I know this may surprise some, but there are some unscrupulous or , sometimes, desperate, people who claim to have an injury in an attempt to get prescription pain medication. In some cases it could be because of an addiction (the desperate), in others, so the claimant could sell the pills on the street (the unscrupulous). In either case, the tragic flaw of these individuals is the fact that they think others are as ignorant as they, themseleves, are. This is the story of one such person. Let's call him 'Bob'.
Bob came to the ER in in one of New Jersey's 'inner city' areas. (I will not name the coastal city, famous for gambling, salt water taffy and Miss America) Bob was complaining of 'back pain'. The doctor on duty, who was a good friend of mine, recognized Bob as a 'frequent-flyer' and known drug seeker. Bob was once arrested with prescriptions for pain medication from 5 different hospitals. Realizing that Bob was simply looking for drugs, the doctor quickly dischanrged him with nothing more than instructions to take ibuprofen and use a heating pad.
About an hour later, the ER recieved a phone call from near-by pharmacy. Apparently Bob was there trying to fill a perscription, and the dosage didn't make sense. The prescription was from the ER, and had the name of my doctor friend on it. After realizing that Bob must have stolen on of the prescription pads form the ER, and was trying to get drugs, the police were summoned to the pharmacy to arrest poor Bob.
You want to know what alerted the pharmacist to a potential problem?
The presccription read:
Oh, yea...and Bob spelled his own name wrong, too.
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I was an EMT too. In college, it sounded like a fun class, so a friend of mine and I took it. I ended up loving it and kept on keepin' on until I became a paramedic. Anyway, I had an instructor who told us a story about a gunshot victim with "four holes, but the police said five shots fired." Allegedly, he had a distended stomach, four pretty small calbre wounds in his back, and was screaming like he was giving birth. Long story short, the guy had a fifth bullet hole. . . in his perinium. He got it while he was "running away, falling down." So, this poor bastard had a bullet that went through his taint, into his intestines, and it didn't get discovered until he made to the ER. True? Urban EMS legend? The instructor used it as a story to make sure we all did complete checks on gunshot victims. It worked, but it sounds like BS to me. Ever heard of it?
There are a few 'EMS Legends', but they usually are based on real-life calls/patients that have been embelished.
Here's one I witnessed myself. A paramedic crew brought a patient to the hospital I was stationed at. The patient claimed to have been shot, yet the crew reported they could not find any wounds. After the patient crapped out, the ER staff performed a more intensive exam. They finally did find the bullet hole, it was being covered by the EKG electrode placed on the patient's left side by the paramedic crew.
With stuff like this out there, ther really is no need to make stuff up.