Unbelievable Survivals: 70 Patients Defied All Odds Against Grim Medical Diagnoses
An unlucky/lucky guy forgot his keys and was climbing back into his own apartment through the window. His cousin/friend thought that he was an intruder and pointed a gun at him and pulled the trigger as the unlucky/lucky guy opened his mouth to say “don’t shoot”. The bullet went into his mouth and clean exited the back of his neck. After surgery, he was totally fine in a few days, somehow missed all major structures. Didn’t even chip a tooth. Really pissed at his cousin. (From my neurosurgery rotation in med school)
(edit: I didn’t delve into why, but for some reason the patient didn’t know that his friend/cousin was in the patient’s apartment, and the patient assumed that he was locked out.)
I’m not a doctor but I was diagnosed with Addison’s at age 13 or so. Was just generally feeling lethargic, vomiting, dizzy. Mom calls the hospital with symptoms and they said if I had all three at the same time to come in to be safe
Orderly or whatever checks my pulse in the lobby. 30/15, he laughs “well this one’s broken” and gets another machine. 30/15 “wait… What?!” Calls a doctor, they double check it and RUN me to the ER for fluids.
Again, not a doctor here, but apparently that’s not even high enough to have a pulse. They had no clue how I was walking let alone concious, but saw the numbers and after realizing it was accurate they freaked the hell out. And of course that freaked my mom out. Them telling my mom 30/15 is the BP of a dead person did not help. And then they said it’s either auto immune or cancer. My immune system apparently ate my adrenal glands, now I’m on meds for life, lucky me.
On the bright side though I never really have to worry about high blood pressure.
Not a doctor but a student nurse. I had a patient come into the psych ward from the emergency department after he had cut off his own right arm from the elbow down. With a f*****g chainsaw. He only survived because he apparently had some kind of rare clotting disorder that prevented him from bleeding to death. He was severely schizophrenic and believed that his arm was going to grow back.
Edit: I didn’t expect this to blow up the way it did. I love this story because my dad was a psychiatrist, and I finally have something way weirder than any of the tales of his profession he ever told. Happy y’all found it as interesting as I did!
Two that stick out.
Guy gets shot in the abdomen, drops to his knees; shooter puts one through the top of his head near his forehead. Bullet exits through his jaw. He wouldn’t stop complaining…about how much he hates that the guy who shot him.
Young girl driving a car gets t-boned on the passenger side by an Altima going at least 70mph. Her car looks like it was hit by an IED so we assumed she was deceased upon arrival when the other crew on scene said our focus was extricating the people in the Altima. Girl driving was completely unhurt. Buy a Volvo.
As a student had a young guy come in who self inflicted a .22 to the inside of his mouth and passed out. Awoke the next morning, didn’t recall the night prior, went to work. Two hours into work he says he’s not feeling right and starts acting odd. Co-workers call EMS. They take him in and while the ED is working him up they notice a mix of clear fluid and blood in the back of his mouth. They call ENT and get a CT Head. Shows 11 or so bullet fragments throughout his noggin’. The guy was acting by that time completely unfazed. I was very fazed.
Working in an aboriginal community a woman walked in complaining of a head ach behind her eye.
She was told to take a seat and as she turned around she had a butter knife sticking out the back of her skull. Aparently a drunk relative came home and stabbed her while she slept.
Edit: yes she survived. Was flown back to Townsville for imaging, then onto Brisbane for surgery.
Not a doctor. A classmate of mine in HS was out snowmobiling in the middle of the night. He was going about 50mph down a trail. Some a*****e had put a chain across the trail just to be an a*****e. He didn’t put reflectors on it and it wasn’t even on his own land. It was on state land.
Unfortunately, my classmate had a back rest on his sled. The chain hit him square across his chest. It slammed him into the back rest which fortunately broke off.
He rode back home and crawled into bed. Later, his mom made him go to the local clinic that had a small ER. They life-flighted him down to Duluth immediately. He had a ruptured spleen, part of his liver was torn, his heart was badly bruised, and he had a collapsed lung. He was bleeding pretty bad internally.
