31 of the Wildest Times Minor Injuries Ended Up Being More Serious

‘She hadn’t noticed that when she fell over a few days prior, she had scalped herself’
31 of the Wildest Times Minor Injuries Ended Up Being More Serious
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You get seriously hurt, you go to the hospital. Seems like a straightforward enough decision. Unfortunately, for multiple reasons, perhaps the largest of which is America’s insanely predatory healthcare system, people often resist what is pretty clearly the safest course of action. Which means sometimes very hospital-worthy ailments instead find their way to a simple urgent care that’s more meant to deal with flu shots.

Physicians (and patients) responded to an AskReddit thread with the craziest things that had popped up during what were supposed to be run-of-the-mill exams. Injuries, in some cases, that feel pulled from not just the ER but possibly an active war’s medical tent. 

Read on, though I will warn against it if you’re the slightest type of hypochondriac.

throwingutah 9y ago I was a tech in an ER. Dude comes in because his arm hurts. I'm checking him in and getting vitals and whatnot, chatting about his complaint, and I take a look at his arm, which as it turns out is charred from elbow to shoulder posteriorly (along the back). Не was a drinker, had passed out 3 days earlier against a radiator, and roasted his arm. He'd killed all the nerves, and only came in when it started infecting the surrounding tissue that still had feeling.
ThirstMachine18 9y ago My grandmother. She's allergic to the spice in peppers. So. She goes to a church event and eats something that has capsaicin in it without knowing. Almost instantly her face swells. She just chills like that for a whole day before my mom finds out and tells her to go for a check up. We just expected them to give her a really strong antihistamine and we go about our way No. No no no. She had to be rushed to the hospital because all of her insides were swelling and her organs were getting close to
DrWYSIWYG 9y ago We had a guy walk into the ER (I am in UK so actually called A&E) with a screwdriver buried up to its handle just to the left of his sternum about an inch above the bottom edge of the ribs. Some bright spark pulled it out out....he stopped walking then.
PissFuckinDrunk 9y ago Well, not a physician but it seems we're getting off the path here anyway.... Back in my active EMT days we got sent for a male with a small facial laceration. We showed up and there was a Hispanic gentleman holding a wet paper towel to his cheek. Just a little bloody, no bid deal. I go to take the paper towel away to see what we're dealing with and his entire cheek came with it. I could see directly into the side of his mouth. As it turns out, he was in the public bathroom and
RentBuzz a 9y ago My father is a radiologist, and told us a story one day: patient walks in his clinic complaining about a headache after a transatlantic flight. Since there are no obvious causes, a CT is performed. Turns out he has a broken neck that just did not sever his spinal cord yet. Не got immediately fixated and apparently survived without major complications.
caffienepixie 9y ago Not a doctor, but a physical therapy tech. We had a patient come in for shoulder pain. After about a week we notice his shoulder blade sliding around a whole bunch while he is doing exercises, like moving out and up and all kinds of ways your shoulder blare shouldn't move. Anyway, the PT asks him if he has ever had any injury and he tells her he was kicked off a horse and never went to the doctor 50 YEARS AGO. The good news is we (kind of) got it back to normal and his shoulder
Samfa12 9y ago Mate's dad was a doctor in the Northern Territory, Aus, workin at a few aboriginal missions. A lady came to him asking for Panadol because she had a headache. She hadn't noticed that when she fell over a few days prior, she had scalped herself. Maggoty head skin flap and all.
9y ago Edited 9y ago Healthcare professional in an ER. Not a physician. Routine: older woman came in for bruising. She claimed that two weeks prior someone had bumped into her on public transit, and now the bruise on her chest wouldn't go away. Confused after having asked her height and weight (<90lbs), I asked if she had lost any weight recently. Apparently she has lost about 40lbs in the last 2mos. The bruise? Malignant fucking melanoma. Oh yeah, with mets (edit2: metastasis) everywhere. She was given a prognosis of 3 weeks (to live). If I recall correctly, she
xxclownkill3rxx . 9y ago my dad is a mechanic, he was working on an engine when one of the parts fell off and landed on his hand, he was focused on the engine not falling off the chain when he looked down noticed a pool of blood. cleaned it off, put super glue on it went to his manager and said yeah i think i need to go to urgent care, doctors told him he cut almost 90% of his tendon.
. 9y ago a guy comes into work with half of his face just sort of sagging. They were working 6 days a week 10 hour days, at this point, so he just thought he was tired. Не went to the doc, turns out he had a massive stroke and was dead within the week.
Burner-vagwithabadge 9y ago Another not a doctor but... I arrested a guy after a brief foot pursuit for attempted burglary and several other nuisance charges. Не was covered in blood from multiple small scratches when I first found him and had a decent sized gash above his eye that looked like it just needed a couple stitches. Took him to the e.r. to get stitched up and they did a CT scan. Doctor is stitching the guy up and about to release him when the CT comes back. Fractured orbital resulting in an air pocket forming in the guys brain
Liv-Julia 9y ago Not a routine checkup, a woman 36 weeks pregnant comes into the doc-in-the-box complaining of nausea, vomiting and pain between her shoulders. We ultrasound her abdomen, everything was fine with the kid. Somebody had the bright idea as long as the ultrasound was out to ultrasound between her shoulders. To our astonishment she had a huge dissecting aortic aneurysm! She had to be survival flighted to a level III place & have a crash C-section and her aneurysm fixed. The aneurysm was at least five centimeters across. She and the baby both made it.
fireandbl0od 9y ago Edited 9y ago Nurse, but, some guy came in with Lefort II and III fractures. Said he fell and hit his head on a tractor step about a week ago. Was just coming for medication refills when we asked about the mild facial trauma (tiny laceration, unremarkable bruising). Denied all pain medication, and very minimally accepted it after surgery only because we practically talked him into it. Maxillofacial surgeon was excited about it, she came down personally to get him and take him up to surgery. Edit: TI;dr his face was floating and not attached to the
ansandand 9y ago Edited 9y ago Pre Registration Optometrist here. Had a lady present recently for an eye test following months of very painful headaches. She had scans done at the hospital recently and everything had come back normal. The only reason she was in for a test was that her eyes were the last thing she could think were causing it and she was due for a check up anyway. Cue me looking into her eyes and finding her optic nerves in both eyes, which usually lie flat against the back of the eye, swollen and pressing forward, with
squeeish 9y ago Heard this story from my aunt who works in a eye centre. One day this woman came in with her friends, all drunk and high as fuck as shit. She was holding her eyeball. Somehow she managed to get hit in the face by a pair of heels and it pulled out her eyeball in the process. The kicker is after surgery and all that, she still seemed cheerful and even asked my aunt when her eyesight would recover. Apparently she was under the impression that her eyeball could be reattached.
DeLaNope . 9y ago a Edited 9y ago We just got a guy in with Fournier's Gangrene from a very alarmed family practice doc. His nuts are in his thigh now. :D Edit: Gangrenous balls and taint, if you were curious. Google images has some exciting results.
BadAim 9y ago I went to an urgent care and someone must have mis communicated to the doc because | rolled into a room in a wheelchair, and doc asked me about my cold. I said I don't have a cold, but I'm not sure what I did to my leg and rolled up my pants. My kneecap was on the side of my leg. They seemed rather surprised. They told me to go to the ER immediately.
Lanal013 9y ago Edited 9y ago Not a physician but a clueless patient. Went to go see my doctor for a checkup, had chest pains waking up that morning, started to feel like someone is sitting on my chest, walked 15 minutes to the physician's place, and apparently after he checked my breathing he told me I had to go to the ER to get my lungs X-Rayed. Spent a week in the hospital for having a 40% collapsed lung. Doctors called it a Spontaneous lung collapse. Really not the kind of spontaneity I'm looking for in my life.
mimikiners 9y ago Guy comes in for an eye exam. I note one eye seems a bit redder then the other. Не tells me it's been like that since a branch snapped back and hit him in the face 3 months earlier. I look under his upper lid and there is a piece of wood the size of a tic tac embedded in the underside of the eyelid. Can not believe it did not bother him more.
kejigoto 9y ago Not a physician but did emt work while deployed for local nationals seeking help. Had one guy get carried in from the nearby village and we're called out to the ЕСР to see what we can do. For a tooth ache... He's barely responding when we arrive and smells worse than death. Still makes me gag thinking about it... Start doing the usual initial contact assessment and he's in bad shape. Vitals are all low, he's hardy there, and puss keeps oozing from his eyes and other orifices whenever you touch or apply any pressure to his
DeadGuy940 9y ago Edited 9y ago Guy shows up for a discharge physical (marine). Noticed what looked like cellulitis on his leg. Turns out it was a brown recluse bite that he ignored. Had a fist sized hole of dead tissue in his leg. We treated it with maggots for a few days. It healed over with a very nasty dent/scar.
hellomireaux 9y ago I was putting a patient with mild breathing difficulty on a COPD research study. Не remarked that he had been healthy as a horse all his life. The next day, his routine chest X-ray showed metastatic lung cancer. Не was dead within 2 months.
HungarianHammer21 9y ago Not a physician, but I was doing medical service in Guatemala and we had an older gentleman come in to our clinic to have a checkup, and the entire time he sat there with us, he was resting his arm on what we thought was a bag or purse on top of his leg. At one point he goes to move, and we see a huge lump underneath his poncho (what we thought was his bag) and ask him about it. Turns out it was a tumor that had been growing for around 10 years on his
Karl_Cross 9y ago Mum's a nurse and told me about the time a body builder came in with a pulled muscle somewhere in his abdomen that was causing him severe pain. Long story short, the guy was riddled with cancer. It was everywhere. Apparently he was dead within 72 hours.
badabig 9y ago Edited 9y ago First year nursing student in LA and I was at clinicals when a guy who I had to do a physical assessment on (all we could do since we dont know much) tells me he's been hearing strange cracklings and noises in his ear. I check his ear and it is filled with so much wax and what not. Call my RN advisor and she proceeds to clean out the guys ear. What does she find? Fucking fruit fly nest. Yea, the medical field can get pretty rad.
HellaDawg 9y ago I was working at Target, lived half a mile away so I walked to work -- it totally sucked but I was out of shape and have cold-induced asthma so I ignored it. At this time I was picking up shifts left and right so sometimes I was closing the coffee shop, sometimes coming in at 4am to unload the truck, I was basically a zombie from what I assume was lack of sleep. This goes on for a couple months, until I had my annual physical. I was joking with my doctor that I was super exhausted
cphcph 9y ago A patient who had a routine check-up at his ophthalmologist (eye doctor) who found a small spot in his retina. Was referred to a university hospital, tests showed it was metastases from a small malignant melanoma he had on his back. Our professor cancelled our lecture because he had to tell this otherwise healthy man, that he probably only had a couple of months left to live.
notcompatible 9y ago Edited 9y ago This was not a routine medical exam but.. | was a triage nurse in the ER when a Patient calmly walked up and reported a complaint of pain in my side. Не failed to mention the blood and the handle of the butcher knife sticking out of the left lower quadrant of his abdomen. Не was a homeless schizophrenic who had been stabbed and had calmly walked into the ER and waited his turn to be seen. I am just glad he came in at All.
MonkeyChowder 9y ago My brother once jumped on the front of my white car, grabbing the front pillars with his hands. I closed the door and caught his finger, which he pulled out quickly (as you do) but there was a tiny chip of paint that had come off the car and got lodged under the skin somehow. Не must have spent a week or so chewing on it to try to get the paint out, but it just wasn't working so he went to the doctor to see if he could help. After checking it out, the doctor tells
Andinov a 9y ago ED doc so hardly a routine visit but a guy comes up to the triage window with his arms over his head, palms of his hands pressed against his ears. Eh ... I'm in tremendous pain he says when asked what's wrong. X-ray'd him and found he'd broken his neck. He'd been walking around with it for 3 days
missak . 9y ago Not physician, but x-ray tech. Had a patient walk into the urgent care for hip x-rays. Her order said it was for hip pain, which is pretty routine. Turns out she had walked in on not one, but two fractured hips!

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