Busy Busy Night

Here's a quick rundown of how badly I got my ass kicked at work last night (all of us did, really). Not only was I alone because the other clerk called in sick, but it was unusually busy as soon as we clocked in. Here are the trauma patients we had, in no particular order***:

~35 y/o Male; Auto vs Peds. Homeboy was crossing the street holding his dog in his arms when he was hit by a car going about 40 mph. He had one leg broken, one arm broken, and was just all around beat up. To make matters worse, he's a heart patient, so he's on a blood thinner which made him bleed from every little scratch. Needless to say it was a mess. No word on the condition of the dog, as far as the police knew.

~53 y/o Female; TC. Her car was T-boned and subsequently rolled over. She was actually pretty fine. They had to cut the roof of the car off to get her out, but she was discharged just a few hours after she came in.

~9 y/o Female; Arm Pain. This little girl was playing on the jungle gym when she felt a pop in her neck and started losing strength in her arm. Her parents originally took her to a different hospital, but she needed a higher level of care, so she needed to be transferred. Since our hospital doesn't have a real pediatrics inpatient wing, she ideally would have gone to the children's hospital. The children's hospital, however, insisted that this was a trauma patient, and that they don't accept trauma patients. There was no real "trauma" to the kid, but as one of our docs put it, "if there's kinetic energy within 10 feet of them, the children's hospital considers it trauma." I have no idea what happened to her after we admitted her, but I'm sure she was going to be seen by a neurologist to figure out what was happening.

~25 y/o Male; Mult dog bites. Dog bites to arm, rubber bullet to abdomen. You guessed it: this guy was running from the cops, and they sent the K-9 after him. When the paramedics called to alert us that he was coming, they described the dog bite injury as looking like "hamburger meat." This dude was a real winner with swastika tattoos and other such gang-related nonsense going on. He was under arrest when he was brought in, and discharged to jail after he was treated.

~17 y/o Male; Stab wounds x 4. Homeboy was stabbed in the back 4 times. Stabbed in the back!! Classic betrayal! He originally went to a different ER, but was transferred to us for a higher level of care. He was relatively ok. He'll make it.

~35 y/o Male; Fall from 2 stories. He was drunk as all get out, and we're still shady on the details regarding his "fall," but the experience left him paralyzed. He shattered part of his spine, and according to the CT report there was "significant height loss."

~17 y/o Male; TC. He was the restrained front-seat passenger in a car of 4 other unrestrained passengers. He had hit his head pretty hard, and was disoriented because of it. He'll be fine, but he was admitted to the hospital.

~15 y/o Female; TC. Same accident as the 17 y/o above. She was in the back seat, we believe. She had close to the same injuries as the guy did, but she wasn't wearing her seatbelt. (3 other people from the same car walked in to be treated as non-traumas. Apparently their car and another car were street racing and going 70mph on surface streets. Winners.)

~22 y/o Female; Car vs. Tree. She was the unrestrained passenger in an accident that only involved her and the driver (and the tree). She hit her head on the windshield and had to be extricated from the car. She was completely unresponsive, but had ok vital signs when she came in. They put two chest tubes into her because he lungs had collapsed, and after she was transported to the ICU, her blood pressure started dropping. Not too long later, we heard them call a Code Blue in the ICU, then another, then the coroner called asking me which room she had been taken to. The driver of the car was uninjured, and was taken to jail from the scene.

All of these traumas were in addition to the regular flow of patients that we get coming in through the waiting room and coming in via ambulance that aren't considered traumas.

After all of this, it was 4AM, and I was finally able to start on the piles and piles and piles of charts that had been stacking up throughout the night. I only got about half of them done by the time day shift came in, but I don't feel too bad, because day shift is WAY slower than nights, and that just means I gave them something to keep themselves occupied.


(*** In fact they are in order of arrival. I didn't think I'd be able to remember them exactly in order, but I did.)