“Meat Crayon”: 57 Things Medical Workers Won’t Do Because They Know Exactly How Bad Things Can Get

My dad is a coroner and family doc. I'm not allowed on motorcycles, ATVs, trampolines, and mopeds. No jumping or parachute-based activities, either. If a vehicle doesn’t have a roof, then I wear a helmet.

I'm in my 30s and still abide by this lol. You can only hear the words "meat crayon" so many times before you're totally turned off from certain activities.

Riding in the passenger seat with your feet up on the dash. If you get into an accident, your femurs will relocate to your pelvis and you DO NOT want that.

ENT doc. E-scooters, especially when people are drunk. I've seen some very bad injuries.

Weird_Bluebird_3293:

ER nurse.

Those e-bikes and E-scooters. 

WEAR A HELMET!!!

Where I live literally nobody wears a helmet when using these stupid things. (Nobody wears helmets. I see people on actual motorcycles buzzing around no helmet like they think their skull is made of iron.) 

We had an 18 year old girl fall off an e-scooter and hit her head on a curb. She was conscious on the scene, deteriorating in the ambulance, [deceased] by the time she arrived at the hospital. And no, it did not take an inordinate amount of time for her to get to the hospital. Less than 10 minutes. 

Massive brain bleed. Because she had no helmet.

Neurosurgeon here. ATVs. Yes they look fun as hell, but people don’t take them seriously. I have seen some horrific traumas from people casually doing 40mph who rolled over without a helmet. Just the other day there was a 22 *month* old head trauma because mom and dad thought it’d be fun to just hold on to her while they were riding.

Motorcycles are bad, but I feel like people at least understand the risks (even if they choose to ignore them). I think ATVs are seen as glorified bumper cars.

I don’t have to be a doctor to know caving, underwater or otherwise (but especially underwater) is right out!

dizzystar:

To be fair, EMTs and doctors aren't involved in these situations. That's straight to the morgue.

My orthopedic surgeon is sponsored by the local trampoline parks.

Biking without a helmet!

I don't care if they don't wear them in Amsterdam. Brain extruded through a skull fracture is not pretty. Decades of emotional instability after a bad TBI is not pretty.

Diving into bodies of water.

Lots of young healthy individuals end up with spinal cord injuries from going head-first into shallow water. Always make sure you know how deep it is before you dive, or just don’t risk it.

I sold my motorcycle when my first child was born.
I don’t let my kids pet unknown dogs, even if they are “nice.”
No young kids outside while operating riding lawnmowers/snowblowers.
Hire a lifeguard for the pool party - most of the pediatric drownings I’ve seen happened while people were home/distracted by hosting friends/family.

DO NOT try to remove matting from your pet with scissors. As mats grow, they tighten and pull skin up into the mat. people think they are just cutting through the mat and end up taking out a huge chunk of skin.


Source: former urgent care vet assistant, now groomer.

Optometrist here. Wouldn’t go anywhere near boxing. Retinal detachment, traumatic cataract, broken orbital bones, corneal abrasions, subconjunctival hemorrhages (burst blood vessels on the white of the eye), plus more. No thank you.

My son’s orthopedic surgeon said skateboarding is funding his retirement.

Peds ICU nurse here! I have a few oddly specific fears-pencils and toothbrushes-please don’t walk around with them in your hand. Or jump on your bed.
I agree on the ATVs. My kids have go-karts with full roll cages and they wear a helmet with them and harness restraints. I don’t care if it’s too hot. All gear. All the time.
Never ever go swimming by yourself.
ALSO-vaccinate. Babies d*e every single year from pertussis. Until you have seen that-I don’t want to hear about your anti-vaccine b******t. Watching a Momma wail and beg for God to save her baby from a completely preventable disease will haunt your dreams.

If you're ever doing work at your house and think to yourself, "maybe I should hire an electrician for this" you should just hire the electrician.

A lot of the big ones have been covered already so I'll just chime in with one of my own: horseback riding or owning a horse. I've seen people with broken backs from getting bucked off. I've seen people get bit and thrown. I've seen people get kicked in the head, get a skull fracture and end up in ICU. They are beautiful animals but extremely powerful. People underestimate the damage they can do.

Tree trimming yourself. No go!

IBJON:

Yep. A guy I work with was trimming a tree and didn't realize how much tension a branch was under. It snapped halfway through cutting it and smacked in the side of the head hard enough to cause his eye to rupture and shattered his eye socket. He lived, but it [messed] him up real good.

Ophthalmologist here. Never do any kind of metal grinding. The number of metallic foreign bodies I've pulled out of people's eyes, even when they were wearing safety goggles.

And fireworks. Never go anywhere near non-professional ones.

My orthopedic surgeon says he doesn’t have to worry about advertising because cheerleaders keep referring each other to him. Which is exactly how I found him.

BaltimorePropofol:

Cheerleaders, especially the flyers. Physical injury is one thing. But concussion and traumatic brain injury? I cannot stress this enough. What you cannot see can be more dangerous than an actual injury.

My EMT friends told me enough about the base jumping accidents they responded to that you will never get me to test gravity like that.

Never let children ride on lap while mowing grass. 40 years later I vividly remember father carrying his daughter and a bucket. Her foot was in bucket hanging onto her leg by a ligament. I don’t know who was more traumatized. He said she loved riding with him and some how she slipped.