ER Doctors of Reddit: Which of your patients came the closest to winning a Darwin Award?

1. Burns are fun: 1) Decided the gas in the car was “dead” and threw a few gallons on a bonfire to get rid of it. Spent a month in the burn unit. When he woke up, he told his elderly dad to go ahead and, “burn the rest of that old gas out back so we can get the car started.” I had a long conversation with him. 2) High on Shrooms, a man jumped chest-first into a fire pit. Miraculously he was saved by his friends with seemingly minor injuries, and then immediately turned around and jumped back into the pit. Three months in the burn unit.
   — DeLaNope


2. I was junior anaesthesia trainee. I treated a man who injected poppy juice into his radial artery. He almost lost his hand and he required multiple plastic surgery procedures. A few months later old mate is back in theatre for a repair of the other side of his forearm. He has been riding a bicycle holding onto an idling chainsaw with his other arm. He was riding around cutting down letterboxes. He slipped and chainsawed the "good" side of the arm he injected poppy juice into. Then there was the youth who saw what he thought was a snake. He went to confirm by picking it up and it bit him. He remained curious so he picked it up again and was bitten again. We live in an area of Australia where every snake is venomous. Edit. Here is a page on [snakes in Tasmania](http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/?base=3198) . The most likely snake involved in this story is the white-lipped snake.
   — cookie5427


3. Closest? I had a patient who needed me to complete his home circumcision.
   — everycredit






4. One of my patients came in with 2nd and 3rd degree burns all the way up his right arm. It was winter and his pickup wouldn't start, so he put a match in the gas tank to "melt the frozen gasoline".
   — DippedDoughnut


5. Not quite Darwin award, still dumb. A patient I was involved in caring for decided to see if he could fix the noise in his RUNNING lawn mower by putting his fingers under the guard (to clear the blockage?). A few cuts later, that didn't work. Decided to try it again... Lost 2 fingers...
   — Firebug23


6. EMT here, encountered a man who decided his electric bill was too high so he turned off all the heat in his house. Giant snow storm came and dumped about 3’ of snow in less than 2 days. Dude thought he might have frostbite on his toes (he did, actually) so to warm himself up he drank AN ENTIRE GALLON of ANTIFREEZE. Apparently the name is misleading. He thought it would “un-freeze” him. Put himself into acute renal failure and spent 6 weeks getting inpatient dialysis (among other things) before he was released.
   — the_taco_belle






7. One of my patients (Male, in his 30s) tried to follow a "healthy trend" and made a "medium rare" chicken recipe.. results?: severe amoebic dysentery and colitis (almost resulting in bowel perforation)
   — LecterDr


8. A patient with a methamphetamine addiction attached a [jubilee clip](https://www.build4less.ie/media/catalog/product/j/u/jubilee.jpg) to the base of his penis as a DIY cock ring and then promptly forgot about it for several days before presenting to the ED with a severely vascularly compromised dick. He hadn't even come in because of that though. It was an incidental finding when undressing him for a secondary survey after he fell from a roof and broke his ankle. We also have very frequent patient presentations (5-6 per week) having missed dialysis for 1-2 weeks and returning scarily high potassium levels.
   — EM_doc


9. I see quite a lot of successful award winners, but one nominee stands out. You'd be surprised how many men jump out of a window during an argument with their wives. One guy did it but apparently forgot he lived on the 6th floor. Landed on a bus, which partiality broke his fall, but then he fell off the bus and onto a spiked fence! The fence impaled him and get this - ripped open his scrotum and amputated one testicle. He was also disemboweled by another spike and shattered his spine and pelvis. He survived, but was paralysed from the waist down, and he lost the other testicle when it got infected and had to be removed. He didn't have kids so a true Darwin award!
   — toneyoth






10. a guy arrived at the ER after he ate a few pounds of cherries without spitting the stones so he had to be operated to get them out. the chief doctor came to see the x ray while the man was being prepared for surgery and said "good thing he didn't eat peaches"
    — PunjabiDJ


11. According to the doctor in my life: “Don’t stick random stuff up your ass. We get these guys in the ER all the time and we hate having to fist them to get it out.”
    — justletmedieinpeace