Two Go-Cart Stories

A Sad Super Bowl Party

A fifteen-year-old girl was at a Super Bowl party at a friend’s house just up the street from where I live. She took the friend’s go-cart out for a ride on the street with another kid on the back. She lost control, ran the go-cart up under a parked car and died in the accident.  What a tragedy for this young girl, her friend, and her family who thought she was safe watching football.

A Seizure or Not?

A twenty-two-year-old-man came in after crashing a go-cart into a wall.

He made it back to his home where someone called 911. The medics arrived and found him at home having a pseudoseizure (a false seizure.*) In the emergency department, he reported having seizures since childhood but said he was never treated for them. This seemed strange to me, as most people with life-long seizure disorders have been on medicine at some time.

He seemed to be uninjured in the go-cart crash.

He would not cooperate with our efforts to help him and he refused the CT scan I ordered. When his parents arrived, he would not talk with them or even allow them in the room.

I finally discharged him and he walked out, though it was unclear if he joined his family in the waiting room or left by another route, avoiding them.

It made me wonder what was really going on in his life and brain.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogenic_non-epileptic_seizures