" By the metre we got him back into the ER , he started crying blood , and the holy terror in his eyes was palpable . He fit downhill fast . "
As someone who has watchedtoomany medical TV shows and movies, I realize there’s so much that the “University ofGrey’s Anatomy"curriculum leaves out. Since I was curious about the more serious aspects of the medical field, I decided toaskdoctors, nurses, paramedics, and all other medical professionals about the most terrifying experiences they’ve had while on shift.
And I was NOT expecting what they had to say… Here are 16 of their most heart-pounding stories, as well as some stories from the medical professionals of Reddit.
Note : This post contains mentions of gun violence , death , gore , undertake self-annihilation , and bomb threat .
1.“I once worked as a security guard at a hospital. We had this very old man turn up at the emergency room in an equally old pickup truck driven by what looked like a 12-year-old. The old man opened his door, stepped out, and stood up.”
" There were quintuplet - mold cut in his denim that were absolutely blood - soak from the knees down . He asked for a wheelchair . I ran and got him one . As he was sitting down , he explicate that he was working on his lawn lawn mower , and it had pop out somehow and fell across his knees . He said he need his kneepan ' put back in , ' make into his pants air pocket , and showed them to me . Darndest thing I ’ve ever seen ! "
— Norton , Yahoo
2.“I worked as a school nurse in California. Two boys were roughhousing during recess and bonked heads. One of the boys developed a headache…unbeknownst to me. It became progressively worse throughout the day.”
" He walk into my office in mid - afternoon , clutching his head and crying in botheration . He became incoherent and commence missile regurgitation .
It plough out he had a genius bleed … he was flown to the hospital and had pinch surgery . He recovered , and I have never been so terrified in my life . "
— bittertoaster20
3.“I was a new nurse during the early years of the AIDS epidemic. We were sad for the patients and terrified we would be infected and die, as not a lot was known, and there was a lot of misinformation — especially here in the South. Any accidental stick with a patient needle was enough for an all-out panic.”
— Belinda , Facebook
4.“I was an RN in the ER at a hospital in NYC. A patient was brought in with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to her head. The major trauma room was filled with surgical and medical doctors, anesthesia, respiratory therapists, and RNs.”
" Everyone was talking obstreperously and excitedly . Many hands all over the body . While I was unwrapping the blanket she was wrapped in , I discovered the loaded gun they used . I straight off call out to get everyone ’s care and had a police force officer move out the ordnance as I refused to tinct it for fear of it start off unexpectedly . "
— witchyshark90
5.“Had a nice older gentleman patient who was tachycardic, but all his labs were normal. He seemed like he took fairly good care of himself, he was a little disheveled, but he dressed nicely and had nice shoes. We initially couldn’t find anything wrong with him, but he had a peculiar odor that seasoned nurses would get suspicious of.”
" I asked him if he had any infection on his body that he make love of , and he aver ' no , ' but I require to do a thoroughgoing tab , so we took off all his clothes , and he was ok until I got down to his feet .
He was wearing an old pair of socks , and as I peel off them down , literally , the pelt around his foot came off with the sock . I was essentially degloving his foot . It was so vile I could n’t even get down more than a mates of inch . It was raw human body under those socks . The wound odor was so strong I knew then that his feet were the author . He probably had n’t change his sock in several month . He ended up being take on and given lots of antibiotic drug and lesion precaution .
The retentiveness of pulling down his socks will haunt me forever . "
— uranium / SillyBonsai
6.“When the oxygenator on the ECMO circuit blew off and sprayed blood all over everyone and everything in the room like a hose. It was horrible. It looked like a scene fromDexter.”
— nurseynurse
7.“Not a nurse, but I work in the Emergency Department. The patient came in and said he hadn’t pooped for a week. The doctor prescribes some stool softeners and decides to send him home…without ensuring that he had a bowel movement before he left.”
" Patient comes back in six hour later and is having stern abdominal pains and is bring in one more clock time . The affected role is put on a seam and scheduled for some type of scan . All of a sudden starts feeling nauseated . affected role then come out flip up his feces . He was block . The nurse attending and I run into the way . The nurse pushed on the stomach and keep back his back , attempt to get the rest out , then they aspirated and had a heart attack . "
— u / Ilbkaro
8.“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, againwalks, 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 neglect struggle with bacterial meningitis , causing him to leech internally and outwardly . By the time we got him back into the ER , he started squall roue , and the terror in his eye was palpable . He went downhill fast . His lucidity decrease with his blood pressure , and the last matter he said before give in to pulseless V - tach was something about his mother that we could not make out .
The code lasted close to an minute . At first , we could still keep his atomic number 8 levels up with mechanical ventilation , defibrillation , and drugs , but blood was filling his airways faster than it could be suction out . He was bleeding too tight for any medicament or fluids to keep his blood press up . We later find out that he was studying neurobiology and had a devoted girlfriend who was , for all intents and purposes , a fiancé , a large class , and many friends . He was an jock who be healthily . He had beautiful curly hair . This made the death tragic in a way that you just do n’t get when an 80 - year - old dies . It made the unanswered pleas to god for avail that had been sent echoing around the room by his family all the more bitter . "
— atomic number 92 / wolfbriar
9.“I was friends with a guy who was an ER nurse in a neighborhood with a lot of gang violence. One night, they get a gang member who was shot and in pretty bad shape, but still alive.”
" My friend left the room to go grab something , and when he came back , there was a bozo dressed in a clown suit with a shotgun up his sleeve . As he raises his weapon system to sprout the work party appendage , security system tackled the guy cable and arrested him . "
— Ted , Yahoo
10.“We had a guy come into the ER from a nursing home. According to the report, he asked the staff for a glass of water…”
" When he did n’t incur it quickly enough , his rational reply was to start up eating his fingers . By the time he got to us , he had eaten all 10 of his fingertips away . The bone was emphatically seeable . There was still figure stuck in his tooth and on his sheets . That ’s a sight I wo n’t forget anytime shortly . "
— u / hauolihaole
11.“Severely addicted heroin user admitted for sepsis and respiratory failure. About 3 or 4 days into his admission, we find multiple broken needles lodged in his arms while trying to place a PICC line.”
" After a few more days , he taunt , which was uneventful until the abscess that was brew under his remaining clavicle explode and sprayed pus everywhere . He survived that and went for an I&D , which leave a gaping golf hole in his chest and neck you could fit 3 fists in . His clavicle had molder away from osteomyelitis , and he had minimal tissue leave tie in his neck opening to his shoulder on the leftover side . After 30 days intubated in the ICU , he finally died . "
— uranium / newo48
12.“Not me, but my grandmother used to work at the ER back in the sixties. She saw some horrible stuff, but the worst she’s told me about was about a car mechanic. This was back when, instead of lifting the car up to weld the bottom of it, you just parked it over a ‘hole in the ground.'”
" He ’d been welding when the gas tube exploded . Since he ’s in a small-scale hole with nowhere for the flaming to go , they completely engulf him . The only reason for them bring him to the ER was to have a doc legally pronounce him dead . My grandmother see his remains . He had been crouching down , shielding his case with his arm when it explode . She could see his picket ; it had melted into his soma . Otherwise , it was all just like a coal statue of a man . "
— u / rean25
13.“When I was a junior neurosurgery resident, I was called to the ED for a 30-ish-year-old male who ran his motorcycle head-first into a telephone pole while intoxicated. No helmet.”
" His aspect was smash beyond credit . ( I have no idea how the medic got him intubated in the field . ) But when I saw him in the trauma bay , he had a head-on open skull fracture down to his orbit . We take him to the OR right out to decompress him . After 2 cranial functioning and 3 months in the infirmary , he went home . "
— u / YorkeFan
14.“Driving away from a bombing with the first patient in my truck, while a ton of my coworkers were still on scene and hearing ‘all units be advised there may be a secondary device. I repeat, ALL UNITS, there may be another device.'”
" labour away , not knowing if I was going to come back to my Quaker ( and my boyfriend ) in pieces or not , was one of the most sickening feelings I ’ve ever experience . It was everything I could do to focus on my patient and not cry , not be able to do anything about it .
There was no secondary machine and no casualty . But the Italian sandwich receive aside . It was at a eating place while a small fry ’s family birthday party was happening . "
— Sarah Jane , Facebook
15.“A Royal Marine, not long back from Belize, came into Casualty at the hospital I work at. He had a ‘cyst’ swollen on the back of his neck.”
" The guy was in agony . 3 local anaesthetic injectant later , the doctor attempted to lance the thing , and it move . He peeled off the top bed of hide to reveal a massive larvae wriggling underneath , about the sizing of a quarter . It popped out without any problem and was immense when it was unraveled . The hole in the leatherneck ’s neck was sporting , amazingly . A peachy example of a host . "
— u / Tristania
16.“Lab guy here. Responded to assist in the ER when a 5–6-year-old boy was pulled from the irrigation canal he was swimming in during our first heat wave of the summer. Was unobserved and suspected of being under for a total of 7–9 minutes, completely blue and unresponsive to stimuli.”
" We work on that nestling for about 4 hour and finally mother a weak pulsation . I kept him on the monitor for the remainder of my transmutation , and he also got fluids , warm blankets , and O . I leave for the night before I knew the final disposition . He came in 2 weeks later with his family line , extend up and down the hallway , everyone getting big hugs and gratitude for help to save his life . I am grateful I got to be part of that miracle . I ’m pretty secluded back in my department and aside from lineal patient guardianship , so I know it ’s serious if I get call down to attend . "
— Bif , Yahoo
observe : Some response have been edited for length and/or lucidity .
