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“Like Something In A Movie”: 22 Hospital Workers Share Their Wildest Stories
While frequent viewers of hospital-based TV shows might think they have an idea of what the medical field really looks like, the truth is very often stranger than fiction. After all, not only is the human body bizarre in many ways, but many folks make truly questionable decisions and end up requiring an ER visit and a perplexed doctor.
Someone asked “Anyone who works in hospitals: What's the most insane thing you've seen?” and people shared their stories. So get comfortable as you read through, be warned, some of these are gruesome, upvote the most interesting and be sure to comment your own thoughts and experiences below.
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#1
Define insane. Critical care doctor here. Insane? A late 20s year old woman of about 35kg/120cm size (thats 77lbs/4ft) with multiple congenital abnormalities resulting in an inability to eat, talk, read, or understand who had been that way since birth. She required total care for EVERY bodily function, and had for her entire life. She was in and out of the hospital monthly due to what was essentially unfixable body failure. Each time we had to jam tubes in her, put her on various forms of life support, and repeatedly subject her to painful procedures while knowing all along that we could not, and would not ever FIX her in any kind of meaningful way. She was neurologically "gone", yet her mother insisted she responded to her and expressed her feelings, insisting that we "do everything". Ultimately, we had to put this poor soul through the pointlessness of prolonged CPR before she finally died.
THAT was insane. And cruel.
Bored Trash Panda 5 days ago
On one hand as a mother, I can see why the mom didn't want to let go. On the other had, I would like to think I wouldn't let my child go through that pain of prolonging their peace.
RELATED:
#2
20 year old put his sport bike into guard rails at high speed. Arrived alive and ultimately survived with left arm, left leg, and right leg completely severed from his body. Just formalized all three amputations in surgery for hemostasis and skin coverage.
Runner up was a girl in her 30s with a locking blade knife through stabbed through the left temple all the way to the hilt with the blade crossing through her sinuses to the other side of her face. She was completely fine and we removed the knife with no significant problems resulting.
#3
3 year old twins came into the peds ER both dead on arrival from a vehicle roll over accident.
Their parents were care flighted to another hospital in critical condition. It was the twin’s birthday and the parents were taking them out to their birthday party. I still tear up thinking about that case… I never learned what happened to the parents.
#4
The bills from my workplace charge people $4.5-5k for a CT scan that takes 10 minutes and costs the hospital like $100 max in costs, the radiologists bill separately and only like a couple hundred. The CT scanners paid for themselves many many years ago as they scan several dozens daily and rarely ever break. .
#5
Guy went into his neighbors garage and used a saw to cut his own leg off. He was with us for a couple weeks. I asked him “why would you do that?” soon after admission. He simply stated, you can cut your hair or nails why can’t I cut my leg off? Welp can’t argue with that logic. It wasn’t until (a few weeks later) he was working with therapy and trying to manage transfers and daily living tasks, that he came to the realization, “yeah maybe I shouldn’t have done that”.
#6
I was 11-7pm Critical Care Supervisor in a 400 bed Community Hospital in Texas. Around 1981 or so. We had a rush admission from the Oncology floor. A middle aged lady with Ovarian cancer and metastases started to vaginal hemorrhage. The ER physician on call for codes ordered her transferred while I tried to get a hold of her Surgeon. He wouldn’t return calls or attend the patient. I got orders from the ER Doc for heavy pain medication and called the Chief of Surgery who was there in 30 mins. The RN’s and Aides were carrying basins of blood out of the room. Thankfully she passed relatively peacefully. The Surgeon was throw off the staff when more neglect and poor treatment was revealed.
#7
My wife is a nurse and used to work in an ER close to a major city. They had a lot of mental patients come through all the time. Usually these patients have someone who sits at their door and keeps an eye on them. The person fell asleep so the patient tried to escape....by climbing into the ceiling tiles. He made it further than you would think and the security guard waited until the guy was right above him, punched his hand through a tile, grabbed the guy's ankle and pulled him down through the ceiling. I always thought that sounded like something in a movie.
#8
One of funniest was patient on Halcion sleeper (now off the market) thought he was a bear and roamed the halls naked, growling and pooping his bowel prep. He was “captured” in a female patient’s closet. He suffered no injuries and didn’t remember a thing. One of many stories from the night shift.
#10
Tie between >1000 bee stingers in a person, a whole cucumber in the abdominal cavity of a CT scan, a patient who ripped his eyeball from the socket, and 3 liters of pus drained from a lung cavity. Not the same patient, but still..
#11
Lady came to the emergency department after super gluing her eyes shut. Apparently mistook the glue for lubricaticing eyedrops.
#12
My co-resident intern year had an elderly man brought in by EMS for rapidly progressive bilateral leg weakness. The patient was the kind of person who hadn’t seen a doctor in decades. CT scan showed total occlusion of his abdominal aorta. The entire lower half of his body was dying. It was presumed he had an advanced malignancy that contributed to the hypercoagulable state, but by then the cause didn’t matter - too much of his body hadn’t been perfused properly for too long. The patient was calm throughout, seemed at peace with his impending death. He never even made it up to the floor, died in the ER. Fortunately they had called his son who made it to the hospital to be with dad when he passed.
I didn’t even know total occlusion of the abdominal aorta was possible. The fact the guy had been walking until very recently and only called 911 because he couldn’t walk anymore really blew my mind. The human body is crazy.
#13
Do mental hospitals count? I was a patient in a mental wing of a hospital ( long story ). I was there for 9 days and I was literally the only sane person there.
Anyway 3 things I saw while I was there. The first was my roommate. He was around my age and relatively cognitive but lacked common sense and seemed to have the capacity of a 6 year old. In our room was a huge floor to ceiling cubby with 3 slots. He'd climb to the top cubby, and belly flop himself on to his bed, a solid 9 feet or so. Very similar to the kid from big momma house.
The second was a Caucasian woman who was there because she jumped through a glass window. Her head was shaved bald and she had stitch and staples all over her scalp. She was hissing and trying to bite at the techs. She was also yelling out "Miller!"
Lastly was a 700 pound woman who covered herself in some sort of shiny liquid what I assume to be soap because we were not allowed much. It was the middle of the night and I heard the techs on the ward call some sort of code. I peaked out my door and saw said woman, naked as the day she was born, oiled up, and slithering down the hall like a worm.
#14
Had an admission on the medical floor. A man had been found at his home, lying on the floor. Apparently he had suffered from a CVA (a stroke) and had been on the floor for quite some time.
The gentleman lived alone in a small house without neighbors nearby. He was eventually found (I am unsure by who and how); and brought to the ED.
Upon his ED visit, he was found to have developed decubiti (bedsores) to one of his hips and upper arm; from where he had lain on the floor.
There were maggots in the bedsores.
Bored Trash Panda 5 days ago
That's so sad. Makes me think what would have happened to my mom if she didn't live near me when she had her stroke. Luckily we had plans that day and I found her. She was still sleeping at noon when she was normally up at 7am so I knew something was wrong. Did the FAST test on her and took her straight to the ED. She was in the hospital for a month after that. Been a year since then.
#15
From a previous answer to a similar question:
Many years ago, when I was in my residence, a man entered ER with a hand in his forehead, walking by himself, asking for a doctor.
You can imagine my surprise when I said "yes?", to him removing his hand and showing his injury - a perforating hole from a bullet.
He was quickly moved to surgery after that. Later, I found the bullet didn't reach the brain, it was well buried into the skull bone.
#16
My old roommate was an ER trauma nurse and had a patient who was in a motorcycle accident (was not going to survive) that basically ripped his skin/ribcage completely off. One of the nurses took a video of the heart beating in his chest still & I will never unsee that.
#17
I dont work in a hospital, but I have the utmost respect for an ER nurse on duty when I had to take a classmate to the ER in college.
It’s 11pm on a Thursday and it’s quiet. The phone rings and the nurse answers. I only heard her side of the conversation:
N: Hospital ER
N: I’m sorry, what about tennis balls?
N: a tennis ball machine? What about the machine?
N: well how close to it were you when the ball came out?
N: and it hit you in the face?
N: yes, you should have a doctor look at that. Do you need an ambulance?
N: well are any of your friends sober? You should not be driving after drinking and with a potential head injury
N: no, putting your beer in the cup holder isn’t going to be enough. You either need to tell me where you are so I can send an ambulance or you need a sober person to drive
N: I’m sure you are very good at driving left handed, but that doesn’t mean it’s ok to drive with a beer in your right hand
N: ok sir. If you still need help please call 911
At this point the caller hangs up, the nurse calmly puts down the phone, checks that there aren’t too many people around, and cracks up laughing. Apparently the guy thought the tennis ball launcher was broken so he went up and looked down to launching mechanism, and a ball was launched directly into his eye. Definitely not a sober situation. By the time my classmate was admitted and moved upstairs, there was a pool going on when/if the guy would show up. I still wonder about that guy sometimes.
#18
I have taken care of more than one person over the age of 90 years old who tried to end their own life due to inability to cope with pain anymore. Extremely sad, but also understandable.
Lowest Hgb I ever saw was 3.5 (normal was above 12 at least). Person was walking / talking.
And absolutely floors me every time I see it, but fungating breast wounds. One that smelled so necrotic, that you could smell it down the hall and several rooms away. I was able to put most of my index finger in the breast wound and the patient could not feel anything.
#19
A patient came in because his toe “looked funny”. As a diabetic, my alarm bells were going off so I had him take his show and sock off. He looked down at his 4 toes and exclaimed, “Where did it go?!?”
Moral of the story: patient takes their own clothes off.
#21
One of my friends works in the state hospital where I live. There's a guy in there that suffocated his great grandmother to death for throwing out his cigarettes. They used to keep them in a private hospital but he was too hard to handle so they threw him out.
#22
Do you have beer? I have stories.
GF 1 caught a guy with GF 2. In the ensuing argument he handed GF 1 a sawed off .22 rifle and said, “If you feel that way, shoot me”. So she did.
One shot pierced his stomach, severed his superior mesenteric a, cut through the aorta and was lodged in his spinal canal (Without severing the cord!)
We had MAST trousers back then and one of our ER nurses was moonlighting as an EMT. He got his partner putting on and blowing up the MAST. Mike put in 2 large bore lines and pushed in 4L of LR before the fast trip to our ER. The patient went to the OR in about 10 minutes of hitting our doors.
He took 35 units of blood that night. The surgery went so long that by the time they had repaired the aorta, removed most of his de vascularized stomach and all of his small intestine, his lower legs had clamped off. So he had a BKA on one side and an AKA on the other.
After a month in the hospital, having survived all of that plus ARDS, he signed out AMA with intraabdominal drains still in place. To go spend the holidays with GF 1 up north.
Thankfully, he never returned.
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