As I sutured a cut on Wendy's finger, I gradually became aware of a vaguely familiar sound emanating from a nearby room. My recognition of this sound was delayed by the fact that I had never heard it in an ER before, but that rhythmic cadence was unmistakable. As the sound grew louder, Wendy gave me an is that what I think it is? sort of look as she motioned with her head in the direction of the sound.

One of the ER nurses, Jan, had apparently also heard the sound. As she walked by, I asked her, “Is everything OK in there?”

“More than OK,” she replied. “That couple was at home when her fingernail accidentally scratched his cornea during a moment of passion. They evidently couldn't wait to get home to resume their activity.”

“It must not be too bad of a scratch,” I said. “I'll be through suturing in a few minutes, and then I'll take a look at it.”

As Jan walked away and I resumed suturing, Wendy began to giggle, and then bit her lip. “Now I've seen everything!” she exclaimed. “Does this happen very often in the ER?”

“No. Until now, I wouldn't have guessed that anyone would be brazen enough to do it, but I was wrong.”

“Do you think they will be embarrassed when you go in there to check his eye?”

“I doubt it,” I answered. “Anyone who would do that in an ER apparently has their own standards of acceptable behavior. Plus, they're probably drunk.”

After I'd finished suturing I walked over to see the man with the scratched eye. Wendy followed, giving me a wink. I knew she wanted to time it just right so that she would be walking by as I opened the curtain. I thought, why not? Privacy was obviously not a concern to that couple. As I pulled the curtain back, Wendy exclaimed, “Stacy!” and Stacy exclaimed, “Wendy!”

I asked, “Do you two know one another?”

Wendy answered, “Yeah, she's in my college algebra class.”

A few years later, we had another incident in which two patients had sex in the ER. The staff had been busy working on several victims of a high-speed automobile collision, and chaperoning the psychiatric patients was the least of our priorities. It was our policy not to lock up patients unless they were threatening to kill themselves or someone else, or if they were so far off their rocker that they might walk out of the ER and get flattened by a truck.

As we left the Trauma Room, we hear moaning and found the couple looking as if they were about to reach orgasm.

“Stop it!” one of the nurses commanded.

Predictably, this had no effect. “I think they've reached the point of no return,” I said with resignation. After ten seconds of noticeably louder grunts, they became silent.

“What were you doing?” the nurse asked in a pointless effort to shame them.

The man explained that they had met during his last admission and fallen in love. He claimed that they were engaged, but they hadn't seen one another in the three months since that admission. Coincidentally, both patients happened to come to the ER that night at almost the same time.

Most normal people would find it hard to believe that adults could be so lacking in self-control. However, patients with certain psychiatric diseases can develop hypersexuality as a manifestation of their illness; I first witnessed it as an incredulous third-year medical student during my psychiatry rotation. Hypersexuality may also occur in people who abuse amphetamines, or in some high-ranking politicians.

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