"Accidentally Sat on a Door Handle" – Doctors, What’s Your Most Shocking 'Accident' Story?

A young foreign couple was waiting in the clinic. We didn’t share a common language, so the woman took my hand and placed it on her husband’s pelvis, which was vibrating. People hum with vibrations sometimes. It turned out that a still-on prosthetic penis had slipped into his rectum. (And it was huge.)

A man was missing skin on his penis, exposing only muscle, and I couldn’t imagine how this happened. It turned out he had untreated severe diabetes, and during oral sex, his girlfriend’s tooth caused a wound that wouldn’t heal. We saved his manhood, but it was touch and go.

At the dermatology and STD clinic, where I spend my days checking rashes and moles, a 55-year-old woman came in with what looked like half her face affected by cancer. I’d never seen such a severe and neglected basal cell carcinoma. When I asked how she ignored it for so long, she said it started as a small spot on her nose and she “didn’t want to bother anyone.” What could have been fixed with a small cut turned into a major surgery removing half her face, eye socket bone, and one eye. Yet, she still didn’t want to be a bother…

An elderly gentleman “lost” a sizable potato in his rectum that we had to surgically remove.

Two young men were in the waiting room, one carrying a door on his back. He held it with both hands and said he couldn’t put it down. We had to find a room with a wide entrance because the door wouldn’t fit anywhere. It turned out he had “accidentally” sat on the door handle with his rectum and couldn’t pull it out. Without a screwdriver, his friend took the door off its hinges, and that’s how they walked into the clinic.

A woman called saying “leaves are growing from her vagina.” When I asked what kind of leaves, she said green leaves. I had to bring her in. My colleague and I confirmed that real green leaves—not fake plants—were growing inside her. When we asked how this happened, she realized it was a sprouted potato slice she had inserted as a pessary a few months earlier. I thought I’d heard it all, but a potato slice as birth control definitely surprised me.

A man came into the ER—where I was on my first day—with a bloody towel wrapped around his head. The receptionist asked what happened. “The axe got stuck in my head again.” She calmly answered the phone: “Hi, Ábel here. Yes, the axe again. Okay, I’m sending help.”

A young man was brought in with a tree branch sticking out of his eye. (CT showed it had almost reached the back of his skull and brain.) He was alert and spoke clearly. He explained that his parachute got tangled, and he crashed into a forest at high speed.

A young woman was admitted with urosepsis, a serious urinary tract infection. After treatment, she kept coming back with minor infections, so we used a small camera to check her bladder. To our surprise, we found four small birthday candles inside—she had inserted them through her urethra.

The patient complained of “general malaise.” It turned out he had sepsis caused by a toilet brush handle broken off inside his rectum. He said he came home drunk one night and woke up on the bathroom floor, sure he had “fallen on the brush without noticing.”

Photos: istockphoto.com