Emergency! by MD Mark Brown Page B

and forth like a dog with a rag. In a frenzy of pain and terror, the man grabbed his dinner fork and began hacking at her head until the seizure stopped and she relaxed.
    RANDAL P. DEFELICE, M.D.
    Spokane, Washington
    

PICTURE PERFECT
    O ne Friday night the paramedics brought in an unconscious woman from a terrible car crash. We feared the worst and began searching her purse for the next of kin. While cataloging her personal items, we discovered a stack of pictures featuring the woman and a man in various revealing poses, costumes, and acts. The staff loved them and swapped them around like baseball cards. The secretary came back and said that the woman’s husband was at the desk asking for information. Wanting to get these embarrassing pictures out of circulation, I gathered them together, put them in the woman’s purse, and told the secretary to give it to the husband. I would be out to talk with him in a moment.
    I went out to see him, expecting to recognize him on sight from his photo spread. The husband, however, was not the man in the photos.
    I told him that his wife’s condition was critical and that she would need to be in the intensive care unit. He listened intently, clutching the unopened purse. At this time the husband’s friend came in from parking the car. I immediately recognized him from the photos.
    I left them there, these two friends, and returned to care for the woman. She was admitted to the ICU and soon recovered and went home. I don’t know what happened to her marriage.
    As for me, I finally understood why my mom told me always to wear clean underwear.
    NAME WITHHELD AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR

GOOD FELLOW
    I n the great state of Texas there lives a nasty little poisonous asp called the coral snake. It has three bands of color for easy identification: red, yellow, and black. In the same area lives a copycat snake hoping to garner respect from predators by looking like the coral snake, but the copycat snake has not one whit of venom. Its bands are also red, yellow, and black, but in a different sequence. Texans, a crafty lot, have developed a little rhyme concerning these bands of color to help them distinguish the poisonous snake from the harmless one.
    Red on yellow, kill a fellow.
    Red on black, venom lack.
    A man soon to be our patient, his wife, and their two children were out on a picnic. The kids discovered a multibanded snake and excitedly called the parents over. The snake was about eighteen inches long and banded alternately red, yellow, black, yellow. Mom dutifully recited her best recollection of the poem: “Red on yellow makes a good fellow!” So Dad, not in the habit of disagreeing with his wife, picked up the Texas coral snake to show his kids proper snake handling. The coral snake, although normally quite timid, was alarmed at this intrusion and chomped Dad between the thumb and forefinger. Dad screamed but had the presence of mind to drop the snake into an empty ice chest and bring it with him to the emergency room.
    Dad did well with only a swollen and painful hand to show for histrust. Mom seemed a bit sheepish and the kids were alert but quiet. The emergency room staff was thrilled to have a visit from Mr. Snake and put him on show-and-tell in a plastic canister for the day before releasing him to the care of the forest service.
    Red on yellow can take a life
    Despite a well-intentioned wife.
    BILL DAVIS, R.N.
    Austin, Texas
  

PLEASE TAKE A NUMBER
    I t was our usual busy summer Saturday evening in the Emergency Department. Accident victims, strapped down to backboards with neck collars in place, lined the halls. A young male accident victim was being comforted by a fiftyish woman who spoke soothingly to him as she stroked his cheek and kissed his forehead. The young man looked rather anxious but lay quietly immobilized.
    Before long the woman began complaining about the wait for attention. A nurse patiently explained that we were very