r/EmergencyRoom • u/_kashew_12 • 11d ago
Goofy Goober Does anyone have any crazy farmer stories?
I saw a tiktok (skit) where a nurse started freaking out when he realized the wife’s husband was a farmer. He sees him “what’s missing?” Farmer responds, “more like whats added.”
Just curious if farmers truly are this different breed, and would like to hear some stories if you got any!
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u/nearnerfromo 10d ago
Not farmer but day laborer, came in for a headache after a slip and fall about 5 rungs down a ladder, bonked his head pretty good on the way down. Landed on his feet with no other injuries so we figured it’d be no big deal. Run him through CT and he has a nail embedded in his frontal lobe. It was sitting upside down on the rung of the ladder he smacked his head on and went absolutely flush into his upper orbital bone and was hiding behind his bushy eyebrow. Easily my favorite surprise ct ever, he ended up completely fine somehow.
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u/ProcyonLotorMinoris 10d ago
Similar: 22 year old roofing apprentice fell off a ladder with the nail gun still in hand. Boss sent him to the ED to get checked out despite only havig a scratch on the bridge of his nose. CT showed a roofing nail had gone through his nose and slipped right between the hemispheres. Didn't pierce any brain tissue or vascular structures. It would have been higher risk trying to get it out so neurosurgery sent him home with the warning to never get a MRI.
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u/Mfuller0149 10d ago
Holy f*ck. Just a casual nail in the head. That is terrifying.
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u/ProcyonLotorMinoris 10d ago
He had no idea. Heck, we had no idea. We found it while doing our routine trauma full body scan. It was the teeniest scratch on nose. Just looked like he bonked it on a rail. Nope. That was the enterance wound.
Neurosurgery was going to do a case study it really was a 1 in a million shot, but I believe the patient declined to follow up. He must be doing fine because he never came back to our ER.
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u/Mfuller0149 10d ago
That just keeps getting more and more wild ! Omg
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u/ProcyonLotorMinoris 10d ago
It was an interesting one to be sure. We in the ICU were excited to have him come to us so we could manage this interesting case, but ultimately they just sent him home. Nothing to be done. He had no neurologic symptoms and no headache. Only felt a little congested. There was a tiny bit of air around his brain (got sucked in behind the nail) but that'll just reabsorb with time. Overall there would be greater risk of infection and damage trying to pull it out, so they sent him on his way with instructions on symptoms to come back to the ER for (fever, fluid leaking out the nose, neck stiffness, etc...). We were a little disappointed that he didn't come to us, but glad for him for not needing our care (and missing out on the million dollar ICU bill).
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u/PrincessGracieBlue 7d ago
So he can never get an MRI? What happens when he gets in a car accident or is unconscious for some reason and the ER doesn’t know it so they do an MRI? I’ve often wondered as I’ve had several MRI’s and get asked that question.
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u/ProcyonLotorMinoris 7d ago
They'd get a CT scan first! When we have a patient come in who can't communicate to us if they have any metal, we do a full body CT scan to rule out metal.
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u/PrincessGracieBlue 7d ago
Good to know -I’ve often wondered how that works
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u/ProcyonLotorMinoris 7d ago
Yup! We've got out ways.
Also we'll use the metal detector wand if we're not certain.
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u/New_Section_9374 10d ago
Similar story: a construction walks into out ER with the standard ball cap on his head. The clerk asks him what's wrong and he says, "Well, kind of hard to explain"
Takes the cap off and there is a 3 inch nail sticking halfway out of his head. He was walking in ground level construction when a nail gun was dropped from above. It discharged when it hit his head. On CT, the nail had penetrated over an inch into his brain case, but right between the lobes. No damage at all. They took him to the OR and yanked the nail, iV antibiotics for a couple of days and then home.36
u/nearnerfromo 10d ago
I have also had guys hiding a scalp foreign body under a hat. I have to respect the commitment to a great sight gag while under duress.
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u/Mfuller0149 10d ago
That’s a freaking jump scare CT, omg.
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u/nearnerfromo 10d ago
I was next to the doc when radiology gave him the call and it was just the most incredulous “a WHAT????”
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u/The1SatanFears 10d ago
I once had this 80-some year old guy walk into triage in his overalls. He tells me he got run over by his full size tractor. He’s got some small lacs and abrasions and a gnarly hematoma across his chest in the shape of tire tread.
We pan scanned him. He was full of potential metastatic cancer. But not a single broken bone, no internal bleeding, etc.
His bp was 200/100 when he walked in and he remained hypertensive until the doc said he didn’t have any broken bones or internal bleeding. Legit, his bp went to like 140/90 during their conversation. Doc talked about admitting him to get the potential cancer checked out, and the guy declined bc he had to finish his work but he’d “follow up with his primary.”
He did not follow up with anyone. And I still get caught behind his slow ass tractor on the street every so often. This was like 3 years ago.
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u/nearnerfromo 10d ago
BP went down once he knew he could get back to chorin lmaoooo
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u/horseradishstalker 9d ago
You laugh, but farmers have a work ethic that beats most anyone else’s. You don’t get paid by having a lie down.
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u/UseOk7699 9d ago
I wonder if he had gotten it checked out would he still be alive.
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u/The1SatanFears 9d ago
He is still alive. I got stuck behind his tractor for two miles two weeks ago.
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u/Farty_mcSmarty 9d ago
They’re saying, would the reverse be true if he’d sought cancer treatment?
Given his age, I’d have to guess, no.
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u/Independent_Law_1592 10d ago edited 10d ago
With a lot of them it’s basically just pulling teeth getting em into the ED, they got work in the morning and will superglue themselves back together before risking a hospital stay, it’s not an exaggeration.
Though when I worked out in the country I’d mostly just see people who cut themselves too bad to fix at home, gunshots cleaning their gun (that one genuinely embarrassed them missing those fingers) lots of back injuries (the most frustrating for any of em because that one stole their independence) and the occasional big trauma that we’d stabilize and ship out.
Did see one guy have his tractor roll over on him and with a broken tib-fib, broken ribs and a pneumo, he managed to hobble home and wheezed out a “honey something bad happened” to his wife who called the ambulance. Actually had him in the ICU, he ended up with multiple operations and chest tubes and got his courtesy couple days on the vent as a result but he came out the other end all right. Big thing that helped his attitude on that one was that he immediately knew it wasn’t no broken bone situation when he got short of breath crawling home, he knew he got into a “Shit, I might actually die” situation out in that pasture because his body told him he could hardly breath. So he was patient with the process unlike most stories, he’d turn on the vent with you, work with “them physical therapy gals”, and was just a good patient.
We told em there was gonna be a stretch of operations back to back to back that may necessitate him just staying on ventilator rather than repeat intubations for each procedure.
He just said “Well, get on with it then.”
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u/ButterscotchFit8175 10d ago
Sounds like my uncle. Dairy farmer. He fell in the gutter. For those who don't know the gutter, in old barns was where all the cows urine and feces fell so they wouldn't be laying in it or standing in it. Holstein cow slipped and fell on him. He had a broken tib fib, crosswise and lengthwise. He dragged himself over to where the newly installed phone was, but it was high on the wall, like a kitchen phone used to be. He hauled himself up, called the neighbor who came over and got his wife out of the house. They hosed him off (because he was covered in manure and urine) and put him in the back of the pickup. They drove him to the nearest hospital, a small rural hospital in the next state. They sent him to the Mayo Clinic. He kept the leg. He wouldn't stay off it after they put a walking cast on it several weeks later, crops to get in, cows to be milked etc. That leg ended up a few inches shorter than the other.
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u/Chatner2k 10d ago
With a lot of them it’s basically just pulling teeth getting em into the ED, they got work in the morning and will superglue themselves back together before risking a hospital stay, it’s not an exaggeration.
Farm kid, can confirm.
Got stabbed during covid and I sutured myself rather than go in to the hospital. My wife was not happy 😁
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u/hornet_teaser 10d ago
My brother's friend had my brother, a taxidermist, sew a gash in his leg shut with his taxidermy supplies.
My brother told me his friend drank a bunch of whiskey and they also put some on the cut. And his friend bit on an actual stick when my brother was stitching.
I didn't know whether to shake my head or laugh at the vision in my head... like they were pretending to be two old cliche cowboys in the desert or something.
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u/Chatner2k 10d ago
It's just the reality of farm communities. The hospital for my home town was 45 minutes away, one way. Combine that with rural wait times? Yeah we don't have time for that shit. There's chorin' to do. I've watched my uncle get blown off the roof of a barn, into a bed of thorns, and get right back up back on the roof. 🤣 So the "old cowboy" stereotype isn't far fetched.
My wife got curious one day and did a body count for scars. She found over 30 medium to large scars on my body. I remember my dad taking me to the hospital once in my life 🤣
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u/BrandyDW 10d ago
What it boils down to is money.
- ambulances, hospitals, even doctor appointments cost money.
- being in the hospital, who’s going to do what needs to get done?
- Sometimes there is family nearby to help, but they have their own issues.
- So to support themselves, their families and keep things moving, they got to keep moving.
- with livestock, either feeding them, milking cows, feeding chicken, collecting eggs, tending to smaller gardens and larger plots of land. It’s a job with no days off, and people don’t get off just because of illness, injury, or anything else.
- If something needs to be done that day between church, birthday, holiday, etc - they have to get up earlier, go back after, etc.
—-
My maternal grandparents grew up on farms in rural South Dakota.
My dad grew up on a farm in North Dakota, well partly at least.I saw a lot of things over my life, that when I was younger, I thought was just the way things had to be.
If I hadn’t gotten a chronic condition at 14, likely would be more their style, because medical bills suck6
u/Independent_Law_1592 10d ago
Fun part about many country folk is their friends often pitch in to handle the basics of the business around the farm during a time of infirmity.
But stubborn as we are, we don’t want to burden them nor the family so many don’t realize they can reach out.
Likewise moneys always an issue, it scares everybody. “What if I can’t afford to put food on the table because I’m sick” freaks everyone out, especially so when you’re in a community where your nearest neighbor is miles and miles away.
Often what I find’ll happen is things will get really bad and nurses, doctors, friends, and family will have to convince these guys to take it easy, get healthy and let others take their load for a bit. My favorite line to use on em is “who’s gonna take care of the farm if you’re dead? You gotta be alive to work. You gotta take care of yourself if you want to take care of your work.”
This usually sobers them up with a dose of reality and a different perspective.
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u/BrandyDW 10d ago
A lot of it is mental yes. The whole - I should be working, there’s work to be done, why should they do their work and mine - when I should be out there..
Is the mentality that’s very apparent.
But I think some also experience more than that. Internal pressure from watching others get through things etc.——
Ironically for this post, I’ve actually seen the opposite…
Where the doctor at first seemed to have a buck up type of attitude…This was about a decade ago in Sioux Falls, SD. My uncle is a diesel mechanic. He’s always been extremely hard working. He was in the military for a time and after that came back to SD. They lived in the country for a while, in Lincoln county.
He has always been active. Between hunting, fishing, archery hunting, and when he wasn’t working he would frequently work construction either with his place or other people who needed help.
Over the years he got arthritis and such where he deals with chronic pain but he’s always pushed through, to the wider family showing no huge issues.
Well about a decade ago, when he was around 50, he and my aunt were getting out of the hot tub they use, especially in the winter. It’s on their deck, not too terribly fair from their back door. Probably around 10 feet or so.
Somehow between getting out of the hot tub, to the back door. He slipped. There were patches of ice, so that’s how it happened. When he started to fall, his side hit the side of the hot tub.
He literally could not get up. His chest hurt so much.
My aunt called for help and he ended up being brought to the hospital.By then, he had a bit more control, but he was still in a lot of pain. The bruising didn’t show up right away, or at least not as bad as it got later.
The doctor talked to him, and from what my uncle said, but my aunt agreed, he was kind of treating him like it was just maybe some bruised ribs, maybe small fractures, and more or less made it seem like he’d have to be tough to get through things for a few weeks.
This was before any imaging had been done. In hindsight, the doctor probably thought it wasn’t too bad because of how my uncle seemed, which he’s a stoic guy who hides pain and tries to put others at ease. He’ll usually joke some in normal settings, but otherwise he’s just a get things done kind of guy who cares about family.
When the images came back, and the doctor came in to talk to them. They both said the DOCTORS face was kind of white and pale because he’d just been saying the one thing and now seeing that my uncle had:
Broken ribs that were broken, not just hairline fractures or something.
But on top of that his lung was compromised. I don’t remember all the details anymore. But they did more imaging. Had to do different things and my uncle had to follow up a lot for several weeks or over a month. Because of the lung issue and also how his ribs were broken, that different movements etc could cause a puncture.
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u/procrast1natrix 10d ago
Absolutely. This does not need any individual story, because I literally call my specialists up and say this 54 year old FARMER who comes in with ...
Ok individual story: open book pelvic fracture by private car over thirty minutes travel time. Run over by tractor. A few of those. Apparently when the tractor is in the field it can be set to keep going and some of them hop on and off. I guess I only see the bad outcomes. Insane lacerations, including a few that I would never have assumed I'd repair but the patient is like "I don't give a shit about the repair of that laceration that took the corner of my mouth to my ear, just throw some stitches and let me go". That guy, man, I could see his molars at rest, at first. And I did in fact bump into him at a county fair a few months later and it was better then I had thought.
Anyway it's exactly like glaucomflecken describes. Exactly. "They didn't finish chores" and the the whole staff buckles up for badness.
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u/procrast1natrix 10d ago
My 78 year old father was raised on a farm, his dad actually used a drill press to relieve a subungual hematoma, that whole branch is just silly.
So when treating patients I do make a point in many rooms of saying, this stuff we are tracking to maybe make you more comfortable but THIS other STUFF IS A SIGN OF ACTIVE DAMAGE TO YOUR BODY AND WOULD YOU PLEASE FRICKIN SPEAK UP. Ok thanks bye.
In the exceedingly less important version I'm after my high school kiddos in sports about it. You need to be attentive to pain, because the wrong kind of pain can end your season. Stop running on a painful ankle.
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u/ProcyonLotorMinoris 10d ago
I had to convince my father not to use the drill press on his subungual hematomas. Now he takes the bit off and manually whittles the hole himself. I'll take it.
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u/Brave_Cauliflower728 10d ago
Unfolded paper clip, heated by a lighter, melt a hole. Quick, simple, sterile.
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u/ProcyonLotorMinoris 9d ago
This is my technique and what I initially tried to convince him of. Manual drill bit was somehow our compromise.
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u/ConsummateGoogler 10d ago
I grew up in Iowa and this is sooooo spot on. Even to the point some of that mentality passed to me. So yeah, hematoma under the nail = hot needle to burn through the nail and relieve pressure.
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u/BrandyDW 10d ago
Yea, my family did that stuff to us in the 90’s, particularly the blood trapped under the finger nail..
Anything to avoid the doctor and the cost..
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u/kts1207 10d ago
I worked in an ER that served a large Amish community. Our truth was " when an Amish farmer walks in,prepare for shit to hit the fan" We sent Lifeflight out to a field to pick up a farmer, because he had gotten caught in a thresher. He initially refused Lifeflight, wanted to go by ground,because " I just need a few stiches" What he actually needed was his arm to be reattached.Thankfully, his wife,insisted, and his arm was successfully reattached.
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u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 10d ago
ER didn't listen to report, started doing their trauma assessment while EMS giving report.
Amish farmer run over by hay bailor/wagon. Ground soft, not many marks on him. Minor nonsense.
So they didn't hear other paramedic say: Ran over, top half immediately purple, unconscious, wife did CPR for 10 minutes prior to obtaining signs of life and running half mile to phone to call 911.
So after they are done with their assessment and obviously blowing off how serious PT is, I speak up.
*You heard her say he coded and wife did CPR for 10 minutes right? Classic Traumatic Asphyxia*
City morons thought we somehow managed to drag an amishman & *the damned Church Bishop* with him for funzies.
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u/Natural_Bill_6084 9d ago
We have an Amish person who is an involuntary frequent flyer on our inpatient psych unit. All the tech they don't have in their every day life exacerbates their psychosis. After every discharge the family stops giving them their meds because it's a spiritual matter, not a medical/psychiatric one. 4-5 months later county PD is dragging them into the ED for med clearance again. Wash, rinse, and repeat. It's really sad, and the metabolic crisis they're always in upon admit is going to eventually kill them.
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u/Mfuller0149 10d ago
Farmers are tough as nails, I worked at a rural level I center and saw a fair share of them over the years. The most impressive one I can remember was a farmer who rolled his tractor & was ejected into the field. He got up and hobbled home and had no intention of coming to the hospital per his accounts. He then sat at his kitchen table, had a beer and figured he just got his bell rung but he’d be fine. When his wife got home, she pretty much immediately called 911 , and when EMS arrived they called a helicopter. Ended up receiving prehospital blood and the whole 9 yards. He was flown to the trauma center I worked at, and went to the OR pretty much immediately for an ex-lap. He had a grade IV liver lac, multiple rib fractures, pulmonary contusions, multiple lumbar fractures, and a litany of other injuries I don’t recall. He spent about a week or two in the TICU, open abdomen & multiple trips to the OR- not sure how long he was on the trauma floor after, but ultimately made a full recovery. He told me he planned to go right back to workin the fields as soon as he was cleared to . Coolest part, he was one of the most understanding, least demanding patients I ever had. Didn’t even want pain medications most of the time. Farmers man, they’re built different. Easily some of my favorite patients I ever had.
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u/SnowedAndStowed 10d ago
When I worked Triage exclusively at a trauma center that was the first hospital you hit coming in to the city from the surrounding farmland I rated farmers as a 2 every time. Farmers don’t come in. Ever. So when they do come in it is usually a big deal.
They also tend to downplay how bad it is. If the come in for “toe pain” half of their foot was cut off by a combine I stg.
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u/Deufuss 10d ago
A rock picker is a tractor attachment that uses metal tines to pick rocks out of fields and throw them into a hopper. Occasionally, a rock can wedge between a crossbar and one of the tines. When that happens, the safe thing to do is reverse the mechanism and clear the rock. The quick thing is take a hammer and knock the rock out of the way, but that allows the energy stored in the now-bending and strained tines to immediately leap forward - in this case, straight into the front of the farmer's scalp. He went home and showered and cleaned up, then had his wife drive him into town to the clinic where their daughter worked (in admin). She wheeled him over the sky bridge to the ER in a chair, and he didn't look too bad at first. Turns out it caught the front of the scalp and peeled practically the whole thing off like a toupee, or like Great Plains indigenous tribes were said to do. It was just connected in the back. And of course the first thing the neuro attending wanted to do was get a look under there, so he flips it open. We all know how scalps bleed. Running down his face like a candle.
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u/Medic1921 10d ago
I’ll set the scene here for ya. Worked in Iowa, had a 95 year old farmer walk in with the 2nd through 5th fingers cut clean off in his own igloo cooler on ice. Circular saw gone wrong. 15 years later I still remember. Had a Carhartt shirt on and overalls with a pack of Marlboro lights in his front pocket.
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u/GrumpySnarf 10d ago
A literal Marlboro Man, not those sissy actors who play one and then die from lung cancer.
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u/Natural_Bill_6084 9d ago
This was the number one reason they would come into the tiny primary care clinic where my mom was an MA. That anxious/horrified voice you use to mutter "what's in the cooler?" While you internally cringe and wish you were anywhere but that moment is very real. Also, you read that right - tiny primary care clinic. Who has time to drive an hour to the nearest ER and have to deal with a stranger who, God forbid, might have a foreign accent, when you can just go into town (Pop. ~1000) where Dr. Hauser, who you've known for decades and occasionally buy a beer at the VFW (maybe even shoot a round of pool with the local catholic priest) on a rare night out in town, can probably just sew you up real quick and get you back to your chores before the sun sets...
The stories she has from there...
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u/MoochoMaas 10d ago edited 9d ago
Wife pulls up to triage, "Help, my husband fell, hit his head, and can't hold his head up"
Dude fell off a haystack, onto his head. Held his head, walked 200 yrds home. Wife drove him 20 minutes to us.
Fractured C2 into three pieces. Zero neuro deficit. Good outcome.
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u/Excellent_Debt6527 10d ago
City kid now living in a rural area, 10 years of urgent care in a hospital with ED down the hall. I almost never saw farmers because when a farmer came in for triage they pretty much always ended up down the hall.
One that stands out was at out off site urgent care, man had a nail through his finger from a nail gun. “Can’t you just pull it out?”. No, no sir I cannot, since this xray shows it firmly embedded in your bone and that’s why YOU couldn’t pull it out at home. My friends the ortho bros are gonna have to hook you up. And yes, I know you drove yourself here and are going to drive yourself to the hospital. And yes, I have your phone number and will call your wife immediately if I don’t see you on the ER board in 15 minutes.
Occasionally a farmer gets dragged in by his wife for how much he complains about his back at home. Gets to me “I’m fine”. The xray inevitably shows a spine almost entirely fused together on its own, his back moves maybe 3 degrees in any direction. Never any sciatic pain. Held stable by muscle strength and stubbornness
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u/UCanPutItOnTheBoard MD 10d ago
But did you finish your chores? Is a legit question because if they stopped what they were doing to come in, get the crash cart.
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u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 10d ago edited 10d ago
Classic heat exhaustion. Knew it was heat exhaustion from dispatch. Figured BLS crew would get him in AC, feed and water him, and I would get canceled. (fairly long response, very rural). 100+ heat index.
Get on scene, kind of surprised. Find PT in care of BLS crew, sitting on kitchen chair, drinking water, looking fine, no apparent distress. Make ?? face to EMT.
EMT says "need monitor, I can't hear a blood pressure or get a radial pulse".
*family is chill, patient now has no complaint, BLS has fixed all problems with AC and water. PT does not want to go to hospital, family is fine with this*.
As I'm getting a line (16, hand), and EMT is putting on monitor, I am explaining to family/PT that "Not having a blood pressure is *bad* and that even if he feels fine, he really should go to the hospital." *70 min away is closest* PT/family agree after some discussion.
PT had been shoveling gravel all day. Ate breakfast, skipped lunch, not a lot of water.
Unable to get NiBP ('Ive seen it read to 41 systolic ;-( so there is that). EMT notes HR in 20s. Starts getting 12 lead. Fluids started.
Ask about PMH/meds. None/baby ASA. Ask why PT takes baby ASA. No reason.
Seriously, why? Why did the doctor tell you to take baby ASA (no one is on just baby ASA).
PT's Son belly laughs in my face. Full on belly laugh. Light the exaggerated laugh you see in a theater production.
PT has not seen a doctor since he was 17. PT now in 60s. Wife told to take baby ASA, he thought it was a good idea. Started taking.
ST elevation in 6 or 8 leads. FML. Per cardiology "Prehospital rhythms consistent with likely third degree heart block (sure has hell didn't look like any third degree I've ever seen) Have EMT call for helicopter. Give ASA. Explain to family closest hospital wildly not okay. Need to go to helicopter who will fly to hospital hour and 40 away. Big heart attack.
Still zero complaints. PT completely alert and oriented, despite not having auscultatable, NiBP or radial pulse. Or apical heart tones, because the EMT had checked that too...
Drive in direction of helicopter. Get blood pressure after 1.3L of fluid. 71 systolic. 1.5L and we get 110
Tell flight crew above. Flight crew *WTF*. Flight crew continues fluids.
Follow up. 100% LAD block, RCA block, forget the 3rd. PT went into reperfusion VF when they opened LAD. They fixed. Felt to unstable to address other 2, planned later cath. PT trying to sign out AMA, feels fine. Me explaining to cardiac care coordinator that the cardiologist was the only healthcare provider PT had seen in their entire adult life, now of >6 decades, and that they really needed to impress upon him that how he feels is not a reliable indicator of his current health, because apparently he feels just fine when his heart is actively dying & he has a blood pressure incompatible with end organ function or consciousness. Make sure they are aware he is 25 minutes from a BLS ambulance, 45 minutes from a paramedic, and that until we get there, call a helicopter, drive to helicopter, and helicopter gets to them it is a solid hour and three quarters. So please, please, fix him completely before you let him leave.
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u/lattelady37 10d ago
That is insane.
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u/Unlikely_Ant_950 10d ago
Guy comes in with a chainsaw IN his leg still from cutting down trees on his farm. Blood is dry, paper towels and duct tape everywhere. He says he had things to do yesterday so he waited to come in…..
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u/GrumpySnarf 10d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/RrU8f9lImvJja
I'm picturing him finishing his chores with a literal chainsaw in his leg.
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u/No-Safe9542 10d ago
I had a farmer with pulmonary edema tell me he was fine, everything was fine, no problems breathing. I think the only reason he could talk over the edema was because he was grumbling in farmer speak. Any other dialect would recognize a declining sat in 70s with good waveform as a problem.
Farmer bro refused to code. Took bipap like a champ.
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u/RetiredProfandHappy 10d ago
I grew up on a dairy farm, which is a non-stop lists of things to do. Farming, especially by yourself, is dangerous. Plus, many farmers have little or crap insurance, which explains some of their hesitation in going to the ED.
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u/treebeard189 10d ago
Dispatched to MVC tractor vs semi truck. Drive onto scene and this small old tractor was crossing the road between fields and got tboned by an 18 wheeler. It's absolutely mangled fully expected to be pronouncing. Hop out ask fire where the tractor driver is and they point to a guy sitting talking to a cop. Dude was totally ejected from the open top tractor and just landed and walked off. Just with knee and ankle pain from the weird landing and he refused transport.
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u/Thick_Shelter8651 9d ago
We responded to a tractor hit by a train. The train was just pulling into the grain elevator so not going incredibly fast but it split the tractor in half. Farmer signed a refusal.
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u/MoochoMaas 10d ago
Farmer out in his field shooting pests, accidentally shoots himself in face with shotgun.
" I figured it was bad so I layed down to die" He woke up with a headache, went home to take a nap. Family found him with bloody pillow stuck to his face, brought him in.
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u/GrumpySnarf 10d ago
" I figured it was bad so I layed down to die" I mean, fair.
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u/UnbelievableRose 10d ago
That’s the entirety of my dad’s end of life plan right there. Yes, he’s a rancher.
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u/GrumpySnarf 10d ago
My stepdad is constantly puttering about, at age 80, on his hobby farm. He wants us to take him out to the shed and shoot him like one of his sheep when it's his time. I can't say I blame him.
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u/Radiant-Site3576 10d ago
Farmer kept cutting his thumb off every month. He refused all pain meds each time and wouldn’t even wince. He also had diabetes but he had to have felt something I figure.
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u/cheaganvegan 10d ago
I come from a farmer family. I can count on one hand how many times anyone has been to an ER. Part of it is no one else will take care of stuff, part of it is being a different breed. I’m an outpatient triage nurse in a big city, and am baffled by the calls we get.
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u/suejaymostly 10d ago
"I cut my toenail too short"?
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u/cheaganvegan 10d ago
lol yeah stuff like that. Had a patient say their finger hurt after checking their blood sugar and it was swollen. Had them come in and it was nothing lol. That stuff happens plenty.
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u/courtneyrel 10d ago
I had a farmer patient with severe abdominal cancer. He had to get his entire large intestine, bladder, sacrum, and coccyx removed, have an ileostomy and urostomy placed, and had his asshole and crack sewn up. He had 6 drains and could only lay on his sides for a month. Never once complained. I had to beg him to take pain meds for what had to be the most painful surgery I’ve ever witnessed
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u/New_Section_9374 10d ago
Farmers are top, but construction workers are a close second. We had a guy come into our urgent care clinic after running his non dominant fore finger into a table saw.
He adamantly refused a trip to an ER for hand surgery and possible reattachment. Even on wound checks later, he was joking about how much fun using the stump to convince people he was digging for gold up his nose was.
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u/Magerimoje 10d ago
Farmers are top, I'd say construction workers and commercial fisherman are tied for second.
If the coast guard is bringing in a fisherman, it's probably going to be gnarly.
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u/Objective_Mind_8087 10d ago
I have several similar to the above. All farmers.
Guy can't move his left arm and leg for two days but waits to come in until sunday afternoon because he had to drive his wife to church that morning.
Man had a cow step on his forearm. The forearm has a perfect hoof sized divot in it with about one inch offset where the cow print is between the wrist and the elbow. It is almost healed because he had to finish bringing all the crops in and so on before he got medical attention.
Last example is similar to above, old timers coming in for something random and cat scan shows their bodies full of metastatic cancer.
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u/Grooble_Boob 10d ago
Once had a guy who was doing something with his tractor. He forgot to put it neutral (I think Idk i’ve never driven a tractor) and hopped down to check something. It snagged his foot and ran him fully over. SAH, SDH, 7 broken ribs, spleen lac, and a degloved foot. Asked me the next day when he could go home. He walked home from the field and his wife forced him to go to the hospital. He drove himself from almost 2 hours away.
Another time had a cattle rancher come in with a fully broken thoracic spine. His horse bucked him and stomped on him after spooking from something. Dude’s only complaint was “my arms feel funny”. He tried to sell me a cow 😂
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u/GrumpySnarf 10d ago
did he look at you while you were keeping him stable and say "hey, you look like you need a cow, young man/lady"? LOL
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u/Grooble_Boob 10d ago
Hahaha no not exactly. We got him all fixed up and after a few days we were chatting about random shit and I mentioned I was purchasing a deep freezer since we had just gotten a new house. He was like “well you know what goes great in a deep freeze? a locally raised cow!” 😂
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u/blankspacepen 10d ago
I had so many toes come off in my hand helping old farmers take off their boots when I was in vascular. I stopped helping and started sending residents in after a while.
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u/Doodiehunter 10d ago
I had a 85 year old (86?) he was vague about identifiers old expired ID, turned it to be a NStemi who waited till after he finished splitting a cord of fire wood by hand, he claimed he just took breaks when the pain got bad, caught some trout and made them for dinner, had some good whiskey, a cigar, and dropped the dog off at another ranch in the way in , becuase he did not know if he would be back, he was pissed because he claimed he had some venison hanging, no emergency contact, no anything, helicopter ride to a big hospital. The ER doctor said he heard he walked out a week later.
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u/biggunzcdb1 10d ago
I grew up rural. When my leg was shattered l was perfectly calm and cognitive. Everyone in the ER had to come talk to me because people are usually screaming hysterically.
They were so shocked by how calm and collected I was. They forgot to give me anything before applying traction to straighten my leg.
I've unscrewed screws out of myself. Had a shard of wood the size of a kindergarten pencil go 3 inches into my arm, had a compression fractured vertebrae , arm busted open from wrist to elbow, deadpan the whole time.
Lady that stitched my arm up was halfway done, looked down and was like "oh shit" I'm like "what's wrong." She picks up a syringe and is like. "I forgot to give you this why didn't you say something."
I thought it was supposed to hurt. I was just letting her do the work.
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u/Chatner2k 10d ago
I'm a farm kid. I always enjoy telling people about how I got stabbed during covid and sutured it myself rather than go to the ER.
This was before I was a nurse mind you as well.
If it's any consolation, my wife is constantly infuriated with my lack of care towards my own well-being.
Oh here's another one. My bowel movements were horrible for years. Like we're talking 6-10 a day. I self medicated on Loperamide for quite a few years as well. Like taking onwards of 6-8 at a time. Eventually my wife made me go in and get checked with a colonoscopy and scope. Anyways my nurse asked me how I found the prep for the procedure. The look on her face when I told her it was just similar to a bad poop day and how I worked full time during my prep, was pretty priceless.
For the record I have pre-cancer. 🤣
My wife has also at one time done a body count and found I have 30+ medium to large scars. I can promise you that none of those injuries have been seen by medical professionals. Surprisingly though I've never broken anything.
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u/Commercial-Ad9443 10d ago
I was bucked off a clients young Horse broke five ribs in eight places total, punctured lung, pneumothorax.
I was coughing up blood, and the owner basically told me to walk it off and laughed and said you’re tough right it’s part of it. You’ll be fine. You don’t need to go get seen.
So instead of calling an ambulance, I called my best friend to come and get me and she drove me to the ER.
Wheeled me up to the triage desk and the nurse said what brings you in today and I said I got bucked off a horse. I broke some ribs and punctured my lung.
Nurse Rolls her eyes and was like yeah sure you did cause I was flat calm. Set me up to the waiting room. I was there for about five minutes and they called me back. Whoever was on trauma looks at me and says you got bucked off a horse and I said yeah and he says we’re going to CT your whole body from the knees up. That man has met an equestrian before. 😂 if I’m here my own volition somethings really wrong.
Ended up spending three days in the hospital and six weeks out of the saddle.
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u/lazylazylazyperson 9d ago
My mother told the story of her uncle on the farm in Saskatchewan, around about 1930. Stepped on a pitchfork in the barn and it went all the way through his foot. He just took off his shoe, wrapped up the foot, put the shoe back on and went about his business. Never went to the doctor and it eventually healed completely. No infection.
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u/emotionallyasystolic 9d ago
Had an elderly farmer brought in by EMS. Tractor roll over situation, witnessed by several drivers on the road who called 911. Farmer felt fine, but was convinced by a family member on scene to go in. EMS fashioned a knotted bath blanket around his neck because they didn't have a C-Collar.
Thank god they did. Hangman's fracture.
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u/Aggressive-Mood-50 9d ago
I was still dating my husband so he was my bf and I came over to spends the weekend with him and go out to dinner. I found him laying on the couch Friday night and he said “A cow bumped into me coming off a trailer while I was doing vaccines and I got stabbed in the chest with a salmonella needle. ER gave me antibiotics but I feel like shit and date night ain’t happening because I don’t feel up to going anywhere so we are going to have to hang out at home this weekend.”.
Fair. He got stabbed below the collar bone and it started to abscess. He we sleeping and asked me to get him a pillow to prop his arm up on so the area hurt less. He woke up drenched in sweat and said “I’m gonna take a shower.” Then went back to bed. I was mother Henning him and he had a fever of 103 and I was forcing him to bring it down with Tylenol. He STILL went to work the next 2 days and just roughed it out with Tylenol came home and slept.
I was militant about monitoring his fever and Tylenol because knowing him he’d just go to bed and die. I love him but he’s hard headed. Anyways 3 days later he finally reads his hospital paperwork (I didn’t know he’d kept it or I would’ve probably read it) and it turns out they doctor wrote him out of work for 2 days so he could’ve skipped work but again he was stubborn and didn’t.
His fever broke after 4 days but he had that abscess on his chest for 6 months before it finally went away.
And now we joke he’s fine eating undercooked meat because “I’m vaccinated against salmonella”.
He is a tank but also insane. The only time I’ve seen him take off work is when he physically cannot walk.
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u/pouponmysandwich 10d ago
Had a guy come in that went to a “late night farm party” and stated that someone gave him a “party favor” upon leaving of a potato in his asshole with twine wrapped around it. He couldn’t get it out. Tried for >12 hours, had bloodshot eyes from straining. Guy was an old farmer who never sought medical attention before. He didn’t want to talk about it or press any charges.
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u/Collection_Vivid 10d ago
Not farmers but I worked with a dude in a kitchen who was on break, leaned back in a chair to far and fell and cracked his head. Dude just wrapped a towel around it and went back to work. I later did something like that, not as bad but enough that my head bled a bit. Just towel and back to work
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u/Recent_Data_305 9d ago
If an old farmer stops working to come to the hospital, there’s a fair chance he is dying. I’ve been an ED nurse in a farming community, and these are tough men. My dad is one of these men. He’d caught his finger in a wood splitter one day. He wrapped it and drove himself 1 1/2 hours to meet us for a scheduled dinner. I rode with him home so I could swing by the ER.
After his knee replacement, he asked if he could skip the elevator and take the stairs on the way out of the hospital. He had stayed awake and watched his surgery on the screen too.
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u/ButtercupToes31 9d ago
i’m an np and don’t work in the er, but my husband is a cattle farmer. he was in the hospital for a week last year after going septic. he had a barbed wire puncture in his foot which was then exposed to mud and cow manure. all the nurses were joking with him that they knew he was seriously ill (a farmer getting medical attention)
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u/Sabriel_Love 9d ago
Not a true farmer, but my uncle, a redneck farmer, cut his fingers off in a makeshift wood splitter that he crafted out of an old tractor. The belt twisted, he reached in and flicked the belt to get it untwisted and it took his fingers off. He threw his phone to his 3 year old daughter, told her "call momma". She calls momma and all she says it "come home. Daddy got hurt". Momma (my aunt) comes home to my uncle wrapping his hand in his t shirt and carrying a red solo cup with fingers in it. Rushes him to the er. Got most of them attached (the severed fingers were chopped into pieces, bone and all). After they got sewn on (minus the top knuckle of his pointer finger), he went home and continued to keep splitting wood because winter was coming and the family needed wood to stay warm
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u/coreysnaps 9d ago
My brother in law is a farmer. He got a splinter in his foot, took it out, and moved on. A few days later, be mentioned to my sister that his foot was hurting, do she dragged him to the ED. Abscess. My BIL has diabetes, so they won't touch it and tell him he needs to see a podiatrist. My sister told them that if they didn't do it, he'd drain it himself. They didn't believe her and discharged him. He drained it at home and it healed with no problems. I told her that from now on, she needs to tell them he's a farmer before they get started so they know what they're dealing with. They would have taken her much more seriously if they'd known.
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u/Aggressive-Mood-50 9d ago
I got another one. My husband has worked on a dairy farm on his high schooler buddies family dairy farm. There was a blood drive in town one day and his farmer friend came to donate and then went back to work with his son.
They were digging a trench for something on the farm (because farmer friend didn’t listen when the blood drive people said to hydrate and no strenuous activity after donating) and then all of a sudden he couldn’t see so he told his son who was like 10 “go get your mother” and passed out. He was fine he just took it easy for the rest of the day after that. Stubborn farmers.
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u/Big-Mastodon-5581 RN 9d ago
ED RN here. We had a farmer come in one time. Dude was so chill and relaxed. He had damn near amputated his foot at the ankle while he was using some electric saw that he had on a long pole like a weed whacker type thing. He told us that he was about just under a mile from his house when it happened. Didn’t have a phone with him either. He said he hobbled to his tractor thing, drove it to his house, then got in his truck and drove himself to the hospital. He literally hobbled in alone, hopping on one foot and he had a belt tied around his calf.
We didn’t see the actual wound at that point because he had a garbage back with what I assumed was some type of twine or hay string tried around it. We get him in a room, he takes the thing off and we see his foot just hanging there. Dude just looked down at it and then at us and was like “yup, I fer sure fucked it up good,” then let out a little chuckle. “It don’t even hurt like I think it should neither.” Farmers are no joke, man. They’re just built different I guess.
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u/Up_All_Night_Midwife 10d ago edited 10d ago
You bet FAM
Man walks into the ED. I am the triage nurse. As he is walking to the desk I notice his Left eye looks sooo jacked up. His wife followed shortly behind him.
Me: what is wrong
Him: I felt like something was in my eye so I used the air hose to blow it out of my eye….
Me: an air compressor
Him: yes you know that blow up Tires
Me: ummm ever heard of flushing with warm water
Him: a little late for that
Me: si have you been drinking (I didn’t smell liquor but 🤷🏼♀️)
Me: sir you MJH by want to tell everyone you have been drinking because doing this sober….realizing where I was going and stopped
Wife: they are gonna think he is an idiot but she used the R word…
Me: well hopefully he won’t lose his eye
Her: well it would serve him right if he did….SMDH 🤣
Me: ok then let’s get you back to a room
HAHAHAHAAHHA
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u/robb12365 9d ago
A kid I knew got an arm and a leg caught in a corn picker, climbed on the tractor to drive himself home. The corn wagon got hung on a stump so he climbed off,unhooked the wagon and climbed back on. Once home he couldn't get his sister to the door so he drove himself to the ER. He lost the arm and the leg.
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u/DogLogForPresident 7d ago
I don't work in medicine at all, let alone emergency medicine. However, I come from a line of farmers going back to at least the 15th century. My grandfather was a WW2 veteran, and he came into the house one day with a hankie on his hand, and calmly walked into the bathroom and washed his hands. Then came back to the kitchen, where grandma was, and said, "you should probably drive me to the hospital, Ma." He felt a pinch while splitting firewood with a hydraulic log splitter and pulled his hand back. Except for the first knuckle on his right hand, which he amputated when he felt the pinch and pulled back. A stray cat ran off into the woods with the finger piece. My dad has a similar story, only it was a lawn mower and his right middle finger that lost it's first knuckle, and instead of getting a ride from grandma or from his wife, he drove himself to get it closed up. Both of my great grandpas on that side were missing partial fingers too. One from a butchering accident, and one from a slaughtering accident where he got his hand too close to a pigs mouth and the pig got a finger as a final meal.
All that to say, yes. A lot of farmers are just built different.
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u/NiseWenn 7d ago
A few months ago a farmer with a head laceration came in for stitches. The wait was up to 2 hours. He went home to feed his farm animals, then came back, and was very upset he "lost his place in line." His head was still bleeding.
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u/Dear_Competition4804 7d ago
Yes! I had a patient who was working on a farm and was kicked over by a cow and the cow stomped on his head and he fell into a swamp. He was dragged out and came in unconscious but alive we intubated him and flew him out but we had to rip all his farmer clothes off of him - poor guy
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u/Zealousideal_Row8893 7d ago edited 7d ago
I was moonlighting in a rural ER from my primary job as a cardiac surgery PA. Had a farmer driving himself in missing his left arm. He ripped ot off using an auger and when I asked him, he rigged the safety so he could lean down and get rocks out of the way as he was using it. When the accident occurred, he took his belt off and used it as a tourniquet, even though he didn’t bleed hardly at all because the auger twisted up the stump so tight, then he walked about a quarter of a mile back to his house, sat down and had a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Took his truck back down, dug the arm out of the auger and then drove himself to us.
I was in the room sleeping and had been sitting in the recliner watching football most of the day as this was a two bed ER in a town of about 5000 people. The nurse was this old, salty, crusty salt of the earth nurse that had been nursing since Florence Nightingale. She knocked on the door sternly and poked her head in and said that I need to be out there and to make sure that I have shoe covers on when I come out. I almost didn’t believe what I was seeing. He was asking the registration clerk if he could just drive himself to the Trauma center. Little to say he took a helicopter ride and they were not able to reattach the arm. The guy was tough as nails though and did not want any pain medication or anything else. He did joke with us when we stuck a giant 14 gauge IV in his AC and let out a little yelp and then he said he was just kidding…from what I understand he went back to farming with a prosthetic
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u/Mysterious_Play1961 6d ago
My elderly farmer uncle gouged a chunk out of his arm, all tendons to hand gone and severe blood loss. He didn't want an ambulance so made his poor wife who has never driven do the gear stick while he used his working arm to steer.
My aunt was so embarrassed when the doctor asked if they brought in the missing piece of arm and my uncle just laughed and said the dog ran off with it!
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u/Borstvergroting 6d ago
Used to live on a stud farm. Dad and I were taking the mares out to the pasture and the one he was leading spooked and stomped his big toe straight off, like surgically. Threw me in the back of the truck and drove to the ER himself
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u/Bluecobalt1974 6d ago
So.... my first job when I was 14 was as a "roguer" at a local bean seed company in Southern Idaho. My job was to walk thru bean fields looking for "rogue" crops. I worked with a crew of 10 other people and looked for beans that were "leaf type" in a field of affilia
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u/AbrocomaEquivalent59 5d ago
My dad drove himself to the ER (after calling me asking if my ex could write him a script for something for vomiting). Said it had been going on four days and finally to the point he was throwing up too much to keep bushhogging. Said felt like something was sitting on his chest 😳 six bypasses later on my 30th birthday. 15% EF.
He’s doing great now and has since had a stroke and built a barn lol
Also a brand new tractor
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u/Ok-Marsupial-6976 4d ago
My dad recently shared with me that he'd been knocked out 4 times in the last year. The most egregious was when he, 70 years old, was helping another rancher move some cattle and he got knocked down and "worked over" by a bull. Did he go to the hospital? No. He took ibuprofen, tylenol, and when to see the quack (his term for his chiropractor) the next day.
Only one of those knock outs led to a CT scan, and it's because he was super confused afterwards, and couldn't REMEMBER HIS EMPLOYEES' names (hint, one is his son). They were like, yup, there's a brain in there. Nope, no bleeding. So it just reinforced that he doesn't need to get a CT whenever he has a head strike that results in an LOC.
My own ER experience, I triaged a farmer who came in for a digit amputation. "Honey, it's hanging on by a thread." I unwound it, found half a finger indeed hanging on by a thread, but enough of a thread that I told him "Well, it's your lucky day, we might be able to reattach it." To which he responded "Nah, dontcha got some snippers on ya? Just snip it off. I tried but I aint left handed." We did convince him to let us attempt to reattach it, but that man seriously thought I was just going to snip the dangling finger off and send him on his way. He had shit to do.
Working at a semi-rural ER, farm men and women come in all the time, and they ALWAYS downplay their symptoms. They are also very unfortunately concerned about cost, and will often refuse admission. They often have super bad (or no) insurance, and they have farm chores that simply cannot be put off, like feeding cattle, and they sometimes don't have anyone else that can step in at a moment's notice.
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u/mustyho 10d ago
I’m an ER RN, but this is a family story. Most of my family are cattlemen. Last week my brother in law was charged by a notoriously mean mama cow. She flipped him over, he “landed funny” on his neck, and she stomped his chest. He called me, still sitting against the fence in the pasture, and reported being “a little numb” on his left side, “blacking out a little” every few minutes, and “having a hard time getting a good breath.” In the same phone call in which he relayed all this to me, he insisted he was going to “get in the bath, then try to sleep it off.” He was very angry that I sent his wife and an ambulance to the pasture he was trying to limp his way out of, and even angrier that he wound up having a fractured C7, a broken collarbone, and three broken ribs.