This version of The Twelve Days of Christmas originated in a bar a block away from the trauma center I was working in over twenty years ago on another Christmas Eve that had totally kicked our asses, but while we were having the exact same day our patients were, our lives weren’t altered by the events and we got to get drunk afterward and go home to families who loved us and would make us promptly forget all about the third watch we had just endured.
On the twelfth day of Christmas EMS brought to me…
Twelve alcohol poisonings
Eleven migrain headaches
Ten hypochondriacs
Nine fat guys with chest pain
Eight narcotics seekers
Seven battered spouses
Six bruised bar brawlers
Five O-ver-doses
Four psychotic meltdowns
Three GSWs
Two G.I. Bleeds
…and a Drunk who drove into a tree!