Unbelievable Survivals: 70 Patients Defied All Odds Against Grim Medical Diagnoses
Like many patients in the ER, his story was poignant, his acuity wasn’t immediately obvious, and there is morbid humor associated with the case. When we tell our trainees about this case we refer to him as “the Canadian”.
Not a doctor, but the patient.
Less than a year old, started seizing. This led to a severe case of the Not Breathing, quickly followed by everyone s******g themselves trying to get me to breathe. Two frantic rides to the hospitals later (first one couldn’t take me because they didn’t have machines for someone so small), and now they’ve got machines keeping me alive. Several surgeries solely reacting to more s**t going wrong, a month (half of which spent in a coma), and I woke up on my own. Didn’t even need the machines anymore. Only lasting effect is a small scar from a machine they left on for too long, and asthma for about five years.
They never figured out what the hell happened. So, there’s a chance that it could happen again some day.
Here’s hoping for the same luck that got me through it the first time.
Not a doctor, but my dad survived diabetic ketoacidosis, massive heart attack and kidney failure. Doctors told us to prepare for his death, we called in the priest, brought all the family in. He was on life support for a week and kept on improving. They gradually brought him out of it, when he came to he ripped out his tubes. The doctor who prepared us for his passing came back from vacation and saw my dad alive and recovering and said : “you are the last person I thought to see again.” My dad blinked and asked, “who is that?” He’s still alive.
Guy was running from the cops in his car. Went off road and crashed the car. Ran on foot. Police were closing in so he sliced his neck on both sides with a razor blade to avoid arrest. He didn’t hit any major arteries and lived. Then I got to sew his neck wounds shut. I don’t think he got in trouble either – just wound up at an inpatient psych ward for a while.
Don’t do m**h kids .
Recently coded a patient for 40+ minutes, everybody wanted to stop but he was young (50s), so I persisted. People don’t come back from codes that long. Then, all of a sudden he gets a pulse back.
So we think this is temporary, and wonder about anoxic brain injury. I leave service, come back days later and dab smack on day one discharge him home in stable condition. He had a full blown conversation and was so thankful, tearful and kept saying ” Thank you for not giving up on me” He had no deficits. Mind blown.
Had a guy come in with acute onset blindness in both eyes.
Did a blood gas which showed a pH of 6.6 and Bicarb of 0.5.
To give some perspective for non-medical peoples – these numbers shouldn’t be compatible with life. Normal blood pH is 7.35 to 7.45. And because pH is a logarithmic scale, this guys blood was almost 10 times as acidic as it should be. The fact that he had no bicarbonate (acid-base buffer in the blood) in his system reflects that he had exhausted his usual compensatory mechanisms.
We were convinced initially that it would turn about to be metahnol poisoning but all his toxicology turned out to be normal. He needed 10 days of dialysis in ICU, but eventually made a full recovery. We never were able to work out what caused his severe metabolic derangements.
