Unbelievable Survivals: 70 Patients Defied All Odds Against Grim Medical Diagnoses
When my dad was in residency, he was helping deliver babies. One came out stillborn. It was a rough time for everyone. Dad had to carry the baby away, and the entire time he carried the body away he did chest compressions. The baby started to breathe again. Dad had to bring the baby back. By all accounts, the likelihood of that working was EXTREMELY low, as they had already done everything they were supposed to for longer than they were supposed to do it.
The parents had to go through some trauma therapy after that. That’s all I know about that story.
I was a resident at the time, it was the end of my shift, and I walked past a guy walking to the front desk with a g*****n harpoon in his head. It came in from below the chin, and got out through the top of the skull.
Dude wanted to go harpoon fishing, there was an accident in the boat, and he shot himself, so he turned the boat around, sailed to shore, got into his car and drove to the nearest hospital, where he parked, and walked into the reception. He was completely conscious, and couldn’t speak for obvious reasons, but he wrote down eloquently.
I heard he was sent home the very next day, with no complications.
Had a patient who was out having drinks and fishing at night. Well a wave hit and he stumbled right onto his pole, somehow impaling it through his eye and touching the back of his skull. Amazing that he survived it given the fishing pole sized crater through his brain on the mri.
I know a gentleman who has both of his carotid arteries completely blocked off. He obviously gets enough blood flow from other vessels to keep going, and I’m sure these other routes have developed over the years, but still. I remember reading the scan results and having to go over them more than once, like,”100% blockage, ok that’s bad. Wait, on the left AND the right?? D**n.”.
A twenty something boy got shot in the head, straight on mind you. Dude came to the hospital awake and talking. I personally saw the CT scan with the bullet still in his skull. My favorite part was he claimed it was a drive by shooting; I have never seen anything more centered on someone’s forehead, dead center no joke, seems highly unlikely that it was random.
I had a friend who got ~.23BAC drunk and stole his friends car around 2 a.m. He went for a drive way out in the country and lost control while speeding, hit a tree, basically broke the car in half and rolled 5 times. He got ejected and ended up pinned under the car when it came to rest. He laid under the car for several hours until someone going to work early in the morning spotted him and phoned EMTs.
After a week in a coma, he woke up and did months of physical therapy to get back to walking and eventually made a full recovery to the point that he was squatting almost 400lbs.
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