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Medical professionals have seen it all.
The sights they witness at the workplace can range from patients having emotional breakdowns leading to chaos or medical emergencies that defy logic and have to be seen to be believed.
Occasionally, however, the medical emergencies some patients claim to have are anything but urgent.
Curious to hear examples of this, Redditor Odd_Profile_5454 asked:
"People who work at the ER what's the most stupid reason someone had to come to the ER you had ever seen?"
Hypochondriacs get the spotlight.
Fight With Sciossors
"A dad brought in their 5 year old son for a bad haircut he received a month ago and was worried the hair was 'growing in weird.'”
– kacheda44
Amateur Equestrian
"21 year old rode a horse for several hours the day before, first time in her life riding a horse. Calls 911 for transport to ER, the muscles in her legs are hurting."
– Azby504
Harmless Candy
"I had a mom bring her 6 y/o in because she swallowed a Life Saver. Kid was eating, drinking, and speaking just fine, was happy and playing in the exam room. Basically, not in any acute distress. Mom could not understand that doing X-rays would be a waste of time since Life Savers aren’t radiopaque, and it had probably melted by that point anyway."
– TheLakeWitch
Innocent Inquiries
"At the hospital pharmacy, I once got a late-night phone call from an elderly woman who had just swallowed a whole lemon drop, and wanted to know if she would be okay. I told her that it would dissolve quickly, and the answer was yes."
"I also once got a call on a Saturday evening from a man who was changing the oil in his motorcycle, and didn't know metric and wanted to know if cc's and ml's were the same thing. The answer to that was also yes, and he also said that he called the hospital because he figured there'd be a pharmacist on staff, and we would know. LOL."
– wilderlowerwolves
Setting A Precedent
"We once had a 19 year old patient come in by ambulance for a sore thumb from gaming all night. That case was used as an example of why paramedics should be able to refuse to transport people, and they now have that ability...so I guess something good came out of that."
– LucielleBall12
Hailing Through Snow
"worked in an ER in Athens, GA. had a snowstorm that was very icy, and everything was shut down. had a dude walk in at 6am on the weekend, through the ice and snow, for a f'king STD check. that is about tied with the teenage girl who came via ambulance for seasonal allergies (she had a sneezing fit and freaked out)"
– b*tchpop88
You can't make this up.
Wayward Patient
"This isn’t exactly the same but my BIL was hospitalized and went out for a cigarette in the middle of the night. The automatic door closed and locked and he had to go around the hospital and down a busy street holding an IV stand with one hand and trying to keep his gown closed with the other and go back in through the ER entrance. They looked at him and said “where the hell did you come from?”
– Sioux-me
Animalistic
"I’m a fire medic not an ER employee but I once took someone into the ER who thought she was a beaver. A liquor store employee called us because she was gnawing on their doorframe and wouldn’t leave. She was walking around a rough side of town with a wetsuit about 3x too large for her. She was pretty stunned when I informed her that I didn’t believe she was a beaver because she was gnawing on a metal door frame, not wood."
– MutualScrewdrivers
Flying High
"My favorite story on Untold Stories of the ER was the guy who got high as a kite and rolled down a hill straight into a cactus patch..."
"Bare naked."
– Logical-Wasabi7402
Dramatic Much?
"In the waiting room with my daughter because she needed stitches. Another girl comes in hooping and hollering, limping, in 10/10 pain, please God make the pain stop. She stabbed herself in the right buttcheek with a mechanical pencil. It didn't even break the skin."
– October1966
Delusional Daddy
"I was a patient waiting in a hallway on a stretcher and a guy was telling the doctors he was there because he was pregnant and having labor pains. They took the news pretty well, but I was brought back first."
– Prestigious_Gold_585
You gotta be kidding.
Backed Up
"The 30 year old healthy woman who called 911 because she was constipated. Didn’t to take anything at home first, like a laxative. Then cried and threw a fit when I went to give her an enema."
"I had a guy come in with arm pain for 5 years. When I asked what was different today that made home come to the ER. He said nothing, it was just time to get it checked out."
"I also had a lady with a hand written list of 20 minor complaints she wanted seen for. I told pick the top 5."
– princess_fiona_7437
Sunbaked
"Grown a** middle aged guy came in for… one of the most mild sunburns I’ve ever seen in my life. Like I literally wouldn’t have noticed it if he didn’t point it out."
– bigballbuffalo
Blinky Blinky
" I don’t work in an ER but I was in the waiting room with my partner, and the lady ahead of us brought in her baby because 'she blinks a lot.'"
– laurnasaur
"I remember when I had my first baby, and had just brought her home from the hospital, I called the nurse because baby was hiccuping for a long time. 😂 New babies make you crazy. It feels like everything wants to kill them."
– fishfishbirdbirdcat
First-Time Parent
"I am an ER doctor and the things that people bring their brand new babies to the disgusting ER for is crazy. One lady, young, first time mom brought her 36 hour old baby to the ED because he was crying. Vitals and physical exam were normal so I discharged and she looked me dead in the eyes and said “so he’s just gonna cry?” Like lady you had 9 months to think about that one."
– metforminforevery1
The thing about working in the medical profession is that it's difficult to tell whether or not a patient is being a hypochondriac, and it would be irresponsible to dismiss them, even if they may be distressed over nothing.
Still, these professionals deserve a shout-out for the work they do in dealing with a vast range of emergencies.