Friday, May 30, 2014

Science

In the ER world, gravity + beer is a very bad thing. It inevitably starts with the famous "here, hold my beer" statement and is quickly followed by a brutal demolition of both ego and intact anatomy. I'm pretty sure Newton even started formulating his equations after witnessing some drunk guy holding an apple while on a horse go, "Hey guys! Watch this!"

These unfortunate people are most always surrounded by a group of people who either gasp in horror or point fingers and laugh. Sometimes, the act of Spectacular Fail is even recorded on video for posterity. Which helps me out in the ER, when my patient comes in with a broken arm and has a perfect rebuttal for the question of "Oh my God! HOW did you DO that?!"

Fortunately, there is no shortage of beer in this world and no shortage of stupid people willing to hand over said beer to try something dumb.

Take, for example, this girl:


Close analysis of the picture reveals a few things: a hill in the background, a bike, a bike wheel at an odd angle against a piling, and a bike rider with a face accelerating towards the dock at 9.8m/s^2. Fortunately, she's wearing an alcohol helmet and flip flops. Because safety first, you guys.

I can only imagine the shame that was felt by this girl after this accident. Wait. I don't have to imagine it...

Because I'm that girl.

Science. Helping drunk people make a fool of themselves since the Neolithic Era.



10 comments:

Lisa said...

OMG! What did you do?

jon spencer said...

Lots of foam padding on the bike though.
Don't see it anywhere else. Or was that floatation for the bike?

One of my better plants was when I caught the right side petal on a guardrail post. Landed mostly in the grass so there was a minimum amount of picking gravel out of the skin.
There were no cameras around, thankfully.

Jono said...

Hope you had a good pair of tweezers.

Kat said...

Hahahaha!! Glad you're okay and lives to tell the tale :-)

Anonymous said...


............3...Nice..^_^v................

Aesop said...

I give that one an 6 for difficulty, 10 for presentation, so 8 overall.

But my Russian colleague is giving you a 5.

And for the record, the correct emergency medical diagnosis:
Failure To Fly.

If there's a YouTube video with sound, actual cash prize awards could be in the offing.
Bonus points for supporting your profession.

L said...

@Aesop - there IS a video! I would have posted it here, because it's hilarious, but my face is front and center for some of it. If I ever drop the illusion of anonymity on this blog, you'd better believe that video is the first thing going up here.

Aesop said...

There's plenty of video editing software to pixelate your face.

Until you take advantage of it, we'll just have to take your word for it.

And anyway, if you're going to drink and drive bicycles onto/into/off of piers, you should probably be taking a Halloween mask to those parties in the first place, right?
And a helmet.
And crash pads.
And a certified flotation device.
And a GoPro Hero for the POV shot.

But in all honestly, the still shot alone is epic.

Gotta ask though: was this a park day with co-workers, and if so, is there anything worse than becoming the patient with the people who work with you?

I was at an after-event dinner, and witnessed 20 EMTS and nurses chasing a colleague to the door who was choking on a piece of chicken and realized they were all about to jump him and start Heimliching him. He horked it up at the door of the restaurant, held it out to them, and croaked out "There! I'm fine! Back off!"
Sadly before YouTube, because it was comedy gold. Not as good as yours though.

Orfyn said...

When I was just out of the service and going to nursing school one of my summer gigs was as an EMT at a shore town with a boardwalk. At the time, three to four inch platforms with eight inch heels were all the rage. It was a daily thing to remove some young lady with a broken wrist/ankle from the boardwalk

Cartoon Characters said...

Oh well, as long as you were wearing sunscreen....