Monday, September 15, 2008

Crazy enough to be true?

Let's put this one to a vote!

I met "S" at a party Sassy Pants had a couple of weeks ago, and she told me about the following email.

We were pretty divided as to whether or not this guy's story holds water! On the one hand, it's pretty far-fetched. On the other hand, there are just enough details to make it believable. On the third hand "S" tried to find the hospital where this guy 'worked' and couldn't find anything... Mucho Suspicioso.

Well, it certainly is the most inventive excuse I've ever heard, in any case! Shall we vote? Who thinks this story is legit? Who thinks this guy has pants on fire?




Hello S,

Let me begin by apologizing to you for failing to communicate for
almost 2 weeks. I want you to know that I'm extremely interested in
you and I hope I haven't jeopardized my chances of getting to know
you. The thing is, I feel so fortunate in many areas of my life, but I
just seem to have rotten luck when it comes to developing a meaningful
relationship.
I'm so very sorry, S. I was quite unable to talk to you for the last
many days. I was literally put out of commission all this time and I
was in no condition to send you an e-mail. I've had the most horrible
last couple of weeks. On Saturday, Oct 5th, I was working a night
shift at M Hospital. I was covering for a coworker that night. So, for
the first couple of hours I was to sterilize a huge volume of surgical
instruments by hand that had come out of the various surgeries that
evening.

The surgical instruments come to us quite bloody, with strips of
tissues and bone fragments and we need to make sure that the
instruments are 100% clean and sterilized for the next surgery. The
process is quite safe since everyone is adequately trained, everybody
generally abide by the rules and take necessary precautions.
Furthermore, the surgical techs who are in the operating room during
the various surgeries are supposed to be conscientious in making sure
that there are no disposable scalpel blades, syringes or needles left
in the sterile trays after the surgery and that all of the tools and
instrumentation are accounted for.

Well, on the night of Oct 5th, it so happened that one of the trays
that I was sterilizing had both a scalpel Blade and a syringe with
needle in it. Talk about double whammy. I can assure you that the
surgical blades are extremely sharp and I was extremely luck to not
have sliced my finger(s) in two while picking up tools from the tray.
But, instead I got pricked (deeply) by the stray syringe that was in
the tray. To make matters worse, I accidentally pushed on the
syringe's plunger when trying to quickly pull the needle out of my
hand. So, some of the contents of the syringe (a fairly concentrated
neurotoxin) was pushed into my system. I don't remember what happened
after that. One of my coworkers found me lying unconscious on the
floor and I remember waking up in a hospital bed at M Hospital (I was
told it was Monday afternoon).

I feel like I'm very lucky to be alive thanks to the hospital staff
responding so quickly and containing the spread of the toxin before it
had a chance to paralyze some vital organs. But, I did become very
sick & had a major inflammatory response from the exposure to that
substance. They ran a great number of tests on me to make sure that
there would be no other complications from the needle prick and I
stayed in the hospital for over a week before I was able to move with
ease.

I was discharged on Monday evening and I stayed in bed yesterday and
today. I slept all day today, but I'm so wide awake at the moment. I
checked my e-mail and I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry. By the way,
It has taken me almost 2 hours to write this letter (a bit slower
today than usual). But, I think I'll be returning back to school
tomorrow. S, I've missed so much of my classes and I know I'm going to
be so behind with my studies. I'm praying for another miracle at the
moment.

Well, I'll try to respond to your previous e-mails this weekend. I
just wanted to tell you that I'm still interested in getting to know
you. In the meantime, I hope that you're doing okay and are enjoying
yourself. I really missed talking to you, S.

- P

3 comments:

jt said...

I call bullshit on this one.

arf said...

I work with scalpel blades (although I'm not a doctor) and I've picked them up improperly without cutting myself. (Note: I do not recommend this to ANYONE at any time. They are extremely sharp.)

I call bullshit on this too. Two weeks is not so long that he couldn't have just said, "I got slammed at work and with school, and I'm sorry but I would love to meet up with you sometime."

Or something that isn't, "I idiotically injected myself in the finger with neurotoxin and incapacitated myself for two weeks."

At least he gets points for creativity.

StephanieC said...

Yeah, my BS meter was beeping!