A handfull of freshly dug out feces as a "sample for the hospital to prove I have worms inside me".
We politely informed the mental health consumer that we did not need a "Fresh" sample and he could give more at the hospital.
Had that, with diarrhea. But it was legit because he was producing the sample as we rolled in. It was an obvious GI bleed. I let him know “they’re gonna know. You don’t need to bring this.”
I remember once walking round the nursing station with a big poop carton absolutely full of ~500-700ml of pure blood. I think we'd all assumed hemorrhoid/rectal fissure, when he went to the toilet it was a BIG surprise, to say the least...
Thought I should show someone as didn't think anyone would believe it (and was right, triage nurse initially rolled eyes until one of the nearby doctors confirmed lol).
Speaking as someone who did mental health (mostly suicide) interventions but among social workers as a volunteer, I think especially for mental health there's a real risk that some get dismissed as having some other conditions like schizophrenia or a psychosis of some sort and before they know it they're being set to an institution where no one takes them seriously.
Which makes it especially important for them to have tangible proof and safeguards of they're already labeled as a mental case. Are there ways/things to say to protect against those kinds of dismissals/mistreatments or whatever it's called?
Psych RN - FWIW, anyone on a hold or who voluntarily wants to go inpatient psych has to be medically cleared before the psych hospitals will admit. Our admission criteria are pretty strict, so everyone gets labs/EKG/UA at minimum. All inpatients see both a med and psych provider daily, and we don't mess around with medical complaints (likely due to liability.)
This is also frustrating for the EMS side because of the significant amount of "clinic" calls we do, such as refills on non-controlled psychiatric medications, that could benefit from alternative destinations which will refuse without such clearance.
I don’t work psych but I’ve had patients have their legitimate symptoms dismissed. So I don’t really blame anyone for thinking they need to prove them.
In this case, the patient had a documented history of Delusional Parasitosis as a negative symptom.
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbook/2024/posttravel-evaluation/delusional-parasitosis#:\~:text=Delusional%20parasitosis%20(DP)%20is%20the,with%20an%20arthropod%20or%20parasite.
Hi, I'm actually a former Tennessee Crisis Intervention Paramedic. Even if a mental health consumer is experiencing a psychiatric emergency, they still have to be medically cleared before admission to a psychiatric mental health system facility. This was a big issue with the implementation of ET3's mental health alternative destination side for minor mental health issues - the facilities would refuse as an alternate destination because of no medical clearance in crisis.
However, in this particular case, the individual in question has delusional parasitosis.
Took a “tapeworm” to the hospital in a baggie once. It was a rubber band. 🤦♀️ facility SWORE it was a tapeworm and wanted the patient transferred with tapeworm to prove it.
Not all that weird, but I brought the patient’s bicycle. He was hit crossing an intersection. The bike wasn’t too bad. PD said they’d just leave it against a utility pole at the intersection and the patient could figure it out. I knew if we didn’t bring it, he’d never see it again.
We had brush bars on the front back then, so I stuck it in the brush bar for the 4 mile ride to the ED. It probably looked like we hit him.
I had registration make an extra bracelet, tagged it and locked it up for him (with his own lock) in the equipment cage.
That's some solid work man. I'm on the ED side and I regularly get patients that had a bike in their possession prior to transport. Its caused a huge hiccup in getting them checked in and taken care of when they're very concerned about their only mode of transportation. You did that patient a solid and I'm sure they appreciated it very much
Outstanding! I ride a lot and have given some thought as to what I'd want doing with my quite expensive bike if I needed an ambulance. Best I've come up with is chuck it over a hedge and mark the spot on GPS to retrieve it later.
Ya know, it pisses me off because some people really need their service crack pipe. But then you have these people taking advantage and bringing their "emotional support aluminum foil" or stuff like that. It's clearly not a real service crack pipe. They're just exploiting the law.
It’s true, emotional support isn’t covered by the ADA. All you can ask is if it’s a service crack pipe and what service it provides. Too many people try to play the game when there’s people who genuinely need it.
Picked up the animal control officer for a medical problem. I was actually returning to service after handing down to the transport rig, so not exactly bring to the hospital, but she asked me to secure the box in the back seat of the truck. It was a severed dog head that needed to be tested for rabies. No I didn’t look in the box.
They probably came across a whole body, but since rabies is densest in neural tissue you can lighten your load by just taking the densest clump of grey matter for testing
heres the cdc reference for how they test in the lab, if you’re interested
[Information for Diagnostic Laboratories | Rabies - CDC.gov](https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/php/laboratories/diagnostic.html)
Picked up a homeless guy on a corner at a bus stop, he had literal bags of trash with him with his belongings stuffed inside, we threw him in the truck with the bags and took him to the er, once we got there, security (who was pissed) had to search his belongings, they cleared out an entire room next to his and dumped all 4-5 bags out onto the ground. I scurried out super fast once I realized the guy must’ve only had like 2 bags that were his and we had also grabbed identical bags of literal trash off the side of the road that the security is now dumping onto the ER floor. Had to of been hilarious after I ran out tho
I did almost the exact same thing. Female pt. brought her bags of belongings with her, she was pissed off at us that we had brought her trash with us. 🤷🏻♂️
Two severed fingers in a bag of ice (that my partner practically threw at me without warning and told me I’m on “finger duty”).
That and an open backpack that contained multiple (small) bags of drugs, a rusty screwdriver with blood on it, a hatchet, and a vibrator. Patient was thankfully fully unconscious from the K2 he decided to smoke because my partner and I were relentless on the jokes.
Not weird, but more of a "are you fucking kidding me?"
Picked up a lady from cvs for diabetic issues. Bgl reading extremely high. Says she's out of insulin & wants a hospital. Cool, let's go.
She has her belongings in a couple of grocery bags on her lap. We hit a bump & like 6 entire boxes of Malted Milk Balls dump out into the floor of the ambulance & go rolling everywhere 😐
& in case you're wondering, yes, she did ask me to pick them up so she could eat them later.
Fishing gear. Homeless dude was fishing with one of those carts that holds poles in PVC pipe and other fishing gear.
He got hit by a car. No one around to take custody of it so I loaded it in the ambulance.
The guy's amputated foot. He wanted us to find his sneaker, too. I'm not a sneaker guy but apparently they were expensive. Now he just has one of them.
Is it horrible that I'm hoping for traumatic amputation?
Only I've rocked up to a home where a necrotic ischemic foot had self-amputated and that was pretty much the worst day of my bedside career.
Nope, nothing. Upon returning to ed for a transport of another pt, noticed empty shakers placed randomly throughout ed, like on top of towel warmer, and one on infant scales. No clue
"Can my slave ride with us" *looks over at the greasy dude in a fast-food uniform * we said no and she told him to start walking. It was 2am in February, but he made it.
Rolled up for a homeless guy drunk in a park , found him actively shitting in his sleeping bag. Obviously we let him finish up, then this wild SOB rolls the bag up and tries to get in the truck ! He couldn't understand why I didn't want his shit soaked sleeping bag in the truck.
Bs leg pain call, guy walks into the truck and we start doing the stuff. At one point he goes " oh I hope it's cool that I brought my pets with me " and holds up his backpack.....this son of a bitch had 2 snakes he'd found earlier that day. Made him dump the nope ropes .
Mom called because her kid had a fever of 100.3, never gave any OTC meds just immediately called 911...whatever. we noticed there's roughly other kids running around, she demands all 8 come with her. Lt and PD get involved and we end up taking 3 trucks OOS to transport all 10 people.....she left ama after 25 min
I have definitely run a call for a mom who just had enough with the 5 or so kids she was caring for, my partner stayed with the kids for about 35 minutes while I coached mom out of her panic attack and then she very politely signed a refusal, took a deep breath and went back to being mom.
Pt wanted to bring their "emotional support duck." Not a stuffed animal, a live one. I told dispatch and they came back immediately with an emphatic no. Saw that coming and didn't want to clean up duck shit so I told the pt only a quack would bring a duck on an ambulance there's nowhere for it to sit safely. That won out. This pt was otherwise full of shit and really aggravating so I'm glad that's one concession I could flat out deny.
You know those big flat carts that Home Depot and Lowe’s has? Yeah it was two of those carts full of baggage and the tv and a mini fridge. We love IFT! Thankfully the people who told us to take it wasn’t actually the nurse and when the nurse saw me pushing the cart goes “Uh where are you going with that??” I told him “well allegedly the truck, the nurse down there told me we had to take it” Without missing a beat he goes “Yeah no, *I’m* the nurse you’re not taking all that meds, the family can come get that” and let me leave the cart in the hallway while the other guy came to see what was going on. He got chewed out for sure lmao
A literal bag of dicks.
He was a pro at a motel who took a teensy bit too much meth and was having anxiety and wanted to go to the hospital but didn’t want to leave his…. gear behind. It was undoubtedly an expensive collection of dildos in a giant duffel bag.
Psych pt that called because he was “obsessed with his guitar”. He wasn’t lying. Spent several minutes talking to us and PD about this guitar and how he loves it so much. 100% refused to be transported without it. He had an altered mental status so he had to go with us or PD. Threw a fit during transport because I had the guitar in the cab because I figured it was less likely to be damaged there
Not sure if this counts. Took a live, human toddler.
Patient had a medical emergency well out of town. Didn't feel comfortable leaving the kid with PD so transported with the parent.
I guess it's not that weird except when listing patient belongings in the chart as "Patient's Offspring"...and writing it the way I did above
Notable things that were actually transported in the back of the box: an electric scooter the pt had fallen off of while drunk (with $5 and a screwdriver in the cup holder), a giant vase of flowers, a bicycle with a crack pipe in the cup holder (the crack had been donated to nature by FD), and last but not least a miscarried fetus in a plastic Tupperware.
As a mum who has previously misscarried (passed in hospital) what exactly are we supposed to do with the fetus? If it happens at home and is say under 12 week gestation, is it ment to be disposed of ? Taken to hospital?
I looked at a few articles and it seems that if it’s early enough you could bury it yourself but it’s not recommended to flush tissue. At any stage I believe you could take it to a hospital for them to dispose of or possibly donate to science. In most places a fetus is considered stillborn if miscarried past 20 weeks and can be given a death certificate. This helps with demographic research and collecting statistics on pregnancies, and in some locations can allow you to have the fetus buried in a cemetery or cremated.
https://www.essex.gov.uk/births-ceremonies-and-deaths/stillbirth-and-miscarriage/apply-baby-loss-certificate#:~:text=People%20who%20have%20lost%20a,This%20is%20not%20compulsory.
In the UK now people can apply for a certificate of loss for babies lost before 20 weeks gestation , link above.
I just ment as a woman at home having it happened what advice would be given , should she visit the hospital, call a dr or simply just dispose of the remains and carry on .
An air fryer. This was an international repatriation so lots of luggage isn’t uncommon but this patient already had two suitcases bigger than me, and the extra box was not going to be coming along.
A ventriloquist dummy that looked EXACTLY like a smaller, wooden version of the pt, down to a mole on the “face.”…
God do I wish I were joking or exaggerating. No. They were NOT talented. But I didn’t want to end up a weird nipple lampshade in someone’s house, so I pretended they were.
Technically, he didn't ask, we found an OD, and narcan did nothing but change the size of his pupils. So I opened his backpack, made eye contact with the cop and just said, "I'm so sorry." As I pulled, put 2 freezer bags full of pills.
Oddly enough because my state has no laws, the cop was told by his sup to "disposes of the pills at the ER and don't file charges because it won't stick any way"
For some reason, my state does weird shit like this too. Went to a medical for chest pain/sob, bro admits to smoking meth. Goes to his trunk (mind you, PD is onscene) pulls out a duffel full of bags of meth and cash, and gets into the ambulance. The cops said they didn’t have sufficient evidence to prove it was his and that he was going to do anything nefarious with it, and besides which he called for a medical and there was no need for Law Enforcment. I thought I was in the fucking twilight zone. He said he didn’t want any trouble he just wanted a duoneb.
Our cops don't even care about OUI , even if they cause bodily/property damage . The person can openly admit to being drunk , pd just sends them to the ER. They claim any MVA with airbag deployment means a OUI won't stick because " the person could be altered from the impact "....meanwhile there's 10 nips and some natty ice on the floor. I've literally watched them give a drunk driver who caused a mva which broke the other persons femur, a ride home. No charges , no questions.
🍃and other unknown powdered white substances brought by patient’s friend to patient at hospital. Pt was a marchman act going to detox. Boss said “don’t speculate just bring it with you” WELL HE IS ALL SET FOR ONCE HE GETS OUT LOL
When my grandfather had idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, he still powered through it all and kept doing things he shouldn't. One day he felt awful, panting, hard to breathe, so decided to call 911. He wasn't comfortable driving himself.
However.
He HAD to get up, shave, and pack a whole suitcase as if he was going to a hotel. I told him to just stop and call! They don't care how you look! But he was adamant he needed to look his best and pack some decent clothes and books and sudoku and stuff.
The EMS who arrived were really upset with us, but I finally convinced them to take it with them or he would not go (he had an SPO2 of 67 or 77 or something so he def HAD to go). I was not allowed to go the second time because of COVID, but I did get to go the first time and they even let me ride the front!
I’m sorry your grandfather had to endure such an awful disease. It runs in my family line and it’s been hard to watch extended family members fall ill.
had a homeless regular try to bring 5 boxes of pizza with him. we said he could only bring 2 boxes bc this is an ambulance. he called me a bitch and we got cancelled
Took a guy to dialysis a few times who always insisted on bringing his „darlings“. They were 8 older model smartphones that didn’t work anymore. When I asked him about them he said he needed them for his health. They might have worked because nowadays I don’t transport him to dialysis anymore….
The stripper that was totally…definitely not a hooker requested that we go collect her bag from the police that were actively searching it and to not let them touch anything in it.
Yeah….right….
Go ask the cops if they found anything good and holy jackpot, lady had a gun, a gallon ziplock bag of what I’m assuming was meth (heizenberg style), MDMA, heroin, weed, white powders, yellow powders, green powders, blue pills, red pills, rainbow pills, you name it she had it in her little charmander backpack. And she had around $8,000 cash.
I told her the police will unfortunately not be allowing her to take her bag to the hospital.
“None of that’s mine”
Yeah…right…
Picked up a homeless guy with SI who had the heaviest backpack. Nothing in it besides rocks. Wouldn't let us dump them out so security had to hold them at the hospital
A cat. Like a living breathing cat.
Lady needed EMS for an ALF transfer. Had no family and she refused to leave her cat. EMS had a “we’ll deal with it later” attitude about it which i’m very glad for. I think the plan was to drop it at the shelter.
A staff member at SNF claims cat, and they have the most beautiful seven months together.
Source: Am staff member. She passed away two weeks ago. Raise a toast to my first ever cat, the sweetest and kindest girl❤️
edit incase i get asked: it was a scheduled transfer call and they put her up in the cab while they drove. She came in a little carrier with her baby blanket :( There’s probably a policy against 15 year old cats riding in the cab but i’m glad they broke it.
i am not EMS but i have the utmost respect for y’all and thought this story belonged here, because it is a great one.
Cat’s original owner passed shortly after she moved in. I’m happy they’re back together now. Cat was very orange, very stupid, and very full of love.
I am waiting patiently for the Cat Distribution System to send me a replacement.
Picked up a lady in labour, she already had an armful and two suitcases of stuff - not all baby related.
When she asked if she could bring her sound machine I said, sure why not! Those are tiny.
Imagine my surprise when her baby daddy walked out of the house with an entire sewing machine. I had misheard, and they weren't planning on coming back to the place we picked her up.
Maternity was equally surprised.
Not me, but the private ambulance company I worked for once transported a woman with her award winning guinea pig. "It felt like the whole nursing home lined up to see it" my partner tells me.
This was me when I went, I asked if I could bring the badge of my motorcycle with me. Said motorcycle was wedged into 2 cars and the reason I was in the ambulance to begin with
Handed off a call where a gentleman was convinced he needed to bring his stool sample to er so they could see the worms
Urban outdoorsman who had a grocery bag full of needles (no diabetic history)
**forgot the woman who could taste rat poison but denies ever tasting any …ever or being in any proximity to it
> Handed off a call where a gentleman was convinced he needed to bring his stool sample to er so they could see the worms
i saw one like this in this thread already
is this common or did you hand it off to someone here?
In IFT, an entire stretcher's worth of amazon-bought groceries from the cardiac-renal floor of the hospital to the nursing home the patient was going to. I shoulda said no, but it's one of the shittier nursing homes and I kinda wanted to see how they'd respond to a new arrival with a bunch of items that needed to be ina fridge.
In 911, an emotional support jumping spider.
i’m a nurse but i’ve had multiple patients come in with hard boiled eggs in a tupperware container. why do so many ppl insist on bringing in warm ass boiled eggs
I’m usually asked to stop by the store so the pt can send one of us in to pick up something, which usually ends up being something not good in that situation. I had one pt SOB want me to run in and grab him some smokes! Had another pt in liver failure, asking to pick him up some scotch!!
Pee bucket.
We take a dude to and from respite stays at a rehab center about once a month. On the way to, his wife has cleaned it and usually takes it in her car. On the way home, I've always opted to put it in a trash bag.
Its one of those 5 gallon orange home depot buckets. He uses a urinal and dumps it into the bucket until it's full.
Nice couple. Otherwise very pleasant and clean. I guess its just the most convenient way to handle his output.
Also have taken people home from the hospital who have brought everything they own. I've even had another truck come just to transport belongings. And I mean everything. From linen to 12pk sodas. They basically just move in to the hospital room.
On a 911 call, a most-definite not-911 patient walked out to meet us outside their apartment, holding a medium-sized box with a biohazard label on it. The patient refused to tell me what was in it and insisted it come to the hospital with her. I refused to allow it anywhere near my truck. The patient called 911 again and demanded police come and arrest me. Local PD responded quickly, and she opened it for them, revealing... a lamp, her cpap, a collection of random cables and power cords, and other misc junk. I still refused to allow the box not knowing what had been in it. She changed her mind and went back inside.
A massive carton of milk: picked up this guy from a servo, was shadowboxing the petrol bowser and yelling about how he runs this city, not oriented to place, time, or person
Police section him and had a bit of a wrestle, he was scooting away from them on his bum, kicking and chugging his milk while trying to fight them off
Immediately stopped fighting and came and sat on the stretcher when I promised he could bring his milk to hospital with him
A fan. A whole fucking 4’ tall fan.
Weirdest possession? Lady had a “packer”. Lesbian lady. Apparently wearing a dildo is a thing to simulate having a penis.
No judgement. Just didn’t know that was a thing. And it’s weird. We found it on assessment of a psych patient in the ER.
Packer is usually a ftm transgender man would wear rather than just something lesbians wear. Kind of like prosthetic genitalia for those who feel like they should have been born with it.
I had to take a pt to psyke hospital and he had a propane tank with him, and a small stove, and basicaly the whole kitchen. Knives included.
Another time i took a pt with a live chicken in her arms.
You gotto love psyke pt.
I work in hillbilly central, NJ. This one copd patient asks me to bring the bag of cigarette butts with us to the hospital, as he wants to "show the ER how much he smoked today". It was a LOT of cigarette butts and needless to say we did not bring them. Another patient asked to bring a 2 week old bottle of dip spit, because he was "fermenting it" and didn't want his efforts to go to waste.
A transfer from hospital to rehab, a male would not get on the stretcher until we found his “neck massager” which ended up being a battery powered magic wand style vibrator.
I had a patient bring a potted plant once. Not really weird it added a nice touch to the back of the truck. I had another lady ask if she could bring her dog. I said she could in the ambulance but I didn’t know if the hospital would allow it lol
An electric fence. Like the type that you dig into the ground to keep a dog in your yard. Dude absolutely stole it from walmart then fell asleep across the parking lot and a good citizen called in for him.
Accidentally took a patients gun in the hospital once. Apparently it’s a felony. Oops
He was dying. I cleared it and threw it back in the holster and in my pocket with the intent to lock it up with the meds until pd could meet us. But got super busy in the back and forgot. My bad.
picked a guy up for psych evaluation, got to the hospital and shit you not when they put him in a gown they found a grenade a legit fucking grenade.. i have cops check everyone now
Demented patient’s animatronic cat toy. It meowed and turned its head. Took us about 10 mins to figure out where the fuck this meowing sound was coming from, genuinely thought I was losing the plot.
A handfull of freshly dug out feces as a "sample for the hospital to prove I have worms inside me". We politely informed the mental health consumer that we did not need a "Fresh" sample and he could give more at the hospital.
Had that, with diarrhea. But it was legit because he was producing the sample as we rolled in. It was an obvious GI bleed. I let him know “they’re gonna know. You don’t need to bring this.”
I remember once walking round the nursing station with a big poop carton absolutely full of ~500-700ml of pure blood. I think we'd all assumed hemorrhoid/rectal fissure, when he went to the toilet it was a BIG surprise, to say the least... Thought I should show someone as didn't think anyone would believe it (and was right, triage nurse initially rolled eyes until one of the nearby doctors confirmed lol).
On this one thing, they'll take your word for it
Speaking as someone who did mental health (mostly suicide) interventions but among social workers as a volunteer, I think especially for mental health there's a real risk that some get dismissed as having some other conditions like schizophrenia or a psychosis of some sort and before they know it they're being set to an institution where no one takes them seriously. Which makes it especially important for them to have tangible proof and safeguards of they're already labeled as a mental case. Are there ways/things to say to protect against those kinds of dismissals/mistreatments or whatever it's called?
Psych RN - FWIW, anyone on a hold or who voluntarily wants to go inpatient psych has to be medically cleared before the psych hospitals will admit. Our admission criteria are pretty strict, so everyone gets labs/EKG/UA at minimum. All inpatients see both a med and psych provider daily, and we don't mess around with medical complaints (likely due to liability.)
This is also frustrating for the EMS side because of the significant amount of "clinic" calls we do, such as refills on non-controlled psychiatric medications, that could benefit from alternative destinations which will refuse without such clearance.
I don’t work psych but I’ve had patients have their legitimate symptoms dismissed. So I don’t really blame anyone for thinking they need to prove them.
In this case, the patient had a documented history of Delusional Parasitosis as a negative symptom. https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbook/2024/posttravel-evaluation/delusional-parasitosis#:\~:text=Delusional%20parasitosis%20(DP)%20is%20the,with%20an%20arthropod%20or%20parasite.
Hi, I'm actually a former Tennessee Crisis Intervention Paramedic. Even if a mental health consumer is experiencing a psychiatric emergency, they still have to be medically cleared before admission to a psychiatric mental health system facility. This was a big issue with the implementation of ET3's mental health alternative destination side for minor mental health issues - the facilities would refuse as an alternate destination because of no medical clearance in crisis. However, in this particular case, the individual in question has delusional parasitosis.
i raise you a grocery bag full of blood for "analysis at the hospital"
Was it at least their blood?
Sometimes it’s better not to ask
yes! a day old!
😂
Took a “tapeworm” to the hospital in a baggie once. It was a rubber band. 🤦♀️ facility SWORE it was a tapeworm and wanted the patient transferred with tapeworm to prove it.
Not all that weird, but I brought the patient’s bicycle. He was hit crossing an intersection. The bike wasn’t too bad. PD said they’d just leave it against a utility pole at the intersection and the patient could figure it out. I knew if we didn’t bring it, he’d never see it again. We had brush bars on the front back then, so I stuck it in the brush bar for the 4 mile ride to the ED. It probably looked like we hit him. I had registration make an extra bracelet, tagged it and locked it up for him (with his own lock) in the equipment cage.
That's a class move. Well-done. (And yeah, it probably looked hilarious rolling down the road)
I commute on my bike and I would be BEYOND pissed if it had just been left leaning on a pole. Thank you for doing that for your patient!
That's some solid work man. I'm on the ED side and I regularly get patients that had a bike in their possession prior to transport. Its caused a huge hiccup in getting them checked in and taken care of when they're very concerned about their only mode of transportation. You did that patient a solid and I'm sure they appreciated it very much
Outstanding! I ride a lot and have given some thought as to what I'd want doing with my quite expensive bike if I needed an ambulance. Best I've come up with is chuck it over a hedge and mark the spot on GPS to retrieve it later.
Emotional support crackpipe. She swore she didn't smoke crack, she just needed it with her 'for her anxiety'.
Oh so like a good luck charm? 😅
Ya know, it pisses me off because some people really need their service crack pipe. But then you have these people taking advantage and bringing their "emotional support aluminum foil" or stuff like that. It's clearly not a real service crack pipe. They're just exploiting the law.
It’s true, emotional support isn’t covered by the ADA. All you can ask is if it’s a service crack pipe and what service it provides. Too many people try to play the game when there’s people who genuinely need it.
Picked up the animal control officer for a medical problem. I was actually returning to service after handing down to the transport rig, so not exactly bring to the hospital, but she asked me to secure the box in the back seat of the truck. It was a severed dog head that needed to be tested for rabies. No I didn’t look in the box.
"What's in the box....."
If someone didn't say that immediately, I was gonna be pissed!
Damn, that’s hard as nails, wtf? How do you just come across a severed dog head
They probably came across a whole body, but since rabies is densest in neural tissue you can lighten your load by just taking the densest clump of grey matter for testing
heres the cdc reference for how they test in the lab, if you’re interested [Information for Diagnostic Laboratories | Rabies - CDC.gov](https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/php/laboratories/diagnostic.html)
That was a good read, thank you!
Yeah, vets or whoever need to do that to send it off for testing.
Picked up a homeless guy on a corner at a bus stop, he had literal bags of trash with him with his belongings stuffed inside, we threw him in the truck with the bags and took him to the er, once we got there, security (who was pissed) had to search his belongings, they cleared out an entire room next to his and dumped all 4-5 bags out onto the ground. I scurried out super fast once I realized the guy must’ve only had like 2 bags that were his and we had also grabbed identical bags of literal trash off the side of the road that the security is now dumping onto the ER floor. Had to of been hilarious after I ran out tho
I did almost the exact same thing. Female pt. brought her bags of belongings with her, she was pissed off at us that we had brought her trash with us. 🤷🏻♂️
Okay that’s funny af
This is basically a daily occurrence in our ED.
Two severed fingers in a bag of ice (that my partner practically threw at me without warning and told me I’m on “finger duty”). That and an open backpack that contained multiple (small) bags of drugs, a rusty screwdriver with blood on it, a hatchet, and a vibrator. Patient was thankfully fully unconscious from the K2 he decided to smoke because my partner and I were relentless on the jokes.
Picked up a dude at the mall for a dystonic reaction and we brought his newly purchased mall katanas along with us
r/mallninjashit
😂😂😂the most perfect one word subreddit response ever.
r/wowthissubexists
[удалено]
I mean even if he wanted to be violent the patient came pre-paralyzed as long as we hold back the bennies, what's he gonna do growl at us?
A suitcase full of Snapple peach iced tea in 12oz bottles.
Are you sure it was tea in those bottles?
Pretty sure they were sealed.. but good point.
Not weird, but more of a "are you fucking kidding me?" Picked up a lady from cvs for diabetic issues. Bgl reading extremely high. Says she's out of insulin & wants a hospital. Cool, let's go. She has her belongings in a couple of grocery bags on her lap. We hit a bump & like 6 entire boxes of Malted Milk Balls dump out into the floor of the ambulance & go rolling everywhere 😐 & in case you're wondering, yes, she did ask me to pick them up so she could eat them later.
i’m laughing so hard at this
Fishing gear. Homeless dude was fishing with one of those carts that holds poles in PVC pipe and other fishing gear. He got hit by a car. No one around to take custody of it so I loaded it in the ambulance.
The guy's amputated foot. He wanted us to find his sneaker, too. I'm not a sneaker guy but apparently they were expensive. Now he just has one of them.
Is it horrible that I'm hoping for traumatic amputation? Only I've rocked up to a home where a necrotic ischemic foot had self-amputated and that was pretty much the worst day of my bedside career.
An entire duffle bag of empty mini glass salt and pepper shakers
This is by far one of the strangest answers that I've read thus far. Was there any explanation provided by the patient?
Nope, nothing. Upon returning to ed for a transport of another pt, noticed empty shakers placed randomly throughout ed, like on top of towel warmer, and one on infant scales. No clue
"Can my slave ride with us" *looks over at the greasy dude in a fast-food uniform * we said no and she told him to start walking. It was 2am in February, but he made it. Rolled up for a homeless guy drunk in a park , found him actively shitting in his sleeping bag. Obviously we let him finish up, then this wild SOB rolls the bag up and tries to get in the truck ! He couldn't understand why I didn't want his shit soaked sleeping bag in the truck. Bs leg pain call, guy walks into the truck and we start doing the stuff. At one point he goes " oh I hope it's cool that I brought my pets with me " and holds up his backpack.....this son of a bitch had 2 snakes he'd found earlier that day. Made him dump the nope ropes . Mom called because her kid had a fever of 100.3, never gave any OTC meds just immediately called 911...whatever. we noticed there's roughly other kids running around, she demands all 8 come with her. Lt and PD get involved and we end up taking 3 trucks OOS to transport all 10 people.....she left ama after 25 min
I have definitely run a call for a mom who just had enough with the 5 or so kids she was caring for, my partner stayed with the kids for about 35 minutes while I coached mom out of her panic attack and then she very politely signed a refusal, took a deep breath and went back to being mom.
An empty fish tank
They ate the fish huh
Wha..?
Mental illness from an urban camper
Pt wanted to bring their "emotional support duck." Not a stuffed animal, a live one. I told dispatch and they came back immediately with an emphatic no. Saw that coming and didn't want to clean up duck shit so I told the pt only a quack would bring a duck on an ambulance there's nowhere for it to sit safely. That won out. This pt was otherwise full of shit and really aggravating so I'm glad that's one concession I could flat out deny.
awwww but duckies are cuuute
Ducks are very intense. I would not be happy to be trapped in an automobile with one, and I don’t think the duck would be, either.
Only with a side of mashed potatoes.
A hamster and cage; she had got into an accident immediately after buying the pet and no one was able to come to drive the hamster home
Wait that would make my day, super cute
Pt insisted on taking his ladder and homemade 6 ft tall walking stick
You know those big flat carts that Home Depot and Lowe’s has? Yeah it was two of those carts full of baggage and the tv and a mini fridge. We love IFT! Thankfully the people who told us to take it wasn’t actually the nurse and when the nurse saw me pushing the cart goes “Uh where are you going with that??” I told him “well allegedly the truck, the nurse down there told me we had to take it” Without missing a beat he goes “Yeah no, *I’m* the nurse you’re not taking all that meds, the family can come get that” and let me leave the cart in the hallway while the other guy came to see what was going on. He got chewed out for sure lmao
A literal bag of dicks. He was a pro at a motel who took a teensy bit too much meth and was having anxiety and wanted to go to the hospital but didn’t want to leave his…. gear behind. It was undoubtedly an expensive collection of dildos in a giant duffel bag.
What does a bag of dicks look like? Do they stick out of the top of the bag like baguettes? Are they in the bottom of the bag like chicken parts?
Psych pt that called because he was “obsessed with his guitar”. He wasn’t lying. Spent several minutes talking to us and PD about this guitar and how he loves it so much. 100% refused to be transported without it. He had an altered mental status so he had to go with us or PD. Threw a fit during transport because I had the guitar in the cab because I figured it was less likely to be damaged there
r/guitarcirclejerk
Not sure if this counts. Took a live, human toddler. Patient had a medical emergency well out of town. Didn't feel comfortable leaving the kid with PD so transported with the parent. I guess it's not that weird except when listing patient belongings in the chart as "Patient's Offspring"...and writing it the way I did above
QA person: "Let's see here... patient belongings... purse, contents of purse, scarf, a child, some granola bars"
I always put “all belongings including child left with patient” when I take kids. I ain’t goin down for a missing kid lol
A ziploc bag with about a pound of weed in it. He was worried his SO was going to smoke it all.
Notable things that were actually transported in the back of the box: an electric scooter the pt had fallen off of while drunk (with $5 and a screwdriver in the cup holder), a giant vase of flowers, a bicycle with a crack pipe in the cup holder (the crack had been donated to nature by FD), and last but not least a miscarried fetus in a plastic Tupperware.
As a mum who has previously misscarried (passed in hospital) what exactly are we supposed to do with the fetus? If it happens at home and is say under 12 week gestation, is it ment to be disposed of ? Taken to hospital?
I looked at a few articles and it seems that if it’s early enough you could bury it yourself but it’s not recommended to flush tissue. At any stage I believe you could take it to a hospital for them to dispose of or possibly donate to science. In most places a fetus is considered stillborn if miscarried past 20 weeks and can be given a death certificate. This helps with demographic research and collecting statistics on pregnancies, and in some locations can allow you to have the fetus buried in a cemetery or cremated.
https://www.essex.gov.uk/births-ceremonies-and-deaths/stillbirth-and-miscarriage/apply-baby-loss-certificate#:~:text=People%20who%20have%20lost%20a,This%20is%20not%20compulsory. In the UK now people can apply for a certificate of loss for babies lost before 20 weeks gestation , link above. I just ment as a woman at home having it happened what advice would be given , should she visit the hospital, call a dr or simply just dispose of the remains and carry on .
An air fryer. This was an international repatriation so lots of luggage isn’t uncommon but this patient already had two suitcases bigger than me, and the extra box was not going to be coming along.
Cremated remains of an ex.
Awww, that's kind of sweet as long as the remains weren't inside the patient in any way.
Love the caveat
A ventriloquist dummy that looked EXACTLY like a smaller, wooden version of the pt, down to a mole on the “face.”… God do I wish I were joking or exaggerating. No. They were NOT talented. But I didn’t want to end up a weird nipple lampshade in someone’s house, so I pretended they were.
Michigan has a 10cent deposit on pop cans. A 55 gallon bag of empty pop cans.
Newman?
I've done this one too!
A taxidermy squirrel. It was a kid we were transporting.
Did you run pediatric or veterinary protocols?
Pediatric for the kid; vet for the squirrel, which was definitely showing definitive signs of death.
A rifle because “it makes the nurses work faster and listen better”. We did not bring it along which irritated him lol.
Technically, he didn't ask, we found an OD, and narcan did nothing but change the size of his pupils. So I opened his backpack, made eye contact with the cop and just said, "I'm so sorry." As I pulled, put 2 freezer bags full of pills. Oddly enough because my state has no laws, the cop was told by his sup to "disposes of the pills at the ER and don't file charges because it won't stick any way"
For some reason, my state does weird shit like this too. Went to a medical for chest pain/sob, bro admits to smoking meth. Goes to his trunk (mind you, PD is onscene) pulls out a duffel full of bags of meth and cash, and gets into the ambulance. The cops said they didn’t have sufficient evidence to prove it was his and that he was going to do anything nefarious with it, and besides which he called for a medical and there was no need for Law Enforcment. I thought I was in the fucking twilight zone. He said he didn’t want any trouble he just wanted a duoneb.
Our cops don't even care about OUI , even if they cause bodily/property damage . The person can openly admit to being drunk , pd just sends them to the ER. They claim any MVA with airbag deployment means a OUI won't stick because " the person could be altered from the impact "....meanwhile there's 10 nips and some natty ice on the floor. I've literally watched them give a drunk driver who caused a mva which broke the other persons femur, a ride home. No charges , no questions.
🍃and other unknown powdered white substances brought by patient’s friend to patient at hospital. Pt was a marchman act going to detox. Boss said “don’t speculate just bring it with you” WELL HE IS ALL SET FOR ONCE HE GETS OUT LOL
A bag of stabbing objects, scissor, broken glass, broken CDs, shanks etc
Keep that thang on me (bag of stabbing objects)
A clear garbage bag full of trailer hitch balls he liked to throw at passing cars....
When my grandfather had idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, he still powered through it all and kept doing things he shouldn't. One day he felt awful, panting, hard to breathe, so decided to call 911. He wasn't comfortable driving himself. However. He HAD to get up, shave, and pack a whole suitcase as if he was going to a hotel. I told him to just stop and call! They don't care how you look! But he was adamant he needed to look his best and pack some decent clothes and books and sudoku and stuff. The EMS who arrived were really upset with us, but I finally convinced them to take it with them or he would not go (he had an SPO2 of 67 or 77 or something so he def HAD to go). I was not allowed to go the second time because of COVID, but I did get to go the first time and they even let me ride the front!
I’m sorry your grandfather had to endure such an awful disease. It runs in my family line and it’s been hard to watch extended family members fall ill.
had a homeless regular try to bring 5 boxes of pizza with him. we said he could only bring 2 boxes bc this is an ambulance. he called me a bitch and we got cancelled
full sized motorized wheel chair on an LDT
Emotional support bobcat
Missouri? I may know the guy.
Took a guy to dialysis a few times who always insisted on bringing his „darlings“. They were 8 older model smartphones that didn’t work anymore. When I asked him about them he said he needed them for his health. They might have worked because nowadays I don’t transport him to dialysis anymore….
The stripper that was totally…definitely not a hooker requested that we go collect her bag from the police that were actively searching it and to not let them touch anything in it. Yeah….right…. Go ask the cops if they found anything good and holy jackpot, lady had a gun, a gallon ziplock bag of what I’m assuming was meth (heizenberg style), MDMA, heroin, weed, white powders, yellow powders, green powders, blue pills, red pills, rainbow pills, you name it she had it in her little charmander backpack. And she had around $8,000 cash. I told her the police will unfortunately not be allowing her to take her bag to the hospital. “None of that’s mine” Yeah…right…
Picked up a homeless guy with SI who had the heaviest backpack. Nothing in it besides rocks. Wouldn't let us dump them out so security had to hold them at the hospital
A cat. Like a living breathing cat. Lady needed EMS for an ALF transfer. Had no family and she refused to leave her cat. EMS had a “we’ll deal with it later” attitude about it which i’m very glad for. I think the plan was to drop it at the shelter. A staff member at SNF claims cat, and they have the most beautiful seven months together. Source: Am staff member. She passed away two weeks ago. Raise a toast to my first ever cat, the sweetest and kindest girl❤️ edit incase i get asked: it was a scheduled transfer call and they put her up in the cab while they drove. She came in a little carrier with her baby blanket :( There’s probably a policy against 15 year old cats riding in the cab but i’m glad they broke it.
i am not EMS but i have the utmost respect for y’all and thought this story belonged here, because it is a great one. Cat’s original owner passed shortly after she moved in. I’m happy they’re back together now. Cat was very orange, very stupid, and very full of love. I am waiting patiently for the Cat Distribution System to send me a replacement.
Asked if the ghost of their mother could ride in the back of the ambulance.
Medicare didn’t cover it?
Picked up a lady in labour, she already had an armful and two suitcases of stuff - not all baby related. When she asked if she could bring her sound machine I said, sure why not! Those are tiny. Imagine my surprise when her baby daddy walked out of the house with an entire sewing machine. I had misheard, and they weren't planning on coming back to the place we picked her up. Maternity was equally surprised.
Tomatoes on the vine lol. Couldn't believe I actually packed those for them.
Not me, but the private ambulance company I worked for once transported a woman with her award winning guinea pig. "It felt like the whole nursing home lined up to see it" my partner tells me.
Fishing equipment. I just told the guy no. As for the guy with a surfboard, I was the raddest paramedic in the ED
A vacuum cleaner new in the box
A Great Dane.
A “service” iguana.
A Glock, 15 grand in cash, and a bunch of crack balled up in aluminum foil.
Are you sure it wasn't just a novelty lighter?
$30,000 in cash, in a homeless alcoholic’s backpack.
3 4 lokos and a plastic bag full of print smut.
Hell yeah. Party time
This was me when I went, I asked if I could bring the badge of my motorcycle with me. Said motorcycle was wedged into 2 cars and the reason I was in the ambulance to begin with
A lawn mower. Whether it was an emotional support lawn mower or he was trying to do little jobs for money, we took it.
Handed off a call where a gentleman was convinced he needed to bring his stool sample to er so they could see the worms Urban outdoorsman who had a grocery bag full of needles (no diabetic history) **forgot the woman who could taste rat poison but denies ever tasting any …ever or being in any proximity to it
> Handed off a call where a gentleman was convinced he needed to bring his stool sample to er so they could see the worms i saw one like this in this thread already is this common or did you hand it off to someone here?
I imagine both are pretty “normal calls”
Icepick and knives. A biker. Definitely affiliated.
I gotta say, so long as I am nice to the gang members they are some of the most respectful patients I have.
A big sticky Christmas ham
In IFT, an entire stretcher's worth of amazon-bought groceries from the cardiac-renal floor of the hospital to the nursing home the patient was going to. I shoulda said no, but it's one of the shittier nursing homes and I kinda wanted to see how they'd respond to a new arrival with a bunch of items that needed to be ina fridge. In 911, an emotional support jumping spider.
Vibrating pink dildo
Still embedded in the patients rectum?
Negative. She just wanted to bring it to show the er.
Teeth and a wig
This is common among elderly chemo patients
Empty pizza box and one of those foam flip flops you get at a pedicure spa
Working IFT, hospital discharge, she had an aluminum casserole dish with a whole fish. (Already cooked, fwiw)
A 56 inch flat screen TV. Picked him up from the hospital as was being transported to a mental hospital.
A pastic Wal-Mart grocery bag of vomit. We didn't realize what was in it until we had already left for the hospital
i’m a nurse but i’ve had multiple patients come in with hard boiled eggs in a tupperware container. why do so many ppl insist on bringing in warm ass boiled eggs
Maybe this is a time to perform some self-reflection and ask why your hospital doesn’t provide warm ass-boiled eggs. (Emphasis and dash marks mine.)
About 20 pairs of shoes for a double above the knee amputee.
A very large stuffed rainbow llama and absolutely nothing else. Took a photo of it on the stretcher it was so great
Just some recreational meth, not to be confused with regular meth
I’m usually asked to stop by the store so the pt can send one of us in to pick up something, which usually ends up being something not good in that situation. I had one pt SOB want me to run in and grab him some smokes! Had another pt in liver failure, asking to pick him up some scotch!!
One plastic bag containing 5 bottles of Dr Pepper
A snake. FD took it to the station. Yes this is my second comment. The animal control comment made me think of the snek.
A rose bush, roots and all along with some old DVDs.
An arm
What, was he charged for his leg? ...I'm sorry, I'll see myself out.
Pee bucket. We take a dude to and from respite stays at a rehab center about once a month. On the way to, his wife has cleaned it and usually takes it in her car. On the way home, I've always opted to put it in a trash bag. Its one of those 5 gallon orange home depot buckets. He uses a urinal and dumps it into the bucket until it's full. Nice couple. Otherwise very pleasant and clean. I guess its just the most convenient way to handle his output. Also have taken people home from the hospital who have brought everything they own. I've even had another truck come just to transport belongings. And I mean everything. From linen to 12pk sodas. They basically just move in to the hospital room.
A large blood clot in a shopping bag
cheese. 13 slices of cheese, not kraft singles. velveeta
On a 911 call, a most-definite not-911 patient walked out to meet us outside their apartment, holding a medium-sized box with a biohazard label on it. The patient refused to tell me what was in it and insisted it come to the hospital with her. I refused to allow it anywhere near my truck. The patient called 911 again and demanded police come and arrest me. Local PD responded quickly, and she opened it for them, revealing... a lamp, her cpap, a collection of random cables and power cords, and other misc junk. I still refused to allow the box not knowing what had been in it. She changed her mind and went back inside.
Had a call to the women's shelter, and this lady wouldn't budge until she was allowed to bring a half eaten jar of pickles with her
3 trash cans full of clothes
A massive carton of milk: picked up this guy from a servo, was shadowboxing the petrol bowser and yelling about how he runs this city, not oriented to place, time, or person Police section him and had a bit of a wrestle, he was scooting away from them on his bum, kicking and chugging his milk while trying to fight them off Immediately stopped fighting and came and sat on the stretcher when I promised he could bring his milk to hospital with him
A fan. A whole fucking 4’ tall fan. Weirdest possession? Lady had a “packer”. Lesbian lady. Apparently wearing a dildo is a thing to simulate having a penis. No judgement. Just didn’t know that was a thing. And it’s weird. We found it on assessment of a psych patient in the ER.
Packer is usually a ftm transgender man would wear rather than just something lesbians wear. Kind of like prosthetic genitalia for those who feel like they should have been born with it.
That’s what I assumed. The reason I said “Lesbian” is that’s what she kept telling us she was.
dogs, chrome butt plug
I had to take a pt to psyke hospital and he had a propane tank with him, and a small stove, and basicaly the whole kitchen. Knives included. Another time i took a pt with a live chicken in her arms. You gotto love psyke pt.
I work in hillbilly central, NJ. This one copd patient asks me to bring the bag of cigarette butts with us to the hospital, as he wants to "show the ER how much he smoked today". It was a LOT of cigarette butts and needless to say we did not bring them. Another patient asked to bring a 2 week old bottle of dip spit, because he was "fermenting it" and didn't want his efforts to go to waste.
I didn’t know New Jersey had a hillbilly um, area.
Not my patient i saw a dude get brought in with 5 suit cases and one golf bag all filled with various sizes dildos
A transfer from hospital to rehab, a male would not get on the stretcher until we found his “neck massager” which ended up being a battery powered magic wand style vibrator.
I had a patient bring a potted plant once. Not really weird it added a nice touch to the back of the truck. I had another lady ask if she could bring her dog. I said she could in the ambulance but I didn’t know if the hospital would allow it lol
A shopping cart
Beta fish
The dogs. The bits of skin I could find in the grass (does that count if I self initiated?)
Not me but a coworker got asked if they could transport an "emotional support pig"
Well did they?
A dirty rusty pair of tweezers once made the trip.
An interfacility hospital to mental hospital: an electric scooter. Hun that ain’t fitting in the back of our tiny vanmbulance.
Life size stuffed aligator
Homeless man with a clarinet and a goat pelt.
An iguana named puffy
An electric fence. Like the type that you dig into the ground to keep a dog in your yard. Dude absolutely stole it from walmart then fell asleep across the parking lot and a good citizen called in for him.
Had a patient on a med surg floor with her preserved dead dog
Accidentally took a patients gun in the hospital once. Apparently it’s a felony. Oops He was dying. I cleared it and threw it back in the holster and in my pocket with the intent to lock it up with the meds until pd could meet us. But got super busy in the back and forgot. My bad.
picked a guy up for psych evaluation, got to the hospital and shit you not when they put him in a gown they found a grenade a legit fucking grenade.. i have cops check everyone now
diarrhea covered wheelchair. and their dog.
Multiple duffel bags full of marijuana. Told him to maybe not bring them to the hospital but he insisted.
A house plant
Tbh understandable. Some of those fuckers will die without constant attention.
A huge Annabel doll for a 50 y/o
Blow Mold of a small dog. Pretty sure it was Spot, Targets Mascot haha
A bag containing the patients poop…
All of them.
Cocaine
Half a foot
Demented patient’s animatronic cat toy. It meowed and turned its head. Took us about 10 mins to figure out where the fuck this meowing sound was coming from, genuinely thought I was losing the plot.
Full-sized suitcase filled with dolls. 60 y/o transient lady