As a hospital worker, I see my fair share of weird stuff and I get a front row seat to all the insanity. For medical staff, this is “business as usual,” but I really wonder what it’s like for the others…such as the clerks, cleaning staff, interpreters, etc? Is it really normal for them to see the suffering of trauma, or death up close? It’s “normal” for me, but at the same time, it’s really not! What comes to mind is that I have seen my share of kids who have fallen out of buildings here, and it’s always awful.
Certain faces and stories come to mind as just weird.
A few years ago, a lady came to the hospital after she fell and struck her neck on the end of a metal pole. OUCH! All I could see was a decent sized “flesh wound”. While examining her, she tried to stifle a cough, and as she did so, a nice spray of blood and a flap of skin shot out from her neck, revealing a thumb sized hole! She had managed to give herself a “tracheotomy” (look it up) – great shot. Thankfully this was her only injury (when I say, “only” injury, I am in no way minimizing it) and she did well after surgery.
A few weeks later, a driver was brought in after wrecking his car. His bloodied face was quite distorted, but he was talking and was making sense. During his evaluation he kept blowing his nose, but the blood-snot mix was blowing out of a hole in his forehead. Let’s be honest here…this is one of those things that when you see it, you can’t unsee it. To make matters worse, when we laid him down, it appeared that his face was sinking into his head. That’s exactly what I saw. Between his sinking face and his forehead “blowhole,” I promptly sat him up to minimize his chances of choking. This guy had basically smashed all the bones holding his face together. Luckily he was spared any other significant injuries.
Little do these folks know, that they are legends! In my world, where the truth is much stranger than fiction, these folks have managed to distinguish themselves in ways they had never imagined or intended. Personally and professionally I hope I never reach a point where nothing fazes me any more, because becoming shocked reminds me of my humanity.
By Dr. DMS
