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The World Health Organization sets a list of medical conditions into well-used code called the "International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems," or ICD for short. The official alphanumeric ciphers are used in medical records and insurance claims worldwide, noting the wide range of ailments and conditions a human may experience—everything from "tuberculosis" and "gastric ulcers" to "struck by orca" and "burn due to water skis on fire."
The latter categories of unusual and puzzlingly specific conditions even inspired the 2014 book Struck by Orca: ICD-10 Illustrated.
But how often are these peculiar codes actually used? An insurance data company did the work to find out. The most bizarre ICD codes listed in the 2014 book, such as the title "struck by orca," were not used in the US in the last 12 months, which is both good and disappointing. But codes just slightly less bizarre were used—some quite a lot, such as W503: "accidental bite by another person."
You'll have to read the fine article to enjoy the rest, but the author does close the article with this little bit:
Of course, codes with such few uses may suffer from just transcription error, Amino notes. Still, be careful out there, especially around cows, sword fights, power tools, and pedestrian obstacles.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MrGuy on Friday September 01 2017, @08:14PM (4 children)
Back when the book came out in 2014, Lowering the Bar (one of my favorite legal humor reads) published an article mocking the code "Injury Code V97.33XD: Sucked Into Jet Engine (Subsequent Encounter) [loweringthebar.net]", on the theory that, if someone was sucked into a jet engine, it's unlikely they're going to need follow up visits (for that matter, it's unlikely they're making it to the INITIAL visit....)
Then, a few days later, he had to retract the "making fun of" (sort of) because apparently someone actually HAD been sucked into a jet engine and survived, [loweringthebar.net] meaning they might actually need that medical code after all. (The person in question was sucked into the air intake for a jet engine, but not, obviously, actually THROUGH the engine....)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by choose another one on Friday September 01 2017, @08:37PM (3 children)
Not only that (in)famous military suckee, as pointed out elsewhere jet engines actually come in lots of sizes and smaller ones (RC model aircraft) are not really big enough to eat a whole human at once. Hence perfectly possible to be in hospital to patch up the stump of whatever bit of you did get sucked into a jet engine...
[ In same vein, there's probably one for "head injury due to helicopter rotor" which used to be pretty much always fatal but now with drones everywhere will be more commonly used and less fatal ]
(Score: 3, Funny) by MrGuy on Friday September 01 2017, @08:42PM (2 children)
It sounds to me like you're making the case that we need more codes, so that we can distinguish these kinds of events...
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 01 2017, @08:50PM (1 child)
Look guys, I found the asshole that made your C++ Object hierarchy completely unusable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 01 2017, @09:05PM
FTFY