Thursday, August 13, 2009

Trauma

A few nights ago one of my colleagues, another first year resident, was on-call. He received a call from a nervous ER doc who told him about a 2 year old with a tongue laceration that "looked like nothing I've ever seen before, and I've seen a lot of these. It looks almost like shredded meat."

The resident proceded to the ER where he did his exam. The child had hit her chin on a teeter-totter. When he looked in her mouth, sure enough, she recoiled every time he tried to get close to the mass of meaty, shredded tissue.

Not sure quite how to proceed, especially since the child had recently eaten and couldn't be sedated, he called in the chief resident. When he arrived, he also examined the child. To the mother's dismay (she almost fainted), a chunk of the tissue came out. "I'm sorry, but unfortunately this wont be able to be reattached," he said. As he investigated further, another piece came out. He gave it a little sniff and said, "It smells like beef jerky." He grabbed the tissue and it came out in a big piece...of, you guessed it, beef jerky!

The child had eaten the jerky 5-6 hours before and had parked it there by her tongue. She just happened to hit her chin on the see-saw, and got past at least 2-3 other docs before it was figured out. Hilarious!

Should have listened more closely to the ER doc I guess when she said, "it looks like shredded meat."

4 comments:

Dave and Abby said...

Absolutely hilarious!

Diana said...

So glad that was the outcome. How funny!

Lisa said...

wow, that is so funny, I hope you like your fellowship and that you are enjoying life!

I miss you guys

Colt said...

haha wow thats a great story! sounds like your learning alot in your residency