He said that he had been hit by a car. Flown up and over the car and on the way down his foot had hit a mailbox. Only trouble with that story... didn't fit with his injuries.
You can ask him again, and usually the story changes a bit each time, but despite the inconsistencies, he sticks to his story. The mailbox is at fault.
So I document.. Subjective: Patient reports....
Objective: Foot smashed
I pulled the Ortho resident aside. One look at the foot and it was obvious it would never be the same again. Say I was in the jungle, and the same foot came to me. I would not have the tools nor the know-how to put it back together again. She assured me I wouldn't have to amputate, that with a good cleaning and monitoring, patient could potentially keep his foot. Granted, who knows how he would walk on it. And in the end, for a variety of reasons (infection, necrosis of the bone, etc) may have to end up amputating anyways. #thinkingahead
Another, on a motorcycle, hit from behind, went flying forward. He came into our trauma bay screaming about his carotid. Every two seconds, would ask us if his carotid was okay. His carotid was okay. Ankle not so much. But no worries about the carotid. Had us all a little, thinking he was weird, but then just turns out this wasn't his first motorcycle accident. Last time he had almost died from a severed subclavian artery. Carotid. Subclavian. Close enough... i guess ;)
We've had a string of cute kids come by on our trauma assembly line, in addition to our nightly appendicitis.
For the past two nights I've seen little 1yr old kiddies having taken a tumble down a flight of stairs. The most recent, dad had kept him calm on the ambulance ride to the hospital by feeding him potato chips. Note to all parents: don't feed your kids while on your way to the hospital in an ambulance. Or better yet, don't let your 1yr olds play at the top of a flight of wooden stairs.
We had a kid crack his jaw by over-rotating a back flip on the trampoline and landing on the frame. He was actually asleep when we saw him. Waking him up I realized too late that I was standing right by his head, potential for unnecessary startling. But, instead of being scared by waking up in a strange place with a strange person looking down at you, he paused a second and then smiled and waved up at us. We enjoyed his wit and one-liners interjected between our commands to 'move this' or 'move that'.
We had another kid with a broken leg. But he wasn't seeing us because of his broken leg. No, that was old news. He was seeing us, because despite his full leg cast he was out riding ATVs and falling off them. This poor kid was so brave, which I didn't see initially. He was happy and making jokes when we first assessed him. But later, after returning from CT imaging, Mom had stepped away to charge her phone, and not seeing anyone had scared him. I had returned to follow up at that point and caught the tail end of his tears.
Then the other day, I got to meet the next Broadway star. At least, that's his next goal. He's spent his summer practicing 6hrs a day. He was very excited at the idea of spending the rest of his summer on the couch watching Netflix though. I have no doubt we'll see him on Broadway some day! Super smart kid, and super interested about his appendix. I told him, that when he retires from dancing he should go to medical school.
Much Love.
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