As I was descending in the Universal City Hilton elevator, the door opened, and a young man rushed in, blood dripping down his face. "Sometime terrible happened; I have to get to a hospital. How do I get to a hospital?" he exclaimed.

I told him to calm down and peered at his bloody scalp, but the elevator light was too dim to make out

anything. "I hit my head on the edge of a table," he added. "I have to get to an emergency room!"

We left the elevator at the ground floor, and I looked more closely but couldn't see anything alarming.

Introducing myself as a doctor, I led him to the men's room, and cleaned away the blood. There was no laceration, just a long scratch along his scalp that was oozing blood. I patted it dry, applied band-aids, and assured him that it was not serious and didn't require a trip to an ER. He felt better.

"Don't ever complain that you never have any luck," I pointed out as he left. "You have a scary accident,

and the first person you meet is a doctor with his bag."

Mike Oppenheim