“A man entered the ER with his hand on his forehead, walking by himself, asking for a doctor. You can imagine my surprise when I asked him to move his hand, and he showed me his injury — a perforating hole from a bullet!”

—Anonymous, 39, Female, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

"I eventually convinced her she had to go right now and get checked out, because she was at risk for a stroke or aneurysm. The next day, the ER called and asked if I’d be coming in to see her for the rounds. I was surprised and said I don’t have any hospital privileges, I’m just an optometrist. Turns out her blood pressure was sky-high, and they gave her some medication to lower it. Then her pressure dropped so low that her heart stopped, and they had to shock her back into rhythm. She came back the next year for her annual eye exam and told me I saved her life. The doctors told her she could have keeled over dead at any minute. And she still had the gall to be rude AF to everyone at the office."

"At the ER, the grumpy triage nurse came up to me after a few minutes and wanted to know why the hell we transported a perfectly healthy woman with a cold and headache. I just nodded toward my partner and said, 'You'll have to ask him.' We left, but a few hours later, we were at the same ER, and that nurse came up to me and told me the news. Because of the headache, the doctor had ordered a CT scan, and lo and behold, there was a dissecting aneurysm right next to her brainstem. She had been shipped out to the trauma center by helicopter and was undergoing emergency surgery. I learned later that she survived without deficits. Holy crap. If I'd had a more experienced partner that day, she would have ended up dead, and it would have been my fault."

"The nurses were absolutely FLOORED that the E. coli hadn't gotten into my bloodstream (this was about a month after our trip). Apparently, my urine test came back absolutely overrun with an antibiotic-resistant E. coli. The best part was when the walk-in doctor fiiiiiiinally called me about a week after my hospital visit, telling me she had the results, and I should come see her. My MIL happened to be standing beside me when I received the call and asked to talk to her. As a teacher at the university here, the walk-in doctor knew who she was and had to walk my MIL through my case to identify ALL the ways she let me down as a patient (including asking me to come into the clinic instead of rushing to the hospital). I'm totally fine now and remain forever grateful to my MIL!"

"I had a young girl come in to the ER with her friends after hurting her back dancing at the club. They were still mostly drunk and kept teasing her about it. Same thing as your dad, a pathological fracture. She was 23."

Note: Responses have been edited for length/clarity.