How did my patient get that crazy injury?!

Do you ever wonder how some of your patients get their injuries? I’m here to tell you: It’s through a lack of common sense. Sadly, most people just don’t have it!
Check out these five stories that’ll make you shake your head with amazement–and, okay, laugh a little bit too.

• My colleague and I were eating lunch in the cafeteria when we overheard one of the unit clerks talking about the sunburn she got on her weekend drive to the beach. She was in a convertible, but didn’t think she’d get sunburned because the car was moving.
• My friend has a lifesaving tool in her car which is designed to cut through a seat belt if she gets trapped. She keeps it in the trunk.
• I was hanging out with a friend when we saw a woman with a nose ring attached to an earring by a chain. My friend said, “Wouldn’t the chain rip out every time she turned her head?” I had to explain that a person’s nose and ear remain the same distance apart no matter which way the head is turned…
• I worked one summer as a cook at a pizza joint while I was in nursing school. One day, I observed a man ordering a small pizza to go. He appeared to be alone and the manager on duty asked him if he would like it cut into four pieces or six. He thought about it for a moment before responding: “Just cut it into four pieces; I don’t think I’m hungry enough to eat six.”
• The all-time pièce de résistance: I once called a surgeon who had, earlier in the day, performed a gastroscopic exam on a tiny alcoholic woman who had started bleeding profusely from somewhere in her mouth. Now, we were always taught that a surgeon will get excited if you call and report arterial bleeding. The other myth is that he/she would come in straight away and fix the problem. In this case, the surgeon responded quite seriously: “Well, just keep suctioning. It’s got to stop sooner or later.” (Yes, gentle reader, ALL bleeding eventually will stop!) So I simply called a different surgeon who located the bleed–in a gum where she had a tooth removed two weeks earlier–and stopped the bleeding by suturing the artery.

Mama always said: Stupid is as stupid does! (Forrest Gump)