From pierce@dtm-corp.com Fri Oct 6 16:54:20 1995 Status: RO X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil] ["2322" "Fri" "6" "October" "1995" "16:00:14" "-0500" "pierce@dtm-corp.com" "pierce@dtm-corp.com" "<9510062100.AA08722@arabian.dtm-corp.com>" "49" "Gross story follows" "^From:" nil nil "10" nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: from oak.zilker.net (root@oak.zilker.net [198.252.182.129]) by cloyd.cs.cornell.edu (8.6.10/M1.8) with ESMTP id QAA18603 for ; Fri, 6 Oct 1995 16:54:18 -0400 Received: from azizia.dtm-corp.com by oak.zilker.net (8.6.10/zilker.1.97) id PAA12214; Fri, 6 Oct 1995 15:51:33 -0500 Received: from arabian.dtm-corp.com by azizia.dtm-corp.com (5.0/dtm-corp.1.1) id AA27806; Fri, 6 Oct 1995 15:47:07 -0500 Received: by arabian.dtm-corp.com (5.65/1.35) id AA08722; Fri, 6 Oct 95 16:00:14 -0500 Message-Id: <9510062100.AA08722@arabian.dtm-corp.com> content-length: 2322 From: pierce@dtm-corp.com (pierce) To: jim@arabian.dtm-corp.com, frank@cs.cornell.edu, golden@cs.uno.edu, doug@d2.com, martin.hajovsky@chron.com Subject: Gross story follows Date: Fri, 6 Oct 95 16:00:14 -0500 OK guys, this one is *REALLY BAD*, so you were warned. This is the winning entry in a contest sponsored by Yoyodyne (http://www.yoyo.com). You send in your answer to the following question: "How did the worst thing you've ever tasted get in your mouth"? AND THE WINNER IS: I was a junior doctor working in a small hospital in England and as such was condemned to several years of very long working hours during which time I seldom left the hospital. On one lonely night on-call I was paged urgently to the gastroenterology ward where a woman, Mrs B, had collapsed. On arrival it was clear that the an elderly rather obese woman had suffered a cardiac arrest. I immediately started cardiopulmonary resuscitation. As no endotracheal tube was immediately available, I sent a nurse urgently to find one whilst I began mouth to mouth resuscitation. I was unaware at the time that the woman suffered from intestinal obstruction, a common but dangerous complaint. When the intestine becomes blocked then all food subsequently eaten, and all intestinal secretions such as bile, acid, enzymes and mucus dam up behind the blockage and stagnate or ferment. At some point the build up of putrid fluid becomes too great and something has to give. It was just after I had taken my third breath and was begining to blow necessary air into the lungs of Mrs B for the fourth time when the dam broke. Two weeks worth of purulent faeculent vomit hurled itself up her gullet into my mouth. I was astounded by both its force, which knocked me over, and its volume. I looked around and was surprised to find that she had missed nothing. A layer of brown gunge covered me, her, the floor, the bed and the walls. The taste in my mouth was unbelievably bad. Not only that but the force drove some of the fluid high up into my nose and despite numerous washouts and total immersion in water for prolonged periods, I was able to smell the material for several days. Mrs B made a complete recovery. When I spoke to her later she confided in me that she put the whole episode down to eating cold tinned snails earlier that evening which had "tasted funny!". On hearing this I nearly returned the compliment but managed to control the impulse and satisfied myself by telling her that they hadn't tasted any better second-hand. Dave Walker