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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.
Livingwithcfs 2 days ago
There are times that a person should be allowed to go. It was plain cruel to her to keep her alive, organ failures are apparently painful. It was also cruel to the mother, although she probably didn't realize that but she stopped living when that child was born, she just existed much like her daughter.
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#2
A big thing for me was during Covid when the morgues were being overfilled, we had two staff members essentially on full time duty rotating corpses in and out of the fridges we were using because there wasn’t enough space to keep everyone stored.
You’d stack two corpses on top of each other (provided they were small enough), and every thirty minutes you’d swap a gourney out of the fridge.
It’s one of those things that still pisses me off about Covid deniers. That was during full lockdowns. The idea that people still think the situation was being exaggerated is absurd to me.
Libstak 2 days ago
Now that we have come through it, the deniers are getting even more rabid with their claims the lock downs and precautions were all some Government conspiracy and the shots are either useless or going to kill everyone who took them. Because of this, if the next pandemic strikes any time in the next 2 decades, there will be disinformation and riots compounded to the point nothing will work to limit any spread and it will be the disaster covid would have been had no one acted multiplied by 1000. God help us. Then the attacks on government and care givers will be because they did not do enough or the conspiracy theorists will claim it is about population control.
#3
What nurses are expected to accomplish in a 12 hour shift. It’s complete BS how the nursing staff is pilled on, what use to take twice the nurses to accomplish. Welcome to America, where nobody cares as long as insurance companies are making money!
Aspiring Canuck 2 days ago
It’s not only in the US. We’re facing similar challenges in Canada, largely due to a labour shortage in healthcare.
#4
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.
Huddo's sister 2 days ago
Most people I know who rode motorbikes in their 20s-30s/40s quit because they lost so many mates to accidents like that. Even if you take care when you ride, you can't predict what other vehicles will do and you have far less protection than them.
#5
Therapeutic leech decided to make a run for freedom and somehow escaped the ICU room and made it across the hall before the nurse realized. Left a trail of blood all the way from the bedside out into and across the hallway.
Most disturbing though was probably a woman in the trauma ICU after sustaining a traumatic brain injury when a tree fell onto her car while she was driving. The tree killed her teenage son who was the passenger in her car. The TBI had severely impaired her short term memory which meant she kept waking up on the icu, panicking, asking how her son was doing and demanding to see him. So several times a day this woman would learn anew that her son was dead. We had to ask the hospital ethics department if we should keep telling her he was dead (she was very insistent on seeing him if she was told he was alive) and force her to re-live that pain over and over OR lie to her repeatedly. It was horrendous.
#6
I’m a hospice volunteer and I visit a patient in a facility that is mostly old people on Medicare. The other day the census was 85. There were 10 employees total, only 5 of them were nurses. It is like a vision of hell.
Simon Chen 1 day ago
That is why i hope to just drop dead in my garden in the ripe age of, lets say, 95 with no other issues. I really do not want to die in a hospice or a hospital where everybody is just hoping i die a little bit quicker. But i do not think that anybody wants that.
#7
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.
#8
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. .
#9
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”.
#10
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.
#11
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.
#12
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.
#13
Some are there for months, and not one person came to visit.
April Pickett 2 days ago
That is sad. I live alone and sometimes wonder who will find my body if I die in my house. I had to go to the hospital for heart pain and both of my daughters were with me the whole time. I did get a medical alarm (highly recommend especially if you have a medical problem).
#14
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..
Nina 1 day ago
So the cucumber turned out to be a murder, the eyeball was a psych patient and the bee-sting person was there for supportive care, they s raped the stingers off with index cards (tweezers would cause more venom to be injected). According to OP's comments. No word on the 3 liter pus-patient.
#15
Lady came to the emergency department after super gluing her eyes shut. Apparently mistook the glue for lubricaticing eyedrops.
Libstak 2 days ago
The glue needs to dry before it works, plenty of time to do both eyes before getting a clue something not right
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Brad Smith 1 day ago
Yeah, happened to me. Had glue on my hand, didn't realise, and wiped one eye. Eye stung so closed it. Doctors at emergency thought it was hilarious.
#16
I’ve got a plethora to choose from but either labial necrotizing fasciitis on a 600+ pound woman, or tracheostomy maggots
We also had a recurrent patient who’d get 1L glass bottles of Fanta stuck in his a*s. And since I know someone will ask, they were always grape.
#17
Went there with a loved one on psych hold, so they had “subtle” security on us all the time.
Until, that is, they guy came in who they had to pull out of a tree because he thought he was a monkey and was throwing his own s**t at the police. Suddenly security had bigger problems.
#18
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.
#19
Didn’t see this but was told this by a reliable source. A lady came into the ER convinced she was pregnant. Her belly was super swollen and she said she “felt” the baby trying to move into her vagina. She had an ultrasound and there was no baby. But there was a massive lump that turned out to be a FIVE POUND sh$t that was pressing into her vaginal canal. They actually weighed it after it was removed.
Earonn - 2 days ago
But that must mean she had bowel obstruction for quite some time. That's something you notice after a few days - and end up vomiting s**t because it can't go anywhere else. So, how could she think she was pregnant and have no other symptoms? Not trying to be snarky, just wondering where I'm making a mistake here?
#20
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.
Upstaged75 23 hours ago
In my brief stay at one of those places I watched an elderly man attempt to put his sock on his knee over and over and over again. Apparently he thought it was his foot. It was extremely sad to witness.
#21
I have a couple that stick out. First one I did not witness but was told about. Guy tried to [end] himself by walking into a samurai sword. Wheeled into the OR with the sword still in and still alive. He survived.
Woman came in with an entire glass candle in her a*s. She specifically asked for it back after having to have it surgically removed.
Another gal with a bottle of fingernail polish in her a*s. Her and her bf wanted to try a**l and apparently a nail polish bottle was all they could think of/find to "loosen things up".
You know those little gardening shovels with the foam handles? One of those handles in a man's a*s. He claimed his wife did it to him to "test if he was gay".
A writing pen lodged into a 20 something year olds urethra. He tried telling the doctor that he had swallowed it and it got stuck leaving his body. The doctor assured him that he was very well educated on the human body and that is not exactly how the body works, nor how it got there. Lmao
A woman having a toe amputation. She was diabetic and let a sore get out of hand. When they first unwrapped her foot, you could see the tendons on half of the top of her foot. I then witnessed the doctor grab her pinky toe with what we call a penetrative towel clamp, and he just tugged it off. Not even forcefully. It was so rotted that it just slid off her foot like butter.
And last but not least, this poor elder gentleman who had flesh eating bacteria... around his entire a**s. And had been fighting it for a good year, there was so much scar tissue + what was rotting away.
Also fun fact, when men have laparoscopic surgery, the gas that fills the abdomen travels to the testicles. They blow up bigger than a softball. We have to squeeze as much air out as possible before pulling them out of anesthesia.
#22
Not the most insane, but certain very shocking.
A young man (less than 25) tried to off himself with a shotgun blast under his chin after his GF died of cancer.
He did not succeed. But what he lost was, his jaw, his nose, his eyes and part of his frontal lobe.
I'm a physical therapist and was sent in to evaluate his discharge disposition.
All his notes said was GSW to head. It did not specify the damages.
He had no face, it was just raw meat and exposed bone. They couldn't really dress it because it would get in the way of his breathing. He had something like 14 reconstruction surgeries planned.
He lost his PoA and his mom pushed for all of his rehab and care.
Patsy Robins 2 days ago
I’ve nursed a few of these in my career. Don’t put a gun under your chin people, it usually doesn’t kill you but it never ends well.
#23
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.
Graf666Orlok 2 days ago
Maggots are a good thing. Civil war doctors and Victorians often weren't concerned with maggots in a wound as they only eat necrotic flesh and stave off infection. Maggot therapy is in use today as is leech therapy. They are natures clean up crew and as gross as they are, likely saved your patient from gangrene.
#24
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.
Robert Trebor 2 days ago
My brother worked as an admitting clerk in the ER of a hospital in New York. One night this big guy came complaining of a splitting headache. My brother gave him a number tag said to sit and he'd be called. The guy nodded and turned away, and my brother saw a hatchet embedded in the center back of the guy's head. Things happened fast after that. He had no impairment. The hatchet went in right between the lobes of his brain. His lady put it there, but he refused to press charges.
#25
Don’t work in a hospital, but i was an EMT. Saw a girl and her boyfriend wreck a motorcycle on the highway, no helmets. Her arm was completely twisted on her back. We had to break it again to move it back in position. I felt so bad for her. She got plenty of d***s in the helicopter ride though so she wasn’t in pain for long thankfully.
#26
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.
Debby Keir 1 day ago
The fact that the room mate showed you that video means they breached their code of conduct..
#27
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.
#28
I was a Radiology Assistant and handled a lot of images. Our office was remote and we pulled and read for several dozen hospitals.
A fellow nicknamed "Jesus". He took an 80' swan dive off of a bridge onto railroad tracks. He was, amazingly, still conscious when they brought him in and he was talking to everyone, flirting with the nurses, and acting like he just woke up and was waiting on a cup of coffee. He broke dozens of bones but had no other major trauma. Not even a concussion.
Piercings. Lots and lots of piercings. They show up on x-rays. Real weird when you see the name of someone you know pop up and see that oh, they have a half pound of rings in their labia or penis.
Child abuse. The worst was when you would see an image and know that this kid had been broken and beaten before because they had healed the old wounds. I spent more than one shift talking down an ER doctor so they could do their job, when a child came in absolutely destroyed by their parents or caregivers.
Robert Beveridge 2 days ago
"oh hey, Albert, long time no see." "I go by Prince Albert now. You'll see why soon!"
#29
My sister is a nurse and she told me one of the worst things she saw was a woman who came in with an extreme case of a**l warts. Like so massive that my sister couldn’t even talk about it. I didn’t ask for elaboration.
#30
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.
#31
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.
#33
Blood draw from behind the knee in a long term IV d**g user. There just weren’t any other accessible veins left.
Feathered Dinosaur 1 day ago
Had a similar situation with one once. He told me if anyone could still find a good vein it'd be him. So I handed him the needle and let him draw his own blood. Worked really well, too, even though he was high as a kite
#34
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.
#35
A patient who was a 1:1 but acting ok suddenly ran out of his room and punched the back of a new NP’s head, knocking her to the ground. She was young and in training and her whole career was ruined due to the health complications from it.
Another is an IV d**g user taking off with an IV port…When we noticed he was missing, security saw footage of him walking off the campus 20 mins prior.
Debby Keir 1 day ago
My daughter is an ER doc (small but perfectly formed) A very large male patient under another doc came down the corridor and attacked her. She managed to do a judo move and threw him down. It was caught on the CCTV, so security came - and then they shared her moves with the whole department, much to everyone's delight.
#36
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.
What do you think ?
Gingersnap In Iowa 1 day ago
I can relate to the op who was in the psych ward. I spent the first half of this year in the hospital and then a residential treatment program (an hour away from home). It made me feel like I was the only sane person there but I also realized that the mental health system is broken. Did it help me? Not really. I've been struggling since I've been home and the help I was promised to ease back into society didn't come through. I feel too old to start my life over..... again.
ElfVibratorGlitter 23 hours ago
I also did a stint in a psych ward a few years ago for anorexia and depression and even though I checked myself in, one of the more traumatizing experiences of my life. I hope you are able to get whatever help you need. 🤗
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Terran 2 days ago
A few years ago there was this absolute legend in my country, who cut off his arm in woodcutting accident. He was on his own when it happened, so he took his arm and drove one handed 30 km to the next hospital. He stopped in front of the ER but was told he couldn't park there by the security guard, so he parked at the car park and casually walked back to the ER. He went in, put his arm on the nurse's desk and asked if they could sew it back on. Absolute madlad.
AnnaB 1 day ago (edited)
I was only 19 and working evenings in a trauma emergency room while going to university. I was given only 3 days training. The first night I was on my own, a pickup truck driven by a drunk driver ran head-on into a stationwagon full of brownie scouts. No deaths, but massive injuries. Of course the pickup driver was fine.
UncleJohn3000 1 day ago
I was in the recovery room after a colonoscopy last week and my memory was bugging me about something. It was because just before I dropped off, I saw one of the nurses draped in a full length vinyl gown, heavy gloves, a shower cap and holding a face shield. "Remember this remember this remember this."
Gingersnap In Iowa 1 day ago
I can relate to the op who was in the psych ward. I spent the first half of this year in the hospital and then a residential treatment program (an hour away from home). It made me feel like I was the only sane person there but I also realized that the mental health system is broken. Did it help me? Not really. I've been struggling since I've been home and the help I was promised to ease back into society didn't come through. I feel too old to start my life over..... again.
ElfVibratorGlitter 23 hours ago
I also did a stint in a psych ward a few years ago for anorexia and depression and even though I checked myself in, one of the more traumatizing experiences of my life. I hope you are able to get whatever help you need. 🤗
Load More Replies... Terran 2 days ago
A few years ago there was this absolute legend in my country, who cut off his arm in woodcutting accident. He was on his own when it happened, so he took his arm and drove one handed 30 km to the next hospital. He stopped in front of the ER but was told he couldn't park there by the security guard, so he parked at the car park and casually walked back to the ER. He went in, put his arm on the nurse's desk and asked if they could sew it back on. Absolute madlad.
AnnaB 1 day ago (edited)
I was only 19 and working evenings in a trauma emergency room while going to university. I was given only 3 days training. The first night I was on my own, a pickup truck driven by a drunk driver ran head-on into a stationwagon full of brownie scouts. No deaths, but massive injuries. Of course the pickup driver was fine.
UncleJohn3000 1 day ago
I was in the recovery room after a colonoscopy last week and my memory was bugging me about something. It was because just before I dropped off, I saw one of the nurses draped in a full length vinyl gown, heavy gloves, a shower cap and holding a face shield. "Remember this remember this remember this."
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