Gorked and Crimped

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Ben from Colorado.

Hi, Ben. Welcome.

Hey there. What’s up?

Well, I had a question about some terms that I hear at work. I’m a paramedic, and we have our own industry slang, of course, and a lot of it is just words that we use normally that are something else in the real world. But there’s a couple terms in particular that I’ve been unable to track down the origins for, and I thought maybe you would be the folks to ask.

All right, let’s see if we can help. The first one is gorked. I don’t know if that’s spelled with a K or a CK or what, because, of course, it’s all transmitted orally. When we turn over the patient at the hospital, we might say, for example, we’re bringing in a heroin overdose, and when we got there, this guy was just gorked.

He was unresponsive or out of his mind?

Unresponsive, unconscious, not at all doing well. It usually means that they did this to themselves. It’s usually associated with an overdose or some sort of chemical agent.

That one I do know. There are a number of different glossaries and lexicons of medical slang and jargon around the Internet. And from what I’ve been able to determine that originally it meant someone who was just heavily anesthetized. And then slowly it kind of modified to mean somebody who wasn’t conscious for whatever reason, whether a doctor did it or, you know, if it was iatrogenic or whether or not it was from self-medication.

Interesting. And that’s been around for a while or?

Yeah, decades. I think since the 70s, at least. I’ve worked in hospitals back then and also the 80s. And, yeah, I heard it that way.

You knew it. You knew gorked and gorked.

Oh, definitely.

So somebody was gorked. It meant that they were unconscious for whatever reason.

Yeah, or just kind of a hopeless case. I mean, it was pretty…

No, not necessarily from drugs at all.

Is there a connotation there, Ben, that this is language that you wouldn’t use around patients?

Generally, because it just doesn’t sound particularly professional.

Yeah, yeah. And it’s got a much more slangy term to it.

Right. It’s something you would use with your colleagues.

Exactly. That’s cool. What else have you got to share?

The other one is crump, and I don’t know if it’s spelled with a C or a K, but this is something that you would say if you have a patient whose vital signs suddenly take a precipitous turn for the worse. So somebody is doing well, and then you’re talking to a doctor, and you say, I don’t know, I was giving them a breathing treatment, they seemed to be responding, and then they just crumped on me.

That’s really interesting. So they crump as in to crump.

It does sound like crumpled, doesn’t it?

Yeah, it does. They’ve collapsed, more or less, or folded in on themselves somehow.

That one, I don’t know. I’m sure they could dig on it and find some more information. What can you tell us about it?

Again, is this another one of those words that you would avoid saying around the patient or her family?

Generally. And again, just because it sounds much more like a slang term, and so it doesn’t sound like the sort of professional standard we’d want to maintain from the patient or the family.

Right. And it’s interesting that there might be a chance there that a patient or the patient’s family would overhear. And yet, in order to communicate well with your peers and colleagues, you have to use that same language. It might have these, I don’t say unwholesome connotations, but like impolite connotations, right?

Certainly.

Yeah, and you can’t be a snob about it and just avoid them. But do you ever feel like you need to avoid this kind of language?

Only around the patients.

Okay. And usually when, in medicine in general, I mean, everybody’s seen house or, you know, similar programs. There tends to be this sort of cynicism that people build up or kind of a dark sense of humor. And so I think a lot of the terms that we use sort of reflect that. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that we don’t take our patients seriously. It just means that, you know, our slang tends to sound kind of odd.

Right. Except to each other. I mean, it’s a way of building solidarity with your team, right?

Absolutely. And a little bit of a release valve for you, right? A little bit of dark humor goes a long way in taking off some of the pressures of holding these other people’s lives in your hands.

True enough. This is great stuff, Ben. If I find out anything more about Crump or…

Yeah, Grant’s adding it to his list right now.

Or Gorked. Gorked is G-O-R-K-E-D, right?

Yeah, or Gorked Out.

Gorked Out. If I find anything more about Crump and Gorked, then I’ll put it on the Internet. Send it out in the newsletter or just let you know. All right?

All right. Well, thank you very much.

Take care. Good luck.

Thanks a lot, Ben.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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