No Pineapples Allowed in the E.R.

Encounters, as a first-time volunteer in the E.R., translated…

After I’d served in the armed services for twenty years, I’d wanted to give back to the community and started working in the E.R. as a volunteer.  One day on duty, I took along a pineapple to give to everybody to lift their spirits, but, the nurses who were responsible for examining the injuries, along with the senior volunteer looked shocked.  “Don’t you know, that it’s a taboo, to bring a pineapple into the E.R.?  Because it would keep the patients coming.”, I’d told them that that was only a rumor, that there’s, no need to pay heed, but the senior volunteer told me, that “you’d rather believe it to be true than not, don’t be too set in your ways, this isn’t just a taboo, it’s a common sense in the E.R.”

like this, and everybody needs help!  not my photograph…

Back then, I’d not taken the words to mind, and yet, in the twelve hour that followed, there were, pesticide drinkers, auto accident injuries, injuries by cars, accidental poison ingestions, drug overdose, burn victims, suicides, and nervous breakdowns, along with other sorts of situations, even with the patients in need of emergent resuscitations too, and, the patients just, keep on coming.

In order to help the crowd that’s rushed in to the E.R., we’d needed to add more machines and equipment, and added more beds, with the aisles already, packed, but we still can’t get everybody in.  I’d run to and fro repeatedly, helping everybody out, and by the time I arrived home, I’d become, totally limp.

with everybody here, in “critical condition“…photo from online…

After this lesson, the pineapples stopped entering into the E.R.  As I’d become a senior volunteer, I’d reminded the new ones, “Don’t bring a pineapple here, this is not just a taboo for the medics, it’s also, a common sense for the E.R. workers.”

This is still, a coincidence, but, because Chinese people believed in those superstitions, that is why, this is more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than anything else.  But, it’s better to be safe, than sorry!