Surgery Top 10

Here are the top 10 craziest patients/stories from Ben Taub (count hospital) ER where the motto is "We give Taub notch care."
10. Man had urinary retention for over 24 hours and his bladder felt like it was going to burst. He was pacing around and could not sit down. We placed a foley catheter and it began to drain over 1 Liter of urine that was so bloody you could hardly tell if it was urine or just blood.
9. A girl came in after striking a window with her arm in anger and had a small laceration right over the radial artery about 1 in from her wrist that was pulsating blood. I was told to hold it so I could tell my friends I saved a life.
8. A Sudanese refugee came to the ER for inability to swallow food. He had a right neck mass that was about 9 in. x 5 in. spanning from his ear to his clavicle that was filled with pus.
7. A man came in with a gun shot wound to the heart. The man was oozing blood right there on the table. He was quickly taken up to the OR and I am not sure if he made it.
6. A man came in after being struck with a 2x4 in the face from an aggravated assault. His eyeball had popped out and been placed back into the socket prior to his transfer.
5. A man came in with a gun shot wound to the mandible/jaw. A CT of the face was ordered and showed the bullet stopping right at the bone that separates the brain from the oropharynx (mouth). A couple of the doctors were unsure if it was in the brain or not.
4. Man came in following an accident with a forklift that tore off his skin and subcutaneous fascia right down to the muscle and bone from his knee to his ankle. Some of the staff took pics with their camera phones of this one.
3. A PA student and I were asked to staple a head laceration on a woman struck by a beer bottle. Everything was going well until the 4th staple that disappeared into her head when the skull just gave way. *I was not the one with the staple gun when this happened. We had to fish the staple out and then finished the job with the intern.
2. A woman came in with a 4 month history of bilateral lower leg necrosis (rotting flesh) that had become infested with maggots. She said she felt fine and was not in any pain and refused amputation. It smelled.
1. Funniest story I heard while on the rotation was for a guy who called 9-1-1 for scalp tenderness and itchiness. He was brought to the ER and diagnosed with dandruff and told to use Selsun Blue. People come to the ER for anything.