Chicken Nuggets

We had a patient a few years ago that I'll call Mr. ChickenNugget. Oh, Mr. ChickenNugget was a joy to take care of. He came staggering in to the ER lobby clutching his belly and shouting "I BEEN STABBED! I BEEN STABBED!" The triage nurse escorted him back to her room and did a quick assessment.

She pulled open the lower half of his shirt and saw a small amount of blood smeared around his belly button. There appeared to be a tiny puncture wound in the middle of the blood. Initial vitals were absolutely normal.

"What were you stabbed with, Mr. ChickenNugget?" she asked.

"A Screwdriver! He got me with a screwdriver!"

Apparently, Mr. ChickenNugget was approached by "just some dude" in the Safeway parking lot when he was viciously (and for no apparent reason of course) stabbed with a phillips head screwdriver. He walked the 2 blocks to the hospital himself.

Triage Teresa brought him back to Exam Room 1 and gave me report. I went in to do my assessment on Mr. ChickenNugget, pulling the bedside ultrasound unit behind me. I figured Dr. Q would want to do a quick FAST scan.

I told Mr. ChickenNugget to take his clothes off and I would give him a gown. I turned around and reached into the cupboard next to the sink and grabbed the gown, an IV start kit, and some lab tubes. I turned back around with the gown in hand and immediately started laughing. I hate to admit it, but yes.............I laughed at my patient.

He had a tattoo over each nipple. On the right it said "SWEET" and on the left it said "SOUR". I shit you not.

How can you not laugh at that?

Mr. ChickenNugget followed my line of sight to his own chest and started laughing too.

"That's what happens when you get drunk and go to a tattoo parlor with your buddies," he said.

I immediately placed that on my What Not To Do In Life list.

So it turned out that he had not even been stabbed. There was a small abrasion on his abdomen but no depth to the wound. Mr. ChickenNugget had been scratched by a screwdriver.

I still think about him any time we have a stabbing come in.