Six months ago I was in the trauma ward for a knife attack (read all about it here) and encountered a strange piece of medical equipment upon waking up from a night in the emergency room.
So I woke up facing down, hands tied to my sides with tubes down my throat staring into a square bucket in the trauma ward and started hearing the sound of wind instrument notes from pieces like saxophones and flutes being played very badly. I thought that I had been sent to 7th grade band camp hell. :eek: I then tried to lift myself up and let out a cough and a bad note from a clarinet was produced. I thought wow, this truly is hell and prayed to God to forgive me for my obvious multiple offenses to Him. Then I heard a guy in the next room go through a prolonged coughing fit and it sounded like a one man band of flutes, saxes and french horns going off for like 30 seconds. Then I came around and thought to myself what is this thing?
I never got a chance to ask in the trauma care unit because by the time they got the tubes out of me they doped me up and I forgot about the experience. Any medical personnel know what this musical puke bucket is called? And why do they use it? To mask the sound of people gagging to death? Are certain notes considered higher emergencies?
Not saying that this item doesn’t exist, but for the record, when my husband was hospitalized he was sedated (propofol, I believe?) and he’s reported having some weird-ass hallucinations.
This link is more about EMS and physician office products. I was in a level II trauma care center and doubt that there would be any application for the device I’m describing to be used anywhere outside of an intensive care ward. Unless of course someone wanted a good laugh as it is sort of a puke bucket with a whoopee cushion attached.
Sorry about you getting stabbed, and it’s good to hear you are healing. I admire your open approach to life and things that happen.
I have some time to research your bucket, can you tell anything else about it? Was it metal, plastic, lucite; were you attached to it in any way; what did your tubes connect to and where in your body did they end? I understand you had two chest tubes, did the equipment they were hooked up to make any noise? What brand name was the bed?
Have you thought of asking the hospital for a short guided tour of equipment that was used on you? They may just to be nice, or may not because of possible legal issues.
I’m pretty sure what you heard was the ventilator. It plays different alarm sounds depending on the respiratory patterns. You get used to hearing all sorts of off key melodies when you’re in the ICU.
Try this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am1-GW3k4U8 . Sounds begin at 10 seconds. They’re not the same ones I hear all the time but I imagine they are machine dependent and vary from place to place.
The sounds on the audio link sound more like casino than what I heard. They didn’t sound like electronic enhanced sounds, but actual wind instruments. Almost like there was a an actual set of pipes inside the bucket. Of course I was near death and very doped up, but I experienced it twice (once the day after I was stabbed and about four days later after surgery to remove a blood clot). So I do not think I was hallucinating. I may make a trip down there to thank the staff and ask them about; but after seeing the crime scene photos last week I don’t think I’m up to that yet.
Did you have a chest tube? It sounds like it could be a chest tube suction.
Yes I did have a chest tube installed (two actually) and it is possible that the chest tube was hooked up to some type of simple noise maker that was only used in the trauma care recovery room. That makes sense as it would be annoying as hell to have that thing up in a regular room; it may have been used to just indicate that I was starting to awake and that I could possibly start thrashing about if someone didn’t come over and check on me. Which I did actually do the second time.
USCDiver or Chief Pedant might know. IIRC they’re both a LOT more familiar with chest tube equipment than I.
Most likely ventilator alarms.
There are vent alarms that sound like more like wind instruments. I just can’t find any recordings of them.
Sorry.
Glad to hear you quit smoking.
Yeah, but that doesn’t look much like a bucket on the floor.
This is a little closer to what I was looking for.
My bad, I was concentrated on the bucket since that’s what I was looking at when I coughed and the sounds were made. I didn’t even realize that I had tubes running in and out of me at that point. Makes sense now that they took a signal from the tube that was connected to my lungs and measured my coughing from there.
My dream of selling musical puke buckets to college frats has now officially died on the vine. 
Also, to me a musical wind instrument one makes more sense as there are all sorts of things competing for a nurses attention in those rooms.
That’s it; only played by a true ventilator virtuoso!