“She has swallowed a straw, croc charms, forks, a pen, an expo marker, flip-flop, and the handle of a fork.”

One user rightfully made the point that even if the reason sounds silly, if you think you should go the emergency department at a hospital, then definitely go!

"There are times when the patient themselves insists they don't need to be in the ED, and that nothing is wrong with them, yet it turns out they tried to throw themselves into traffic immediately beforehand.

There are times when people have been to eight doctors ten times in the last month for the same complaint, and have been told either it's nothing or that it is something that will take time to diagnose, with no clear immediate solution. Yet they are back in the ED because they want 'answers' they haven't received so far. And yet a small percentage of those people actually do have something serious that has been missed.

So, in my years in the ED, I have come to believe, and to teach, that there is no such thing as a ridiculous reason to come to the ED. If you're worried, and you want an evaluation, and you don't mind a wait or a hallway bed, we're open 24/7.

What's ridiculous is patients who come to the ED and have expectations completely out of proportion to the purpose of an ED, and who, even once our abilities and recommendations are explained, choose to be hostile or even violent towards our staff. That's ridiculous."

"He said that he had eaten the sandwich from there twice in the last month and both times he got sick (stomach ache, nausea). He was convinced the store was poisoning his food. So he went back and bought another sandwich as 'evidence'. To be clear, he was not sick that day; he had last eaten the sandwich days before.

I tried to explain to him that we are not a CSI lab and cannot test miscellaneous objects for poison, and there’s not much we can do for him if he isn’t sick today. He insisted on getting triaged anyway. He waited hours for a doctor to tell him the same thing, and that if the same sandwich keeps making him sick, then he should probably just not eat that sandwich. He stormed out, cursing at all of us.

Edit: He had no other signs of mental illness, and you can’t force someone to get a psych eval just because they believe something weird."

"The dog snapped at him and missed. He felt that warranted an ER visit."

"Patient is late preterm and an OR nurse at our hospital. She comes to L&D saying she’s bleeding. We immediately take her back, go into a triage room.

Ask her the other emergency questions and she responds negatively. I ask how much she’s been bleeding. She says quite a bit but it seems to be slowing down. I ask her to undress from the waist down and give her a pad to sit on. The patient looks confused and says, 'why do I have to do that?' I explain to her it’s to see how much bleeding is on the pad and she finally says, 'I’m not bleeding from ‘down there!’ It’s my nose. Here’s all my tissues.'

She then pulls out a few tissues with spots of blood on them and I’m literally standing there trying not to laugh my butt off that this girl came to L&D triage for a nose bleed. The worst part was that she was also a nurse!!!"

"Pennsylvania in the 80s. Back in the 1900s even a small child could buy a black market reptile at a flea market."

"2) They had a wooden fence post that they had whittled into an oversized wooden dildo.... It got stuck. The doctor they wanted to take out was on vacation.... They decided they would come back in a week to get it out. They left AMA and came back in a week."

"'I was at the hospital last night and forgot my wallet so I want a ride back to pick it up'

'I was diagnosed with strep yesterday and my throat still hurts'

'I was diagnosed with pneumonia, haven't started my antibiotics, and I'm still sick'

'I've had gastro for three hours and still feel sick'.

"He came up to triage saying he needed to see a doctor because he had 'multiple lawsuits' in the works and needed to show his lawyer that a doctor had seen him. He said he didn't even need an examination, just a paper saying a doctor had seen him. It was explained that he'd probably be waiting 8+ hours and would need an actual medical issue. He asked if a doctor could pop out to the waiting room and quickly just chat with him. We said no. He agreed to wait, then left after 15 minutes."

Additional thumbnail credits: Ajr_images / Getty Images/iStockphoto