Sunday, April 22, 2007

Nice Watch

He was about thirty years old when he was admitted to our little community-hospital Intensive Care Unit for chest pain. His enzymes were positive and he did have EKG changes, but he seemed a lot more concerned about making dozens of phone calls to his business associates. Many of the nurses thought he was creepy.

His wristwatch was a very impressive diamond-studded gold Rolex. It was the first of such that I'd ever seen except on the back cover of one of my Miles Davis vinyl recordings.





This guy didn't look anything like Miles though. A little like Dennis Leary with early Justin Timberlake curls.

Like the nurses said: creepy.

Since we didn't have a cardiac catheterization lab at our hospital we routinely transferred such patients to a medical center at the capitol city. A few days after doing so one of our cardiologists told us that the man had refused treatment there and as he was walking out the door, against medical advice, a team of FBI agents and state troopers met him and took him away in handcuffs.

He was a cocaine dealer from one of the Carolinas who had been travelling to Montreal with his female "office assistant" when he was forced by crushing chest pain to enter the system. Said assistant disappeared along with his BMW.

4 comments:

Elena said...

Wow! Amazing how instincts knew something wasn't right with this guy...

Eli Blake said...

Carolina travelling to Montreal, and he ends up in the Valley. Sounds like he might have been sampling some of his own wares.

shrimplate said...

Sorry Eli, I should have made it clear that I was working in northern New York when this happened.

By the way, going from the Carolinas to Montreal via Phoenix... that's how my spouse drives.

Melaina RN, PHN, MS, CNS, ACHPN said...

Sounds like you've seen some interesting patients.