[Kitsa]

- When I worked in Registration (the early early years), we had to ask every patient if they had a living will. People who actually knew what that was were a minority; most people thought that the hospital was trying to get all their stuff if they died, and that was a pain. But one woman not only knew what it was, she had her living will right there with her. When asked if she had a living will, she ripped her shirt open (a la Superman). There, situated right between her boobs and festooned with floating Lady of Guadalupe images, was a living will, tattooed on her chest in old English font. It was pretty damned weird, but no one's going to miss that when trying to resuscitate her.

-Two boys, neighbors, had gone to the store with Mom and showed a keen interest in cleaning supplies. The mom, none too bright, went along with their requests to buy "The Works" (some sort of cleaning fluid, I gather) and some other chemicals. Once they returned home, the mom went inside to unpack groceries and the boys made off with the cleaning stuff. They were in the midst of playing "bombs" when a container exploded in one boy's face. He was brought in screaming, blinded, with the dumb mom and the other kid, who was scared shitless. It took a long flush and lots of neutralization to get even a little vision restored. The physician on duty was so angry at the general stupidity that as soon as the kid was stable, he stormed into the waiting room, lifted the other kid by the shoulders, and shook him. I've never seen anyone shake a kid like that, but he was doing it, screaming "Are you STUPID?!? He could have gone BLIND! He might STILL go blind!" and stuff like that. It made quite an impression on everyone.

-One kid was a foreign exchange student celebrating the 4th of July with his host family. He lit a firecracker, then a bee landed on him. He got so panicked about the bee and trying to get away from it that he forgot the firecracker he was holding. He lost all the fingers on that hand.

- There was a gang shooting and the victim was dumped in the grassy median of our parking lot. We knew nothing about it until people started coming in to complain about "that bloody guy" on the lawn. He ended up dying, and one policeman went back to get information as another somehow apprehended the car that dumped him. He brought the two guys in and sat them across from my desk, telling them to wait. They were playing innocent and actually did (why did they not run?), and I was left alone with them as the cop rejoined the other cop. And then they started talking to each other and bragging in Spanish about the shootout, did you see how I popped this one, etc. They didn't know I knew Spanish, and I was trying like hell not to let on. I was scared out of my mind and still am. I know nothing.