In different professions, people tend to encounter different life events that they could not forget. It could be a good memory or a horrible one. For this chapter, you’re about to see the latter part.
These people from the medical field shared their worst memories during their shift. The events that happened recently or years ago just left them a scar. You might want to check these out!
1. Gas Out
I’m an autopsy tech/death investigator. A morbidly obese man had died in a cheap motel room with the heat cranked up and wasn't found for several days.
By the time we got him to the morgue, he was horribly bloated from decomp gas and was purple and green all over. There was lots of skin slip.
Our forensic pathologist went to make the initial Y incision, and the force of the escaping gas blew gore all over us and the ceiling while making a sound like a wet balloon with the air being pinched out.
We all paused for a moment as the worst stank I have ever smelled enveloped the room like something that had crawled out of Satan's arse. Then we burst out laughing because it was all we really could do.
It didn't help that he was leaking liquified fat all over the floor. That crap is SLIPPERY! My boots have never been the same since.
[deleted]
2. Slippery Touch
Mortician for four years before switching to nursing for the pay increase. A 24-year-old kid passes out in a field/wooded area at his parent's home, aspirated, and naturally then passed.
Went missing in mid-July and was found in mid-September. We're in South Texas. Went to box him for cremation and lowered him from the stretcher to the box.
My gloves slipped from the plastic around him, being wet with body ooze, and he dropped down the last 6 inches. SPLOOSH!
Droplets of pure brown nastiness went EVERYWHERE. The absolute MOST pungent decomp I have smelled to date. Gosh, wish I could forget.
Beautifuldays
3. Unexpected Drop
In my EMT class, an instructor told me about one of her calls to a freeway accident. Two cars were involved, and one had an elderly couple in it.
Since she was so small, my instructor was often assigned the job of crawling through the windows of the car to stabilize patients while the crew worked on prying the doors open.
She crawled into the backseat of the elderly couple's car and held manual C-Spine for the woman (holding someone's head in place to prevent an injury by twisting the spinal cord). As she held the head, it came off in her hands – the woman had been decapitated by the accident.
She had to take a couple of weeks off after that and talked to a therapist to help cope; I can't imagine what it must have been like to go through something like that.
Angiotensin
4. Rotting Part
A few years back, when I was a medical student, I was doing my primary care rotation when I had to see a morbidly obese lady for a gynecologic issue.
She said she was having a lot of itching and soreness in her private part. Even as I set up for a pelvic exam, I could already tell it wasn't gonna be good. I could smell a foul odor already, and I hadn't even looked.
I was gloving up when I got so nauseated, and I was about to get sick. So I excused myself and lied to my attending that I had a problem taking a look at her cause she was so obese, and I didn't have much experience with such a challenge.
The truth was I just couldn't stay in the room. It smelled like the rotting private part. A few minutes later, my attending calls for me to show me what he found.
I thought for sure it would be an aborted fetus, but I was wrong. I go in with my mask, and there, my attending dangles this cylindrical object covered with bloody debris. It was a freaking tampon.
She apparently had difficulty removing it a week ago. My attending kept saying, "It stinks like a mag!" The embarrassed patient was crying, and I felt bad, but I had to step out of the room cause I was starting to regurgitate my saliva and was about to puke.
To this day, I can't forget that smell. I think that was my deciding factor as far as not going into OB/GYN. I just don't wanna encounter the rotting smell again, ever.
[deleted]
5. Heartbreaking Encounter
ER RN here. This, so far, is the only death I've experienced from work that I've lost a significant amount of sleep over. A 24-year-old male walks, again, into the ER with complaints of flu-like symptoms for the past three days.
He had decided to come in that day because he started to develop a "rash" throughout his body that he was unfamiliar with. Sadly, this rash was actually the result of a failed battle with bacterial meningitis, causing him to bleed internally and externally.
By the time we got him back into the ER, he started crying blood, and the terror in his eyes was palpable. He went downhill fast.
His lucidity diminished with his blood pressure, and the last thing he said before succumbing to pulse-less V-tach was something about his mother that we could not make out.
You could see his consciousness fade from his eyes as we started compressions. The code lasted close to an hour. At first, we could still keep his oxygen levels up with mechanical ventilation, defibrillation, and meds, but blood was filling his airways faster than it could be suctioned out.
He was bleeding too fast for any medications or fluids to keep his blood pressure up. He died soaked in blood and nearly unrecognizable due to his now almost uniformly purple skin and swollen face.
We later found out that he was studying neurobiology and had a devoted girlfriend who was, for all intents and purposes, a fiancee, a large family, and many friends.
He was an athlete who lived healthily. He had beautiful curly hair. This made the death tragic in a way that you just don't experience when an 80+ year-old dies.
wolfbriar
6. Dripping Fluid
My dad has been a nurse for nearly 20 years. Our hospital is a "bariatric center of excellence," so you know what that entails: some pretty big patients. So this one day, I went up onto the fourth floor in the neuro unit to get a blood draw, and as soon as I stepped off the elevator, I smelled dump.
Really foul, rotten egg-smelling dump. I don't think much of it as the hospital is older and is poorly ventilated (I know, right?) But when I got home, I asked my dad about it since the ICU is on the same floor.
He said that they had a guy who was 550lbs. in the unit, and he was having some abdominal pain. Turns out he hadn't had a bm in almost a month. Before he was transferred to our ICU, other clinics had tried giving him a few enemas to no avail.
So my dad is saying that he is putting one of those balloons into the guy's arse so he can attach a bag, like a catheter. He turns around to check a monitor and heats this dripping noise behind him.
Turns back around, and a dump river falls from the bed. It was all over everything, including my poor dad. He and all the nurses roll up their scrubs like they're going clamming and, after an hour or so, get this guy cleaned up.
Housekeeping stopped by just left a cart for them, and said, "Nope!" I guess right after they finished cleaning, it happened AGAIN. I don't even want to imagine the smell in that room if it was enough to stink up the whole fourth floor! I can't begin to describe the respect I have for nurses.
[deleted]
7. Pop Out
The very last patient I saw in my internship came in with a cyst in her pubic area. Think to myself, "Okay, I've seen plenty of these. No big deal."
I walk in to find a cyst the size of a jawbreaker. It was purple and practically had a face. We had to lance it, so we needed to give local anesthetic.
When the syringe touched the cyst, the whole thing blew open with pus. The smell in the room was terrible. Upon pushing on it further, the cyst made a sound as it released more pus.
It sounded like basketball shoes on a freshly waxed floor. The core of the cyst was about the size of a dime. Love this kind of stuff and considering going into dermatology.
emilydean
8. Red Splash
My mom used to work at a teaching hospital in the perfusion department. This meant students held a "pig lab" where they would practice their work with pig blood.
Now, there's some sort of flushing process that occurs with the blood. I'm not really sure how they dispose of it. Well, construction crews were nearby building a new facility.
One of the workers must've hit a pipe because this blood starts spewing everywhere. My mom got a frantic call because they thought it was human blood.
If that was the case, it would've been much more dangerous. They were told the situation, but I'm sure there were lots of horrible things around the site that day.
WillowJR
9. What A Sight
I work as a paramedic in Canada (more specifically Ontario), and we were dispatched to a call by the police for code 4 (emergency) and code 5 (obviously dead). We were requested to bring a box of N95 masks.
My partner and I were quite confused but did as we were told. When we arrived on the scene, a police officer met us outside, and when I handed him the box of masks, he looked significantly relieved.
My partner asked what was going on, and the officer directed us to the door. Within two steps of where we were, we began to smell it. That oh-so-obvious smell of death, a death that has had time to fester.
At this point, we understand the request for masks, and as we poke our heads through the door, we are greeted by a clearly deceased human (we are assuming).
It was a woman who probably weighed on the light side of 400lbs when she was solid, which at this moment she was not. The officer told us that she hadn't been seen or heard from in two weeks, and when someone finally came to check on her, they found her in a puddle.
To make matters worse, she had her heat blasting (it was the middle of summer, and temperatures can get up to 30+ degrees Celsius or approximately 86 degrees F), had all her blinds open, and was seated in direct sunlight. It was probably the most disgusting sight I had ever seen.
KM86
10. Heartbreaking Statement
This wasn't so much what had happened but what was said. I worked in a nursing home as an aide and was putting one of my favorite residents to bed for the night, and I went to leave the room.
She's on alarms because her dementia is so bad that she thinks she can walk on her own, and it goes off. I turn around and help her do what she's getting up to do.
As I'm tucking her in again, she stops me and says, "Jeremy..." Her son's name. "You can have the money. Just don't beat me. It's not about the money. You can have it. Just be a good boy, and don't hurt me."
OkayCOMMAneat
11. Poor Guy
One of the most horrifying things I have ever seen in the hospital was a guy who OD'd on one of his prescription medications.
One of the side effects was priapism (erection lasting more than four hours). Once the doctors got his cardiac and respiratory systems relatively stable, they tried to get rid of this poor dude's erection (which was starting to turn purple/black/blue).
After several non-invasive methods, they did what they had to do. They had to inject meds directly into the head of his private part. Not one shot. Not two, or three, or four.
NINETEEN. NINETEEN injections into the head of his private part. It was still swollen, bruised, and red two weeks later. I feel so bad for him.
lornad
12. Broke Into Pieces
I was assisting in a crash C-section once. The mother was eclamptic (sky-high blood pressure), and the only cure was to deliver the baby. But she was only 25 weeks old.
It was so fast that there was no time to get an epidural, so we had to put her under general anesthesia. The baby had a strong and healthy heartbeat, but once you deliver at 25 weeks, that doesn't matter.
The father sat in recovery beside his wife's stretcher, holding their dying baby. The whole time, tears and tears just ran down his face. He never said anything.
He just sat, without talking, holding a tiny bundle of blankets, looking down at a perfectly formed tiny face struggling to breathe.
The mother was still sedated, but when I walked in, the father had the bundle in one arm and was holding the hand of the mother with his other hand. He was humming a lullaby.
He just held and held the baby until he died in his arms. Never saying a word. Just rocking it back and forth, humming to him. Crying the whole time.
Port-au-prince
13. Peeled Off
I heard of a friend's father who is an EMT. He was an experienced paramedic and seen a lot of gore. One night, he was working when he got a call about a motorcycle accident caused by an elderly driver.
The biker was out cold and had essentially scalped himself from the forehead to about halfway across the top of his head.
He was actually okay in the end. But a policewoman came over to ask if the biker was okay. The paramedic grabs the scalp and uses it like a ventriloquist's doll, saying, 'DO I LOOK OKAY?' The policewoman proceeds to go into shock and start vomiting.
Thmstlly
14. Unsweetened Chocolate
In my first year of nursing, I had a patient who was immobile with severe contractures (elbow and knee joints frozen up).
He had been constipated and needed assistance. After medicating him earlier in the day, he was finally able to go but needed some assistance.
So my CNA (nursing assistant) turned him to the side while I pulled log after log of soft-formed stool from his arse. It was like working at a Tootsie-roll factory.
[deleted]
15. Infested Soul
I worked at a nursing home that was attached to a small hospital. We ended up with a patient who had come through the ER after her family finally decided it would be wise to call EMS for her.
The family claimed she had fallen down the basement stairs, and they couldn't get her up. The EMS workers were certain that she was living in the basement because the floor was covered in feces and urine where she had been lying.
When the ER doctor stood over her, he asked, "Why is her hair moving?" Her hair was moving because she was completely infested with lice. They also found cockroaches in her soiled diaper and her labia.
elephantshitsoup
16. Wrong Side of The Bed
I was an EMT for a volunteer rescue squad in the south. A young lady was riding in the bed of a pick-up truck but actually sitting on the side of the bed.
Well, of course, she fell out, going around a curve at about 45mph. She landed on the back of her head. The truck kind of dragged her for a little bit somehow.
Anyway, when we got there, she was on her back. We did our thing and went to turn her to do our check, and the back of her head was like mashed potatoes... best way to describe it. Needless to say, she didn't make it.
ojaneyo
17. Horrible First Time
Back when I was a nursing student, I witnessed a very nasty procedure. A wheel-chaired hobo who smelled because, well, who knows why, but he smelled like he hadn't showered in weeks, and he had a gangrene foot.
Now, I was still a student and did not realize how disgusting an infected foot smelled. My god, when the doctor removed the bandages covering his foot, it released this god-awful odor of just putridness.
Combine the infected foot and the lack of a shower, ugh, and this wasn't the worst part! The hobo had a huge gaping hole in his heel and needed some debridement.
For the next 5 minutes, I witnessed the doctor physically go into the heel and scoop out dead cells and other nasty goop that was inside.
It was like scooping ice cream out of his heel, but instead of cookie dough, it was scoops of combined dead skin cells, dried blood, and who knows what.
Boop_
18. River Of Cream
Post-op morbidly obese patient who came into the ER for a different issue. Had some drainage from the incision, so I did what any good surgery resident would do and probed it with a Q-tip, expecting a small amount of fluid.
Suddenly, pus came gushing out of the abdomen like a fountain. I kid you not; the ten-pack of gauze I'd brought with me was useless, and we had to get towels to soak it up.
The cavity ended up being about 8 inches long, 5 inches deep, and 2 inches deep. What an awesome way to spend a Friday night.
notdrgrey
19. Stinky Encounters
The worst smell I have ever smelt came from an 80-year-old patient's private part. She needed a new Foley catheter placed and the old one removed. I removed the old one with ease. I then went to clean the perineum with iodine and a cotton ball.
I noticed something that was a faded yellow color inside. I was a little confused and not sure what it was. I was still a new nurse then, so I called another RN to take a look.
She took the tweezers and pulled out a cotton ball. We assume it was left in there from when her previous catheter was placed. I don't have a weak stomach; I can deal with stool, vomit, and colostomies, and it doesn't bother me.
This smelled like rotten milk and fish, decaying flesh, garbage, and stale urine all mixed together. It makes my stomach flip a little just thinking about it.
I find strange things in many patient's private parts. I had to remove a pill bottle that was tapped closed and filled with clean urine from another patient's private part. She forgot it was up there when she came to the hospital.
She complained of stomach pain. A CT was done, and a foreign object was found. After removing it, we asked why it was there.
She stated something along the lines of just in case DCF were to show up at her house and piss-test her. She would have clean urine and not lose her 14-year-old daughter.
_psych
20. Chair Woman
My dad's been a volunteer EMT/Fireman for as long as I can remember, and generally, the worst stories I've ever heard have come from him.
One that comes to mind right now deals with a lady, unlike the ones mentioned in many of these other stories. She was highly obese and apparently had gone for a sit down on her couch.
That was a month before the call to head out to her residence was put in. When Pop and the crew arrived, this lady was still on her couch. This woman had not moved from that spot for an entire month.
For anything. She was GLUED to her couch with a mixture of feces, urine, and her own skin. They had to cut the fabric around her because both were so embedded with each other. And she was ANGRY that they had to cut her couch. How does one even--
MissWonnykins
21. Bed Body
This happened during my classmates' general surgery rotation. A morbidly obese lady had been brought into the ED from home and had apparently been living on her bed for over a year.
She literally hadn't gotten up off of the bed in more than a year. When the EMTs showed up at her house, they couldn't remove her from the bed because she had "grown into" the mattress.
The bed springs were stuck in her back/butt, and they had to physically cut the bed away. It took over three hours to surgically debride her backside and remove all of the bed.
One of the funniest moments for me was during an outpatient colonoscopy. The attending didn't decompress the colon fully on the way out.
When the scope was removed, a watery dump sprayed across the room, shooting right between me and the attending, narrowly missing us. We both just stared at each other and burst into laughter.
poodiddly
22. Stucked Memories
I once walked into the room of a middle-aged, cancer-ridden woman. She deliriously told me I looked beautiful, like an angel, and then she went into cardiac arrest. I was only a volunteer, so I didn't learn what happened to her.
Close second: I was in the ER, and every bed was occupied. Busy nights are the worst. Suddenly, the front entrance nurse came running in with a toddler in her arms. She was having seizures.
The nurse was screaming for a bed. Fortunately, they were able to clear a space and stabilize her, but the panic in the air was unsettling.
Whazzits
23. Two Memories
I have two. One sad, one funny. Funny first. I was working in an ER as a patient registrar late, late one evening, when a woman brought two young boys in. The boys had been having a sleepover and, at some point, started playing with model planes.
They were having mock dog fights, essentially chasing each other with motorized mini planes. One plane dove at a boy and hit him in the groin. When he got to us, he was holding a towel to his groin and not really saying much of anything.
The mom of a non-injured boy called the mom of an injured boy to let her know that her child was in the ER so our doctor could get permission to treat her. The injured boy was taken to an exam room, and injury was observed.
It was a small cut to the base of his private part from the propeller of the toy plane. The boy still hasn't said much, and by now, his mom is at the ER. The doctor and a nurse walk into the room to numb and stitch.
The next thing the entire ER hears is a high-pitched voice yell out, "Motherfrog! That freaking HURTS!" There is a brief moment of shocked silence, followed by peals of laughter from the entire department. Mom gave him a pass on the language.
Sad one: I was working overnight as a CNA on a progressive care unit in a large-ish hospital. We had an elderly female patient transferred to us from the ICU, originally admitted for pneumonia. She was a DNR and actively dying, so we tried to reach her family for 5 hours before we got a hold of her only child.
We told them what was going on with their mother, to which they replied that they couldn't make it back to be with her as they were on vacation 4 hours away and didn't want to lose their deposit on the house they were letting for the week.
As a unit, we were so mad that we took shifts sitting with this woman. We put on some big band-era music that her nursing home told us she loved, and between 2 CNAs, 3 RNs, and a hospitalist, we sat with her in 30-minute shifts until the dayshift arrived.
The day shift carried on until she passed at 11 am. Her family never showed up. It was so heartbreaking for us to see patients have these moments.
fwootbat
24. Self Chiropractor
ER called one night when I was a medical student. The chief complaint was penile pain. The guy is in his mid-forties, seems otherwise normal, and has no obvious past medical or surgical history.
I asked him about when it started, and he told me that it's been hurting ever since he "cracked it" that morning. I'm assuming I misheard or that he misspoke, so I asked for clarification.
He proceeded to explain that, ever since he was a teenager, he started waking up with morning wood, so he would "crack" his private part to make it go away so he could get on with his day.
He demonstrated cracking by placing his two closed hands together on top of each other, then quickly bending the top one ninety degrees.
He's completely lost as to why it still hurts today when it's been thirty years, and the pain always went away by mid-morning. That poor private part looked like a gnarled root.
genuflect_before_zod
25. The Last Words
In an ER during my Internship. In 1983, an old man, 68-70 years old, was ushered in for being severely breathless. He was having an acute heart attack with failure of the left side of the heart.
As he lapsed into unconsciousness, he said his last words, "Please, tell my son that I love him." He died shortly afterward.
The next day, his son came to claim his body and wanted to see the last person his father had spoken to. A nurse directed him to me. I told him his late father's final words. His cries and sobbing are etched into my brain to this day.
entropyx1
26. Heartless Daughter
A woman I knew from a previous stay in our hospital was admitted. The woman was already about 95, basically tetraplegic from two strokes she had the year before and "cared" for by her daughter.
The daughter said that it's quite nice that the mom can't move anymore because she could just put her in a chair or a bed, and she couldn't get up and walk, so the daughter could go and work.
People who don't move spontaneously usually have severe problems with skin breakdown due to pressure ulcers and need to be moved around regularly, so that was kind of a red flag.
With social services and our whole team, we were able to put the patient in a nursing home where she was cared for appropriately.
The ER occurrence happened about three months later. We knew that the daughter wasn't quite happy about everything because she wanted the mom to change her will in her favor.
The mom was in no condition to ever be able to do that, but the daughter just didn't realize that. Well, she was sent to the ER from the nursing home with cardiogenic shock (meaning her heart was not working properly, and she was dying).
The nursing home wanted to just let her go in her own bed at home, but the daughter threatened to call her lawyer if she wasn't moved to the hospital.
So we saw her in the night, saw that she was in her last few hours on earth and she was going to die. The daughter demanded (and I mean screaming and waving with her lawyer's card) not to give her anything to lessen her symptoms.
We also had to try to put a cannula in to "revive" her. So we had to try really hard, knowing it was basically agony for her mom - but the daughter had a certificate showing that she was the person allowed to decide on medical issues.
In the end, while she was dying, the daughter burst into the room, yelled at the mom that she was very disappointed, and started cussing her out (while she was dying). The best part is that the daughter has a private practice for karma healing.
Iylivarae
27. The Witness
A 40-year-old man was in a motor vehicle accident, which is not the patient's fault. The car swerved into his car on the highway. The patient came into the trauma room with an EMT still giving chest compressions, and the patient's vitals crashed on the way to the hospital.
Nurses take over the chest compressions once the patient gets on the hospital stretcher. They continue compressions for 35 minutes with no positive response.
Up until this moment, I've seen this before, so it's not a big deal. A young 12-year-old girl walks up behind me, sees the compressions going on, and stays silent. The ER doctor looked at her and then took over compressions for about 5 minutes.
He tired out, and a nurse took over. The doctor looked around the room at everyone with the familiar look of "Are we all ready to call it."
The room is pure silence except for the noise of chest compressions. 5 more minutes go by. The doctor stops the nurse from doing compressions with only his hands.
The young girl starts to cry softly behind me. The patient was a single father, and that girl became an orphan in an instant. I had to leave the room.
Macaroni_savior
28. Drive Safe
My ex-wife is an ER nurse; this is the worst story she ever told me. The guy was driving his Jeep Wrangler with the roof and doors off. He also wasn't wearing his seat belt, and you can guess where this is going.
What should have been a minor MVA ended with the Jeep rolling over. Not wearing his seat belt means the guy is tossed out. The roll bar of the Jeep rolls right over the guy's sternum.
Every rib, EVERY RIB, was broken in multiple places. He made it to the ER but didn't live long after. The worst part was that he was a firefighter at the station right next to the hospital. Everyone knew the guy, and he was well-liked.
waldocalrissian
29. Huge Grudge
My cousin told me about this one. He was doing side work in an acute care nursing facility and full-time as a critical care nurse.
He is standing next to the bed of the stroke victim. The guy is twisted into a knot and suffering every moment of every day. There is no going back.
My cousin says to his wife, "Look, this is as good as it gets. We can keep him alive for a long time, but every day will be a day of suffering. Maybe it is time to let him go."
Her reply was, "Screw him. He cheated on me our whole marriage. That guy is getting the full ride. I only come out to see him suffer." He was stunned, but he couldn't do a thing about it.
[deleted]
30. Stuck Inside
In the early 80s, I was on a night shift Orderly in a small hospital when an ambulance came in with two drowning victims. They were in an SUV that had rolled into the water, and they were unable to escape.
They had been underwater for a long time, so there was no attempt to resuscitate them. The State Police had been called to collect a blood alcohol sample and to maintain the chain of custody, someone had to stay with the bodies until the Trooper arrived, and I drew the short straw.
For a half hour, I was shut in a small examination room with two people whom I knew (small town) waiting and drowning victims making noises.
It was horrible having to see the parents arrive to identify their daughters, and it was bad seeing a cardiac blood draw, but the noises stuck with me for a long time. It didn't help that I had been reading Stephen King's Night Shift when the ambulance arrived.
Tapol
31. Mom’s Heart
My mom works in the ER and tells me stories. Some take something out of her. Last year, a two-year-old came in with head trauma.
The two-year-old’s brother was backing out of the driveway and ran him over. After hours of trying to save him, he was gone. The ER went silent, and the mother's scream echoed throughout the hospital.
My mom said she couldn’t help but break into tears when she left. I have a son that was the same age at the time, so it hit her hard.
The Dr that was trying to save the child had already lost another patient that day, and went on a leave of absence after that.
MadMetalMike
32. Saving Life
In a cardiac arrest scenario, there is a leader who needs to get a consensus from all others to stop resuscitation. In contrast to adult cardiac arrests, families are usually allowed to stay during the resuscitation attempts when the patient is a child.
It was my first shift in the Resus area, and an alert came through for a child cardiac arrest. A couple of minutes later, a 7-week-old baby, their youngish parents, and a police officer.
We placed some chairs near the trolley and helped the parents sit down. Unfortunately, after probably only a couple of minutes of resuscitation, the baby isn’t looking good, with an unknown amount of downtime and very high carbon monoxide levels.
But, the pediatric registrar is trying to call an end to the resuscitation and trying to get other staff members to agree. The father is on his hands and knees pleading with this doctor, absolutely distraught, and the doctor is completely ignoring him.
Not even acknowledging his presence. No one else really had the guts to say they think it’s futile either, and usually, we try very hard and for a much longer amount of time to try and resuscitate a child. So, that always stuck with me.
damemequeen
33. Splattering Virus
This past week, we had heart surgery. The patient had herpes. Not a big deal. Everybody be a little more careful and wear gloves for everything.
The surgery was going well, and we were getting ready to come off of the pump and proceed to close. Perfusion clamps off one of the lines, and it bursts, sending blood everywhere.
Perfusion gets some, but anesthesia gets it the worst. The student CRNA is covered across his face in the bid, and the preceptor, too.
We have to fill out an accident report and collect the patient's blood for testing. We already know he has herpes, and I know they may have gotten it in their eyes. This is bad, and the atmosphere is tense.
Everybody is feeling awful. I tell them to save the tubing so they can lawyer up against Sorin in case the worst scenario has occurred. Friday was my day off. I get a panicked call from my supervisor.
She asked me if there was any way I came into contact with the blood. I tell her no. She informs me that his lab work came back positive for HIV. Everybody that came into contact now has to be tested and out on antivirals.
BigODetroit
34. Cooked Skin
My mom used to work as an ER nurse in a major trauma center in Stockholm. She used to tell me stories, some not so bad, others messed up that I won't relay them here. There is one who stuck with me, though.
It was a boy no older than five who had tipped a pan of boiling cooking oil down from the stove, and he had third-degree burns all over his arms and upper body.
Poor kid had his mother rush him to the hospital, covered in towels that stuck to him. My mom said that he was in intensive care for a few weeks before being taken to dermatology. She also said that his screams still haunt her.
KamenAkuma
35. Ended Love Story
I was working one night, and a car crash came in, boyfriend (driver) and girlfriend (passenger). The guy was fine, with bumps and bruises and no apparent major injuries.
The girl looked alright on the surface but was in bad shape and wound up dying not 30 feet away from him. Poor guy had no clue. You could tell he didn't realize the Gravity of her situation, given how minor his injuries were, but he kept asking to talk to her and to see her.
This was before she crashed, and there was too much happening to have the full conversation, so the doctor just gave the usual "she's hurt, but we're doing the best we can" line until things were settled.
He obviously got more worried then, but you could just tell that the thought of her actually dying hadn't even crossed his mind. It broke my heart.
Thankfully, I wasn't in the room when they broke the news, but I could hear him howl from down the hall. It was the most soul-wrenching cry I've ever heard in my life.
I can still hear it clear as day. God. I just hope it's me that goes if it's ever a situation like that. I can't even dream of what he went through.
[deleted]
36. Cruel Accident
Someone stole a pickup truck, was running from the cops, and ran a red light. A criminal hit a car with two kids inside. Bet you already know where this is going.
Both kids suffered severe trauma, and both were badly mangled. We coded them immediately upon arrival at the ED/ER. Heartbreaking, man.
One had cerebral-spinal fluid and brain matter coming out of their nose. They both were declared deceased 30 minutes later. They were 5 and 7.
The scene inside and the distraught screams of the father in the hallway will never be something you forget. Unexpected deaths and the pain felt/expressed by their loved ones are the worst
[deleted]
37. Fallen Ball
Not hospital staff, former EMT. We rolled on a car crash, car vs car. One was turning and hit the left side of the other. The driver of the car that hit the other was fine, just panicking and scared with a couple of minor cuts.
The second guy was sitting on the ground, and as we got close, we realized that his right eye had come loose, and he was trying to push it back into the socket.
We kept telling him not to touch it, but he did anyway, and it fully fell out and landed in his hand. You never actually realize how far back the eye goes into the head.
Don't know what ended up happening to him. My guess is he lost the eye. Scarred all of us. We still talked about it, and the memories kept coming back.
KasperAura
38. Concealed Details
I worked in the ER of my local hospital for a month, cleaning the room as a summer job. We had a guy come in, and he owed money to some guys who belonged to a gang.
So they mugged him in the street, and he arrived at the hospital in the middle of the night. Because the guys would eventually find out he was here, he was registered under a false name in his file and the board in the nurse's room.
We were told that guy's first name only in order to protect him and told to call security if anyone shady was entering the ER.
We spent the next two days fearing they would come back to look for him and assault any nurse on their way because we would not say where room he was in. They did not come back, but he was traumatized. They almost ended him that night
ItsChlowey
39. Racing Disaster
A group of high school boys were drag racing. Two in each car. It was raining, and the cars crashed. One was dead at the scene.
Two others came to the ER and ended up dying there. The other was critical and ended up living. He was one of the drivers, so he had to do community service instead of getting charged with a crime.
That was the first big accident that I've seen where I work, and one of the worst because nobody was over 18. Just a group of teenagers doing something stupid. After that, I've been pretty numb to everything.
csoup1414
40. Untreated Illness
My wife went to a high school meant for people interested in health care and volunteered in the ER when she was 15 years old. They had her bag a dead body, which resulted in her going into a completely non-medical field.
As for me, before medical school, I volunteered at an ER. The fire department brought in a lady, and they were doing active chest compressions.
She was one of those cat ladies who had over a dozen cats and was living in a home that was in utter disrepair. The fire department went to her house because a concerned neighbor called for a well-check.
Anyway, turns out that she had untreated breast cancer, which had eaten a hole through her chest wall. But the worst part was the lymph fluid ejecting out of the hole every time these guys compressed her chest.
I was in the corner watching this happen, and the combination of this fluid getting on the docs and nurses was awful, and the smell is something I’ll never forget :/
dhslax88
41. Tough Memory
I was in another room starting an IV when I heard over PA, "Waiting Room." About 5 seconds later, I heard the most guttural scream I have ever heard. It echoed throughout our ED.
The patient looked at me like what was going on. I got her IV secured and tried to reassure her as the screams kept getting louder. Then, over the PA, I hear, "All staff to Trauma One."
I enter to find a woman no more than 20 years old, naked, being restrained by four male staff, writhing her body in such a fashion she appears to be what I can best describe as undergoing an exorcism.
Each arm is being held on each leg, but she is bending her hips, neck, and head so high off the bed that it is unreal to see. The sounds she is making are animalistic. She has now begun to vomit, urinate, and lose her bowels.
I am watching the room. I arrived last. The nurse who records notes is busy recording. MDs are busy, and I am there watching. I can take no more. I was in the ED that day to certify my IV training. I do not see this daily.
She was dumped off outside our ED ...dead...staff shot her with Narcan, putting her in immediate withdrawals, but saved her life.
I cried for that girl. No one wants that life. That was a little girl not too long ago just laughing and playing. Where did it turn? I don't know. There are humans behind this epidemic. I saw her, I heard her. I hope she finds her way back.
textaline
42. Single Part
I high school, I was part of HOSA. Its a student organization that basically job shadows health care professionals and helps out.
We all were high school students with CNAs, so that we could do more than the average job shadow. We did rotations in different departments.
On my first day in the ER, I was working in triage. This guy came in and said he had an accident. I asked I'm for details. He held out his hand like he was going to give me something. I hold out mine, and he drops a severed finger in my palm.
domestic_omnom
43. Unknown Beat
My buddy is a fire medic. He told me a story of when his truck arrived in a car accident on the interstate. The victim was a literal grease spot.
They piled the guy together, and because of the local law, they had to EKG the guy to check for a pulse. There was actually a pulse, which blew their minds.
So they’ve got a near-literal meat pile on a gurney rolling into the ER when the doctor meeting them tells them to call it. The dude had a pacemaker.
Our messed-up joke (just so we can process it without destroying our souls) is, “When you get messed so hard, even your pacemaker doesn’t know you’re dead.”
Bigddy762
44. Horror of Pain
I had an uncle who, back in the 90s, was a face reconstruction surgeon, a doctor type in Pennsylvania. From what I was told, he was one of the best in the entire state. One of the scariest things that happened to him nearly almost caused him to lose his job.
What happened was a small child, I want to say, was around his son's age, was in a car accident where his face was just completely gone. This was due to the intense heat of the car being on fire, glass from the windshield, etc.
Well, in order to keep this kid's vitals, my uncle had to find a way to completely give this kid everything in his willpower to not get an infection and so on after all of his vitals were clear.
Yes, this kid WAS STILL ALIVE AFTER PRETTY MUCH BEING BURNED ALIVE. When doing it, my uncle went into shock and could not do the procedure.
He fainted and couldn't look at the poor child. He didn't return to this line of work for three years because of it. The kid ended up dying from infection a day later of how severe the burns were.
From what he told me, he sees the kid's face every night in his dream, and I guess that my uncle apologizes to him every time in this dream because there was no saving him.
Silkmayne
45. Double Grief
A friend shared this one with me: she worked in a small town hospital. She said that a young guy came in after falling off his motorcycle on a highway and landing in the opposite late.
A car hit him and ended him. Turns out he had come from his grandmother's funeral, and the person who hit him was his 16-year-old cousin.
He waved at her and fell off his bike. My friend said that the doctor told his cousin that he died when he hit the ground after falling off his bike and not her hitting him.
This was not true. My friend walked quickly outside and fell apart as soon as she got there. I can't imagine how his cousin felt.
Luna_L