I get lots of things in the ER blamed on me. I get blamed for not having the patient in the room for the consultant. I get blamed for the lab being slow. I get blamed for not calling a doctor sooner, you name it.However, I draw the line when some dirty looking, odouriforous young man is cursing me out with “This is fucking BULLSHIT! Why can’t you get the fucking IV!!!” when my colleague and I are having trouble getting an IV into his IV drug abusing, prostitute girlfriend. Excuse me, but is it my fault that your 40+ year old looking 22 y/o girlfriend with rotting teeth and scarred, thrombosed veins decided to shoot up heroin for years before she fell off a second storey deck? No, it is not. Now shut up and get out of the room before I stick this 20g angiocath in your neck. (I felt like saying that in a Dinero voice)

I found this X-ray online – apparently it was from China somewhere. Evidently a boy was accidentally shot in the eye brain by another boy’s arrow during archery practise. Kind of reminds me of “A Christmas Story” where everyone tells little Ralphie, “You’ll shoot your eye out kid” whenever he mentions that all he really wants for Christmas is a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun. Somehow this arrow was removed successfully and boy made a good recovery. Go here to see a much more gruesome image of the arrow in the kid’s head!

Here is another old one while I am out of town….

So, people come in with bizarre stories but this one was really out there. A 40ish year old guy came in last summer with a cut in the roof of his mouth. It was fairly large so I was curious as to what could have caused it. He said that while he works on his car (which is parked out in is backyard), he likes to periodically do some archery. He has a target set up near the car and takes a few shots to break up the monotony of changing the oil or whatever he was doing with the car. The really weird part was that he said he likes to keep an ARROW IN HIS MOUTH while he works on the car (much like someone who keeps a pen in their mouth while sitting at the computer). Of course you can see where this is going….. He trips and falls and of course the sharp point of the arrow pierces the roof of his mouth. Luckily he had only superficial damage to his palate. His discharge instructions included something I have never written before: “Do not place the tip of an arrow in your mouth”.