Baby You're a Rich Man

Sounds of a scuffle out in the ambulance bay drew me away from my hallway team early in the shift last night.  Running over, I saw a well-dressed man trashing about in a stretcher as an increasingly large combination of EMS and ER staff tried to calm him down.  Violent and uncooperative, he was placed in two-point restraints and assigned to my team.

Despite his obvious intoxication (BAC 0.374), he required medical clearance before he could be exiled to the drunk tank.  In situations like these, the triage nurse will often park the patient in the hallway right next to the workstation to encourage a quick eval by the physician.  

As one of our newer residents attempted to perform an exam, some of the following quotations were heard echoing down the halls of the ER:

"Get your filthy hands of my suit!  This is a Burberry!  It costs more than your car!"

"Don't you touch me!  I'm rich!  I make more money in a month than you make in a year!  I'll sue you bastards!"

"I went to Small East Coast Liberal Arts College!  I'm smarter than all of you!  And my house is bigger than yours!"

And, my personal favorite:

"What hospital is this?  Is this Nearby Catholic Hospital!?  I'm a Methodist.  I HATE CATHOLICS!"

Resisting the urge to run home and grab my rosary, I was quite amused when one of the nurses taped a small paperclip cross to the end of his stretcher before wheeling him away to sleep it off.