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I work in 911 dispatch, I already had a pretty dim view of humanity coming into it and being prepared for the unexpected is basically the job description, so not too much has truly surprised me, caught me momentarily off-guard, sure, but not really surprised
Probably my biggest surprise is how few calls I get about foreign objects stuck in various orifices. I definitely thought that would be a bigger thing, but I guess most people choose to suck it up (phrasing?) and drive themselves to the ER out of embarrassment.
Also, overall, little kids tend to be pretty great 911 callers. I don't particularly like kids in pretty much any other situation, so that was surprising to me, but kids listen to me, answer my questions, don't beat around the bush and just blurt things out, and overall tend to be respectful. There's outliers and exceptions of course, but overall some of my favorite callers are little kids.
I've had to take someone to the ER after losing a toy in her. An ambulance ride seems like an unnecessary expense unless there's like something broken in there.
I work in X-ray. Get a foreign object like once every two weeks. Good times.
@Redditgee @Sir_Kevin is...... Is this usually kids or adults? 👀
Probably both - kids swallow a LOT of coins.
Sorry, I meant those foreign bodies. Adults. Toys, cucumbers, etc.
@Redditgee Hah, I figured as much, but wasn't gonna rule out the ole ear-lego or nose-bean. Gotta wonder what the ratio of accidentally-stuck-stuff in kids:adults is 🤔 and if there's a correlation. Maybe one grows up into the other?
For me, adults, because we have a lockdown unit where prisoners are kept for care. That unit is a great place to be, if you're having a hard time in prison, so you might ingest or shove something where you shouldn't. If I go only by ER visits, I'd think it was much closer to 50/50, but I still think 60/40 adults to kids.
EDIT - The adults risk horrifying embarrassment while the parents of the kids risk jail time if they don't go in and something awful happens, not to mention the loss of your child, which is the main driver for most people. The adults risk death, too, but it's their own death.
Don't get me wrong, personally I'm not taking an ambulance unless I'm actively dying, or physically incapable of driving or getting into a car with help from whoever's around me
But I've had people call for EMS because of stuff like a highish fever, nausea/vomiting, minor broken bones, strains, sprains, depression/anxiety or other fairly minor mental/emotional/psychological issues with no suicidal ideation or anything else presenting any immediate physical threat, food poisoning, head lice, and my personal favorite "just not feeling right" but unable to describe any actual symptoms.
And that's not counting the people who don't want an ambulance and just want to ask what they should do or if I think they should go to the hospital (and the answer is pretty much always something like "if you're concerned about it, you should probably be seen by a doctor," I can't really treat or diagnose or give medical advice, what we give are "pre-arrival instructions" which are basically "here's how to avoid dying until the ambulance arrives, and then you're their problem") or just want the ambulance to come check them out and see what they think (and again, that's not really their role either, they have more medical training than I do but their job is basically to keep you alive until you get to the hospital)
Couple personal favorite dumb medical calls are the guy who accidentally ate a pretty decent quantity of raw ground beef (his wife premade some cabbage rolls or stuffed peppers or something, put them in the fridge, and was going to cook them the next day, then he had a couple for a midnight snack) he wasn't feeling sick (at least not yet,) didn't want an ambulance, just kind of wanted me to tell him what to do, ended up connecting him with poison control who basically said (in much kinder words) "you're either going to get food poisoning and throw up for a couple days, or be perfectly fine, nothing you can really do either way, so suck it up." He then wanted to know if he could get prophylactic antibiotics.
There was the little kid who got kool-aid in their eye
The one who wanted an ambulance for head lice
The person who was sitting on the toilet, saw a mouse run past, lost sight of it, and was absolutely certain that it crawled up their butt
Now that I'm thinking of all my medical calls, another thing that surprised me a little, is just how clueless a lot of people apparently are about even very basic medical questions. I don't really expect people to have even basic first aid knowledge, but I get stuff like this every night
"Are they conscious?" No "Who's that talking in the background?" That's them. Unconscious people don't talk.
"Are they breathing normally?" I don't know. "Look at them, is their chest rising and falling?" Well they're laying on their side. Really?
"What's not normal about their breathing?" I don't know "Are they breathing at all?" Yes "Ok, try to describe it to me" I don't know "Is it shallow? Is it heavy? Are they gasping? Coughing? Making weird noises? ..." I end up having to list just about everything that could possibly be wrong with someone's breathing to figure out what's going on
raw beef guy never heard of tartare