major complications.

Then our on-duty ER physician went in to tell this patient what he had found in his rectum and that he would need to go to the operating room to have it removed. The man said, he could not understand how it got there. The physician asked him had he been unconscious or intoxicated? The patient said, “No, I don’t drink or do drugs or anything!” Then the patient appeared to have a moment of clarity. He suddenly said that perhaps this happened when he got out of the shower. He said he remembered feeling FUNNY when he sat down to dry off. Maybe he accidentally sat on it! 

The physician told us he would not even dignify that kind of silliness with a response. He just advised the patient he would be in the OR very soon.

In conclusion:

One man died in the prime of his life because he drank too much at the beach and his judgement was impaired. Then he drove his motorcycle through the tunnel and felt like superman, he was invincible in his mind. He left a beautiful wife and daughter whose lives would never be the same.

Another could have lost his life if the bottle had cracked or broken and cut him , he could have bled out. But somehow he did not know he was in danger, just some FUNNY feeling is all he remembered.

Beer is for drinking! It is not for drinking and driving nor for giving yourself a funny feeling in your rectum.