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Every time we get a drunk person in the ER and it looks like they are going to be around for a while (ie no sober family member or friend there that’s willing to sign their life away and take them home), we undress the patient and catalogue all his or her personal belongings. I like to read the effects register since drunks sometimes carry interesting things. Usually there is only a dollar bill or two, a lighter, or something like that but occasionally it’s more entertaining.

Recently a guy was carrying a small tote bag. Of course when you take the stuff out, you need to wear double layer gloves since who knows what crap (sometimes literally) you’ll find in there. Anyway, after finding a early 90′s cellphone with no battery and a plastic baggie filled with paperclips (WTF?!) we got to the guy’s most prized possession – a nice travel sized collection of porn. A few DVD”s and a bunch of pocketbook sized magazines all neatly bundled together with rubber bands.

People usually go for a single type of porn fetish but this guy had a nice assortment. Well balanced and thought out. Book-ended by some naughty babysitter stuff, he had representation of numerous sexual acts (S and M, DP, Anal, Group, Interracial, etc) as well as a few vintage (circa 1980′s) things featuring John Holmes and Ginger Lynn. A true connoisseur. We had to catalogue each title and write it down in the register – but the security guard refrained from writing “One copy of Double Penetrating MILFs” and just instead put it down as “One pornographic magazine”. Phooey.

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You know what they say about brothers? Your bond is sealed in blood! Occasionally people dramatically slice open their palms and clasp as a way to cement that bond but I’ve seen it don’t more “enthusiastically” so to speak.
Two brothers start drinking and end up in a free for all stabbing and slashing each other with broken beer bottles. Blood all over the apartment. Blood spurting all over the ambulance. Blood all over the ER trauma bay. Both lying next to each other in the ER getting blood transfusions. It comes full circle.
Ah, nothing is a sacred as family.

I remember in residency there was a guy who used to come in drunk (and occasionally seizing) about 4-5 times a week. Pretty typical I guess for a drunk. However, one night when it was not too busy, one of the attendings decided to look up in our sister hospitals computer system (which we had remote access to) to see if and how often the guy had been over there.

We did some fiddling around and after setting the parameters for both hospitals, ER visits within the last year we calculated the total number of ER visits by this guy. The total – 405. More than there are days in a year. Thus, he spent EVERY SINGLE DAY in his life in one of two ER’s – and often was there more than once in a 24 hour period.

Holy. Frickin’. Crap.