CUMMING, GA – Doctors on Saturday struggled to find out why patient Robert Shaffer lost his hand. Dr. Virginia Sullivan, an intern on the team, told reporters: “We asked Robert what happened, but he just wanted to hit on all the nurses and tell us about motor-cross strategy.”
Mr. Shaffer is not a professional motor-cross driver but does consume large amounts of alcohol. This makes it difficult to get a medical history until he sobers up, and then subsequently survives the inevitable delirium tremens. This risky process could take weeks, so the medical team elected to give him Miller Lite, which is the hospital’s beer on formula.
This plan actually backfired, and Robert continued his “celebration of ‘merica,” refusing to cooperate with doctors. Nurses and other patients complained of his “Woooooh’s” and “Yeaaah’s.” “We often give alcoholics beer because they will drink as soon as they leave the hospital. Having a patient sober up and stay here for months, just to have them return to alcohol is not practical,” Dr. Sullivan stated. “Unfortunately with Robert, he just continued to party.”
Dr. Sullivan had never written for beer until today when she wrote down, “Beer PRN.” When Mr. Shaffer ask for another one beer, the pharmacy would send it down. “We just couldn’t figure out what was going on.” Dr. Heather Bloomquist, the attending physician on the team, told reporters, “Finally when I opened his door and pushed a pile of empties I took the chart away looking for a solution.”
After Dr. Bloomquist discovered the error, she could then find the cause of his accident. During the Fourth of July, Mr. Shaffer and friends were celebrating our country’s birthday by blowing things up. It got a little out of “hand” when they made a homemade bomb full of M80s, gasoline, and some other unknown explosives. Robert then lost his hand while igniting it.
When asked by reporters at the discharge interview if he regretted his actions that landed him in the hospital he responded: “Are you kidding me? That was the best Fourth of July party in years, when I was able to after-party at the hospital for 3 days! Totally worth it.”
