Balloons!

Pretty right? Unfortunately, last night's shift brought not one but two balloon related patients to my domain. I knew it was just a matter of time, I'd heard this happens every year. The first case was a sad, though not too terribly surprising, case of balloon meets electric wire, catches on fire, and people jump out. I feel somewhat responsible too, I was just thinking to myself as I entered my shift how lucky we were that there hadn't been any balloon accidents this year. Totally jinxed us.

The second event involved this famous balloon:

A young father, PC, brought his son to the fiesta to collect pins (all the balloon owners make small pin representations of their balloons and lots of locals collect them over the years). Now PC was lucky enough to get the last darth vader balloon pin. A group of young men noticed this, and not-so-politely asked that he hand the pin over. PC declined, saying he was starting a collection for his son. The young men were not so satisfied with this response, followed PC to the parking lot, and beat him up. He came in with a tremendously dislocated finger, I mean almost not attached to his hand anymore, and cuts all over his face and neck from where they had kicked him. While he was down. For a balloon fiesta pin.

He was one of the sweetest, most delightful patients I've had, even after I and three orthopedic surgeons literally pulled on his dislocated thumb with all our might for just about twenty minutes.

The happy ending? He still has the darth vader pin. He turned to me as he was leaving for surgery, "It was totally, totally worth it doc."