So, in honor of Grumpy, and to show that weird shit really does happen, and to distract myself from a very sore throat, here are...
The Five Weirdest Cases I've Seen So Far
5. A suburban homeowner, after mowing his lawn, comes down with a rare fungal infection in both eyes. The fungus in question is found in the soil, but only rarely in *our* soil.
4. Worms in your brain, worms in your brain. Actin' like a fool with those worms in your brain.
3. That kid who had the drill bit from the oil rig land on him.
2. The poor bastard who had somebody else's trailer hitch fly off their truck and crash through the window of the car in which he was riding (back seat; not driving), pegging him smack in the frontal lobes.
And the number one weirdest case I've seen so far?
This happened so long ago that I'd forgotten about it until I saw Ibee Grumpy's story (I posted a very short version in the comments there):
We admitted a very sweet, quiet young man who'd had some pretty extensive reconstructive surgery and scar revision on his face, neck, chest, arms, and hands.
He'd been driving one morning on a rural road Deep In The Heart. We got a whole lot o' nothin' out here, and where there's a whole lot o' nothin', there's a plethora of roadkill. And where there's roadkill, there are vultures.
Poor guy was zipping along at 70 or 80, humming a happy tune, when he sees a vulture on the road ahead of him. Normally vultures take flight when they see a car coming. This one was late in getting off the ground and so crashed through his windshield and into the guy's upper body and face. The damage came not from broken glass, but from the death throes of the injured vulture. Vultures have big, big claws and beaks.
(You'd think that would be unusual, but really? Not so much. Since then I've met two other people, one of them one of my neighbors, who've had windshields broken by vultures. The difference in this case was that the vulture was apparently heavy enough to break *through* the windshield rather than just sort of sliding off.)
Luckily, he was in a place with remote 911 service and not out of reach of a cell tower. Can you imagine having to explain that to the EMS folks who respond to your call? "No, really, dude. It was a vulture. Right here. See?"
I take it as credit to the unit as a whole that nobody laughed at this. We all just stood there with big, round eyes like saucers and said "....crap."
He told me a couple of days later that the insurance company was kind enough to total his car, given the damage not only to the glass but also to the upholstery and dashboard. "What do you remember about the accident?" I asked. He said, "I remember somehow getting the car to the side of the road, and a lot of blood, and some awful noises. And feathers. In my mouth. Vulture feathers. They don't taste good."
