Speaker
Lucy
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1 episodes
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1
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Lucy the ER nurse estimated she has seen between 20 and 30 rectal foreign body cases in her 12-year career.
Lucy's 80-year-old patient had inserted a piece of wooden banister described as 6 inches wide and 8 inches long into his rectum.
The ER doctor had to go fully elbow-deep to retrieve the wooden banister piece from the 80-year-old patient after failing on the first attempt.
The 80-year-old widower waited approximately two days after inserting the object before calling 911, likely hoping it would resolve on its own.
Lucy noted that rectal foreign body cases often arrive in clusters, with multiple presenting in close succession for reasons she cannot explain.
Lucy observed that young patients typically insert commercially made sex toys, while every case involving dangerous materials like wood or glass has been a patient over 65.
John's 2013 patient lied through the whole first visit, but a CT scan revealed three bratwursts. That already led to surgery. Then John's colleague at another hospital recognized the same man had been there too. His final visit — a toothbrush holder that killed part of his bowel — cost him a permanent colostomy.
Randy responded to a 911 call from a 14-year-old boy who had inserted a Super Soaker water gun — barrel, tank and hose — into his rectum. The boy called without his mother's knowledge, hoping the paramedics could quietly remove it. They couldn't, took him to hospital, and mom found out anyway.
When John revealed a patient escalated from one bratwurst to three, Dax immediately connected it to his own addictive thinking. The same logic — 'one felt great so two must be better' — applies whether the subject is pills or sausages. It's a surprisingly honest window into how escalation works.
John saved his most disturbing story for last: a patient who identified as a cat and wanted to experience what it felt like to give birth to kittens — with three actual live kittens. She died of sepsis after keeping them for days. Dax's only ethical line: you cannot involve other animals.
An 80-year-old man whose wife had recently died waited two days before calling an ambulance about a large wooden banister piece in his rectum. The ER doctor went elbow-deep to remove it. The object was unsanded and bloodied, roughly the shape of a chess bishop — but enormous.
After the extraction, Lucy left the wooden object in a specimen bag on the counter. Minutes later, the patient's unsuspecting nephew arrived. Lucy physically stood against the bag, hiding it with her body, told the nephew she had 'absolutely no idea' what was causing the pain, then slid out and dropped the evidence in the trash.
Josie's patient arrived with multiple razor blades inserted vaginally and her labia super-glued shut — unable to urinate. She needed emergency OR surgery under general anesthesia. Then, minutes before discharge, she revealed she'd hidden more razor blades inside a binder cover and swallowed one. She had Munchausen's syndrome.
Munchausen's patients aren't treated like typical self-harm cases. The psychiatrist's protocol: no inpatient psych, minimal interaction, don't get emotional, don't help with daily living, and don't even tell her she's on a camera. Every instinct a nurse has is the wrong move. The goal is to make hospital care as unrewarding as possible.
John gives Dax almost nothing to work with: a green wall, a ceiling, and his own face. Dax calls Ohio. He's right. Neither he nor Monica can fully explain it, though Dax suspects years of traveling for car shows and film work trained his eye for subtle regional cues.
John has learned to open foreign-body conversations by telling patients he doesn't care what's up there — he just needs the truth to act faster. The bratwurst patient's denial cost him an extra CT scan, sedation, and surgery. Honesty isn't about shame; it's about saving your bowel.
Randy retired from a 35-year paramedic career and figured out the secret fast: own a house that needs work, take up golf, and stay relentlessly busy. If your muscles aren't needed, they simply go away — and so does your sense of purpose.
Every story in the episode converges on the same demographic: older men, often with wives away or deceased, finally acting on long-suppressed curiosity. Younger patients use proper sex toys; every case involving glass, wood, or other dangerous materials has been someone over 65 who didn't know — or couldn't admit — there were safer options.
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