If you've never seen the comedy classic, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," there is a scene where Arthur, King of the Britons, encounters a black knight guarding a bridge.
Arthur quickly figures out the stalwart knight will not let him pass, so the two do battle, with the king severely injuring his enemy in the process.
He cuts off all his arms and legs.
Yet the black knight persists, insisting his injuries are, "but a scratch."
Turns out this happens to people in real life, not so much with swords and knights, but with can openers and ice skates.
Reddit user, SingleFunction223, wanted to know what injury really wasn't as bad as it appeared to be when they asked:
"What was your 'Tis but a scratch!' moment?"
It comes out of nowhere, and that could be the leading cause to why you might not notice right away.
You want to get back to work, or your shopping, unaware you're missing your kneecap.
It's Just Really Good Makeup
"Worked at a haunted house that took place an in an old soap factory. During rehearsal one night, I tried to go down a narrow staircase in the dark, tripped down the stairs and fell into a conveniently-placed shopping cart."
"My shins were bleeding all over but I didn’t notice until like fifteen minutes into rehearsal and that’s only because somebody said something."
slaughterteddy
No, I Only Want You To Look At This Injury, Not That Injury
"I once dropped a piece of ducting at lowes (home improvement chain in USA) and tried to catch it, slicing my thumb and palm. Not too bad, but bleeding a bit. Clenched a tight fist to stop the blood and found an employee to ask for a bandaid, he looked at me and ran off to grab some and he came back with a handful. I was confused, only took two because it wasn't THAT bad and went to the bathroom to clean my hand and put on the bandaids."
"4 hours later I was scratching my leg at home and felt something weird. Looked down and there was a 4in long very bloody gash down my left shin that I had no idea about. Wasn't that deep but was rather long."
"That poor employee probably thought I was crazy, and I felt silly."
"Another time I was using an axe to chop up a branch and the head bounced funny off a knot and took a glancing blow at my shin. The only part of that I felt was the bruising from the impact. I couldn't even tell where the cut was without looking"
"Point is I am now convinced that shins feel no pain from cuts."
Nice_or_Sarcastic
So Bad You Need A Shot Out Of It
"I'm a very clumsy person, especially when it comes to the kitchen. However, every time I've cut myself with a knife or a can, or burnt myself, it has been something I'm able to fix at home, with a bandage or over the counter medicine."
"A couple years ago I was opening a can of beans, and had my middle finger extended when I was opening it. Unfortunately, I pulled the ring too fast, and the lid sliced my middle finger. I thought it was just another cut, so I went to my first aid kit, grabbed bandages, and went to the bathroom to clean the wound and apply pressure. I made a mess of the floor and my bathroom with the blood dripping."
"Nonetheless, no matter how long I kept pressure on it, the wound kept bleeding, and I was unable to put the bandage on it. I lived with my parents, so I asked them for help. They tried to cover the wound, but blood kept coming out. We gave up, decided it was time for the ER, and had to get stitches and a tetanus shot. I got a scar out of it, and lost my now bloodied beans, but fortunately the lid managed to miss the tendon, so I didn't lose mobility."
penguinsreddittoo
Confident Quarterback
"Dislocated my shoulder playing football but said I could keep playing. I was wrong."
– dodongtv
Injuries are somehow worse when no one is around to help.
That makes the situations when someone is there to tell you you're bleeding out the side of your head a little easier to stomach.
A Boss Keeping An Eye Out For You
"Sliced my hand during work from finger to elbow and tore the skin nearly clean off."
"At first I went, this is fine I just gotta get a bandage."
"Boss yelled at me and took me to the hospital."
AlleywayGum
No Help To Be Found
"Had a grinding wheel disintegrate, and a piece of it slammed into my thigh. Felt like a strong slap at the time, so I just hissed, rubbed it a little like a bruise, and went on back to what I was doing. About 10 minutes later noticed my sneaker was wet inside and saw the whole leg was covered in blood and the shoe was soaked."
"It wasn't a bruise lol, that piece split the skin and muscle pretty deep. And since it was in a remote location, there was no immediate opportunity to get it sutured, so now I have a mouth-sized and shaped scar there."
TheOnlyXBK
Don't Tell Mom
"When I was a kid we had this old go kart thing that I sat on while my older brother pulled a rope tied to it. We went around in circles then after landing from a small bump, my right leg got stuck between the front wheel & frame or so, next thing I know almost my entire right leg was drenched in blood."
"My brother took some cotton balls & bandages and started cleaning the blood, as we swear not to tell mom. Somehow turns out the cut wasn’t even that big or deep, only got a small band aid, not even needed at that. So in conclusion my skin is made of rubber and my blood flows like pulp."
companysOkay
If there's anything this entire discussion has taught us is that the human body going into shock can lead to some truly terrifying moments.
Makes You Wonder How Someone Doesn't Need Their Knee
"Took a spill at night while inline skating. Got up, felt some blood on my knee but kept doing some more runs."
"Got home and every other step I left a bloody footprint. My mum started screaming and I discovered I'd basically torn my knee cap off."
SalemScout
"Oof that escalated quickly"
Horror-Rock6276
Can You Hear This?
"Kind of a same thing happened to me when I was making our yard look cleaner with my 1960 Fordson Major tractor. Left-side axle snapped in half and I fell down a deep ditch."
"I just climbed the ditch like 'Well that was something' I walked inside to ask my dad to help me with my tractor but my mom came screaming at me in panic as my right ear was torn in half."
"I was so confused but she took me to the mirror. We went to hospital and I got stiches. Only started to feel pain in the morning."
"The tractor had a modified cockpit from a valmet or something. It was only made of iron so it wasn't that soft. That cockpit was totaled and so could have been me if it didn't land on its wheels. It could have been deadly."
Me_ofc_ourse
Listening To Doctors. What A Unique Concept.
"i walked around for over a week with a broken shoulder because i thought it was just a sprain. when i finally saw the doctor, i was like 'i’m pretty sure it’s just a sprain'. doc was like 'judging by the bruising, it is very much broken'. x-rays later confirmed."
skater_dude_717
That Bone Ain't Right
"I had a fall at a skate facility some friends were building and I ended up working at. They had just finished the 3' mini half-pipe. Landed bad on my wrist. It was painful overnight, but when I woke up pain had gone."
"Went on with my life. As someone else noted, it wasn't the pain that sent me to the doctor. It was the holding a cup of coffee, or a beer and getting the angle wrong and just dropping it that did. Six weeks later. I had a friend who was a doctor. He said he could feel that the scaphoid bone wasn't 'right'."
"He sent me to the hospital where his cousin worked and I ended up getting one of the first fibre-glass casts in Queensland. Which went well with being the first person to break a bone at my friends' skateboard facility."
– yearofthesquirrel
Falling For Her
"Fell out of a tree in front of a girl I liked. Seriously bruised my tailbone but successfully (I think) hid the absolute agony I was in until I was out of sight."
– [deleted]
Bada** Hero
"Got jumped by the guy who was stalking my cousin, he slit my throat, but didn't kill me. I beat him until I passed out. Woke up, got cleaned up and drove myself to the hospital after stopping to ask directions."
– Adddicus
Don't try to tough it out.
Get out the antibiotic ointment, grab the bandages, and just take it easy for the rest of the day.
No need to be a Black Knight about the whole thing.
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Medical Professionals Share The Wackiest Things They've Seen On The Job
Medical professionals see all sorts of interesting things at work, but also a lot of tragedy.
Presented below are some of the interesting and lighthearted (and some downright silly) things that doctors, nurses, EMTs, and other medical professionals have witnessed while on the job.
Reddit user u/Cay_Rharles asked:
*Content warning: this article contains descriptions of injury and drug use.*
20.
I used to work transport at a children's hospital (exactly what it sounds like – taking patients to and fro different places within the hospital). One day, we get a call to take a kid from x-ray back to the ER (this was pretty standard).
The kid was probably six or seven, and when I got there, I asked, "Oh, hey, ready to go back? How did your pictures go?"
The kid tells me they went good, and then said there was another little kid there getting pictures taken, too, except his wrist was like this – the kid then proceeds to bend their obviously-broken wrist all the way backward.
The kid's mom told us that the kid had been inconsolable when they'd arrived but a little bit of morphine worked its magic!
19.
Not a nurse but it was an interesting experience so imma tell yall. I went to pt earlier this week (cubital tunnel syndrome) and when the physical therapist was having me do some things to make sure it was cts (like spreading my hands as wide as i could and holding my arms out) she saw that my fingers don't actually straighten all the way (no injuries whatsoever, they just wont straighten) and that ive got hypermobility in my elbows and my elbows only. She thought both of those things were * wild*
18.
Senior-year nursing student here. In my pediatrics clinical I was working in the ER at our local children's hospital. A 15 year old girl came in because her mother had discovered she'd taken ecstasy and was less than pleased. The girl was stable, we were just giving her fluids and running some blood tests. When I was taking her blood pressure she began using both hands to slowly feel up and down the sleeves of my sweater, the entire time talking about how "amazing this stuff feels right now." I backed away and finished what I was doing with professionalism, but couldn't help but laugh as soon as I walked out.
17.
Once looked after a mother who'd just given birth. Together we had to figure out how we were going to manage the milk supply to her third nipple, which was in her arm pit. When her milk came in her third nipple started to swell and let down milk when she breastfed her baby. We had to make a breast pad for her arm pit so she didn't leak through her clothes and slowly try to dry up the milk to that nipple without her getting mastitis. Lucky she had a great sense of humour and we had a lot of good laughs during her stay.
16.
I’ve seen an unnerving amount of babies born without buttholes. So... surgeons just make one.
15.
The ICD-10 coding system has about 69k reporting codes. Some of them covering medical conditions or causes of injury are extremely specific, weird, and/or funny.
V00.11 In-line roller-skate accident
V00.12 Non-in-line roller-skate accident
T75.00 Unspecified effects of lightning
R46.1 Bizarre personal appearance
Y35.412S Legal intervention involving bayonet, bystander injured
M21.70 Unequal limb length (acquired), unspecified site
T63.633A Assault with sea anemone
W59.13XS Crushed by nonvenomous snake
Y93.85 Deliberately holding your breath until you pass out
14.
Apparently my Dextrocardia (heart on the right) is super interesting to doctors. They listen to it to see which side it's louder on, look at my x-ray, etc. Its kinda cool but also weird.
13.
I used to run sleep studies in a Hospital. Sometimes we would also consult inpatients who had been admitted to the Hospital who used CPAP, and one time someone brought their home CPAP machine/mask with the moisture reservoir attached to the side. You're supposed to use distilled water in it to avoid mineral buildup and calcification, and change the water daily and clean it regularly, but this person NEVER had in the years they owned the machine - they only topped off the water occasionally. The clear plastic water reservoir over the heating element that warmed & humidified the air this person breathed had a thick black mold growing over the entire thing and into the hose. I dunked it in some chemicals to attempt to clean it, but ended up trashing the whole thing.
12.
Not an oddity, but hormones during pregnancy make your hair and nails grow faster. So often there is LOTS of pubic hair on display when we go check for dilation. One day I had a patient complain about how hairy she was down there, and her sisters sang "Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia! Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia pet" just to make fun of her. And we all sang it for the next 12 hour shift.
11.
I've told a lot of my wife's stories on here but here's a classic quick one.
She was covering registration when a man came in and said that he was there because he had severe abdominal pain, and his poop "looked wrong."
While my wife was typing his complaint into the computer, this guy actually pulls out a tied off plastic bag, and plops it onto the counter with a wet thud. He asks, "do you need to see it?"
"...no I do not," my wife answers. She resumes typing in stunned silence.
10.
People say all kids of wonderful things when they are coming round from an anesthetic. I've had people thinking they are aliens and we are experimenting on them, marriage proposals and one guy who was convinced I was a pixie there to take his shoes!
9.
Coolest thing would have to be the old guy with hypospadias (his urethral opening was on the underside of his penis rather than the tip). We had to straight cath him so when we pulled up his gown it was 30 seconds of ?????
8.
I work in an urgent care lab but we had a 27 year old dude come in with nausea and general sense of not feeling well. Doctor talked to him and turns out that for the last 2 weeks, he hadn't eaten any solid food. He wanted to do a juice cleanse but couldn't afford juice and figured jolly ranchers would work. So for 2 weeks, in place of actual food he had been eating jolly ranchers. Doctor told him to eat food and stay away from candy for a while
7.
We had a 92 year old woman come in for breathing difficulty. She had to remove her clothes, but refused to take her bra off. She was very sweet, and very adamant that her bra was staying on. We figured she was so old that it was most likely modesty on her part. Different times and all.
Well, the doctor really wanted us to take her bra off, because of the breathing constriction and the tests he wanted to run. She still refused, and guarded the area closely. Guarding is a thing people do when they have a lot of pain.
I finally talked her into it, after much pleading and trying to explain to her why we had to remove it, and I helped her remove it. Tucked in the middle, between her breasts, was a tiny little baggie of crack cocaine. She was so ashamed. I put the hospital gown on her and buried her little drugs away, in with her personal belongings.
And no, I didn't turn her in.
6.
Not a nurse, but my aunt is a doctor and she tells this story all the time. There was a younger guy (about 16 or so) who came in because of gastrointestinal distress that just wouldn't go away. He had tried medication, pooping, and medication to help with pooping. None of it worked.
Eventually they found out that this guy's very young brother had taken to dropping smaller objects into his mouth when he sleeps. Most of the items did pass without difficulty, but there were a couple larger ones that were stuck and that was causing the distress. He did need surgery to get them removed, but everyone had a good laugh about it.
5.
I had a little kid (maybe 5 years old) come into triage in the ER one evening. Parent was concerned about a rash that suddenly appeared on the chin just below the the lip. It was red and a perfect little circle. Looking hard at it, I start saying/asking the kid, "you know when sometimes you put a cup or a bottle on your mouth, you suck the air out of it and then it gets stuck? Did you do that?"
Child sheepishly looks around and tells me, 'actually, I had a water bottle..." then proceeded to perfectly describe the motion and how it got stuck on their chin, down to the popping sound it made when it was pulled off.
You could see the frustration grow in the parent's eyes, then proceeded to scold the child for wasting another trip to the ER for not telling the parent what happened.
Parent apologized for wasting my time (I was amused, not bothered) and left the ER.
I love working in triage.
4.
My wife works for an organ procurement company. When I've gone for medical procedures requiring anesthesia, I very seriously tell the nurses "Do not let my wife steal my organs while I'm out!" I think it's hysterical, my wife not so much, and the nurses just look confused with a wtf is this guy saying look.
3.
Mildly sedating a kid for a procedure, who then proceeds to giggle while hallucinating bubbles all over the place.
2.
I looked after a lady who came into the operating theatre very late. I was on call and had already done my 8 hour shift. So I stayed on until 2 am. But we are a small hospital so someone from the operating theatre helps the recovery nurse after the operation. Being the youngest and without a family I stayed back.
This lady woke up to see me and the first thing she says is "oh honey, you must be tired you look like sh*t, but you are still a very pretty girl. But your eyes are tired, go to sleep!!!!" Then she went back to sleep. Hahahaha.
1.
Not my story, but I am a nurse and this story was told to me by someone I worked with. A lady in her 30s, let's call her Sarah. She had a stroke and spent quite some time in a neuro ICU. Her bf was at the bedside all the time, and he saw with his own eyes that she is not really having any progress with recovery. She'd open her eyes, but that's it - no tracking with her eyes, not responding to painful stimuli, not responding to verbal commands, nothing.
Anyway, one day multiple staff were in her room doing various assessments and whatnot. Neurologist once again tried poking at her feet and got no response. So he said something along the lines of "C'mon, Sarah, give me a sign that you can hear me, any sign, you can even flip me off" And guess what? Sarah raised both of her arms up and flipped him off. For the next few days the entire unit kept talking about Sarah flipping off her neurologist, which her bf thought was hilarious.
And since that day Sarah started recovering pretty quickly. Don't know if she ever made a full recovery, but last I know she was doing pretty well.
Medical Professionals And Police Share The Worst Things They Have Ever Seen On The Job
*Content Warning: this article contains graphic descriptions of violence and severe injury, as well as mentions of substance use and attempted suicide/self-harm.*
First responders and medical professionals see some pretty messed up stuff in the line of duty; humans are, unfortunately, easily hurt and accidental injuries can get very bad very quickly.
Reddit user u/MyAltRedditAccount1 asked:
"[Serious] Police officers and nurses, what's the most f**ked up thing you have seen on the job?"
Drill a hole in the back of his head
"Guy convinced a friend to drill a hole in the back of his head because he read somewhere that it alters the flow of cerebrospinal fluid to give a permanent high without any drugs. Somehow worked out with no bad effects except that he and the friend just left it open for like 2 weeks and the cut edges of his scalp started rotting. I could literally see into the inside of this dude's brain through the dime-size hole he had drilled (not sure if penetrating the brain itself was intentional or not)."
"But the god d*mn shocking thing is that, except for the infection in his scalp, the guy was otherwise completely fine, told me all about what he did in a totally coherent manner and then extolled the virtues of drilling into your skull over taking drugs."
-youshouldwanttoknow
Heart attack on the stairs
"Had a faculty member of the College I work for have a heart attack on the stairs, fell down and slid down an entire flight of about 30 steps, on his face, each step breaking his nose slightly more than the last. His nose was basically flat and he was pouring blood everywhere, IIRC, lost a few teeth too."
"I used the AED that was thankfully right there beside the stairwell, before I had to do CPR on him, while trying not to get his blood in my mouth, for a whole 14 minutes before EMS/FD got on scene."
"Had an officer show up, and he just stood beside me and watched. He didn't attempt to provide any kind of first aid or CPR relief. (After about 2 minutes of CPR your efficiency drops significantly, I was doing it over 6 times as long.)"
"EMS finally arrived and rushed him to the emergency room and thankfully the guy survived."
"By far, not the worst thing someone has dealt with in this line of work before, but, it was traumatizing none-the-less."
"Ended up being honoured with the first "Life-Saving Award" The College has ever issued."
"I should also point out, I am only a Security Guard, and I was only on the job for 2 months before this happened."
-j-lacey96
Medical Aid Request
"Got a call of medical aid request, male subject and chainsaw related injury. Showed up and found a male in the middle of the street head in one place body in another. Chainsaw still running. Guy had found out his wife was cheating on him with his own brother, got drunk put the chainsaw up to his throat to show them a lesson the chainsaw teeth caught his neck and just kept going."
-Sternshot44
As A Nurse
"For me the most f**ked up thing that I see as a nurse, are loved ones that refuse to let their sick and miserable family members pass with dignity . I know losing a loved one is hard, been there, but instead of stopping treatment, they want us to continue doing everything possible for their 90+ year old grandparent. We as medical professionals know that they aren't leaving the hospital or nursing home and family are advised as such, but want us to continue full code status. This means doing CPR and breaking multiple bones when they code."
-NurseRatchet16
Sneezed out his intestines
"one of my patients sneezed out his intestines. He had a hernia so severe the skin had stretched to the breaking point so all it took was a sudden increase in abdominal pressure and bam! Edit: to elaborate... he had had multiple surgeries to repair the hernia in the past that all failed. He came into the hospital looking like he had swallowed a basketball, the skin around his belly was very thin and damaged so all it took was a sneeze to rip the skin and all of his bowels came shooting out. Not a single loop of bowel, basically all of it since he had little support in there at all to keep them in place. He survived the initial trauma since evisceration is not as immediately fatal as it may look if the bowel is undamaged but I think he had a very poor long term prognosis."
-catrosie
RN
"In my stint as an RN at the county jail I saw a lot of patients who had either not had the resources or desire to seek out healthcare. One case that really stuck out to me was a middle aged male who was being booked and had a bandage wrapped around his ankle. It looked pretty soiled so a bandage change was offered and accepted. This man had a host of maggots that had made their home inside his ankle that fell out as soon as the old bandage was removed. The clinical term for this I learned is myiasis. I also learned that these maggots had actually been doing him a service and had actively been keeping his wound clean by eating necrotic tissue."
-UcantHearAnEnzyme
17-Year-Old
Another wasn't an actual visual "saw", just I was there and saw the whole thing unfold. 17 year-old was brought in for a very feeble suicide attempt. Took a few too many Advil or barely scratched her wrists the short way, something along those lines. She seems like a good kid, just depressed. Obviously in need of some help. Then her parents come in. They look fairly affluent. They start telling her how everyone gets sad and she just needs to deal with it. Doctor and mental health professional decide she needs an in patient stay.
Girl agrees she needs this. Parents refuse. They don't need their daughter sent away with the crazies. Doctor has to get an emergency custody order to have her in patient. Parents leave throwing a fit, threatening to sue, etc. Once they're gone and the girl realizes she will be getting help the look of relief on her face was amazing. Mental health worker comes in and talks with her about how she'll be 18 and graduating soon and to just hang in there for a few months. This was probably 3-4 years ago and I really hope she's doing well."
-krisphoto
Paralyzed
"A man was paralyzed from the chest down was having phantom feelings on his legs and hips. He felt extremely cold, so for 3 hours he tried to warm himself with a hair drier on high. Being paralyzed he never noticed the damage he was causing. He had severe burns for almost a day before someone noticed and called 911."
-lordfarquaads_toupee
X-ray Tech
"Im an x-ray tech. Had to xray a guy's penis because he stuck little magnetic balls up his urethra. Surprise surprise when he tried to take the string of them out they disconnected and got stuck."
-mydogisarhino
Former EMT
"Former EMT here. I was once working a rodeo event in Chicago which just so happened to be next to Cook County Corrections. Some guy decided it would be a great idea to climb the fence into the prison and got caught in the razor wire at the top. He ended up hanging there bleeding all over the place like some kind of f**ked up Jesus for a few minutes until security could get him down. Pretty sure he ended up fine, just lots of scars."
-BASubway
We send out thanks to all the first responders out there. Do you have similar stories to share? Let us know below.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
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Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again.
For most of us, a bad day at work might mean a missed deadline, having to fire off a few snarky "per my last email"s or maybe a snoozefest of a meeting. For medical professionals, a bad day at work can mean literally the worst - or last - day of someone's life.
These are those stories.
Reddit user J0E_The_Psych0121 asked:
Doctors/surgeons/nurses of reddit, what's the worst thing you experienced while at work?
We're going to caution you, if you've got a weak stomach for talking about bodily fluids (or solids... or semi-solids) or you're easily upset by talk of death or dying, proceed with caution. This article will have plenty of it all.
The responses were sometimes funny in retrospect, but for the most part they ranged from disgusting to heartbreaking to disgustingly heartbreaking. Take a look.
Go Through It Alone
"Taking care of a fall patient that broke her pelvis. She just found out her husband had cancer and she wouldn't be there for him. She was crying, telling me that he was there for every appointment and treatment when she had cancer, and now he'd have to go through it alone. She felt like she was failing him or letting him down."
"She About To Die Anyway"
"Watching another nurse pulling a fall mat away from a patients floor next to her bed. When asked why, she said flatly (in front of the patient!) "She about to die anyway."
"The patients mouth was stuck open because she was so emaciated, but she could still cry. Her frozen face somehow allowed her to still cry after she heard that, and she did for a long time. I sat there with her. The patient was in custody of the state (a mental hospital) and they chose to withhold food and water as a type of forced DNR (do not resuscitate.)"
"Part of a DNR type of plan can include refusing artificial ways of being fed like a feeding tube etc... and if someone else is in charge of making you a DNR or not because you've been deemed not of sound mind, then yes that can happen. A lot of mental patients have no family and their "guardians" are the state. The state doesn't know the patient and will chose whatever option they want, typically the most "cost effective" one which can lead to situations like this."
"She was around 90 something. We were forced to watch her slowly starve to death and were not cleared to give her enough medication to ease her awareness of it."
"The nurse who made that heartless comment in front of the patient was reported, but I don't know what happened because I quit right after that."
The Longest Incident Report
"Former Paramedic, long story short, got a call for what turned out to be a very dead, decomposing man who had passed alone in his apartment. His body was filled with gas (fairly common.) As I'm standing by the body calling the hospital to give them a heads up about what's about to come their way and get approval to move, the new EMT decides to poke gas filled body. It explodes. He loses a hand and a trillion vaporized bits of dead old man cover me, got in my open mouth, under my clothes, etc. Taste was...awful."
"A lot of gas can accumulate in dead bodies, and if it gets trapped, it can be almost like a bomb. New guy was kneeling next to the body, I think this was his first serious call because he had that kind of glazed-over, "I'm in shock" look in his eyes, and he put his hand on the guy's stomach. NEVER press on bloated dead body's stomach. His hand sank down into this bloated, gas filled sack until said sack just..broke."
"My crew chief said it would be like sinking your fist into a box of firecrackers. Honestly, not sure how he came up with that analogy and didn't really work in my mind. But yeah... dead body exploded, got gunk everywhere and took off the EMT's hand."
"After hundreds of showers I could still smell corpse on me. My SO at the time said every time she nuzzled me, or got close to my hair she could smell it too. It was like that for about a week. It still makes me gag to think about - but that new kid's life was pretty much permanently changed."
"Longest Incident Report I have ever filed."
- Sam9231
Fear Of Dentists
"This happened when my wife was a student nurse. A guy came in who had broken a tooth; but as he had a morbid fear of dentists and of anything to do with his mouth, he didn't seek any treatment for months and the tooth got horribly infected."
"By the time he came to hospital, he was seriously ill and it was too late. The infection got into his blood and he died a few days later of septicemia. Apparently, the smell from his mouth was the worst smell that any of the staff had ever experienced."
Why I Gave Up On Pediatrics
"This case in my internship made me give up on specializing in pediatrics."
"Young boy got brought in for rheumatic heart disease, already in heart failure. Apparently this all started from a minor skin infection and went all the way up into his heart valves. We met him already in the pediatric ICU. He was still conscious and able to talk, and so for his first day we built a sort of rapport."
"The next morning, before my friends and I clocked out, he wasn't looking so great so the resident in charge called in the general surgery team to perform a cutdown to expose his veins for access. I had to hold down the poor kid during the procedure, since local anesthesia could only do so much. He was screaming so I told him, "Just hold on, we'll get through this!"
"He nodded and said "Okay" then tried his best to be brave."
"That was the last conversation we had. When I came in for my next shift, he was already intubated. The only parent with him was his father, since his mother was employed overseas. Now for many of these cases, a letter to the employer is needed to explain why so and so must go home in this case of family emergency. I volunteered to draft the letter and send it out so we could get this lady on a flight soon, and have her come home for her son."
"As soon as I put the last period on that letter I was typing in the nurse's station, the kid coded just a few feet away. We couldn't bring him back. The next worst part, of course, was telling his father what had just happened and asking if he wanted us to stop the resuscitation. That conversation will stay with me."
"No one should have to bury a child due to something so preventable."
- KatyG9
Death Over Debt
"The saddest one was a woman who had an aggressive but treatable cancer. She was riddled with guilt from all the debt her family was incurring and broke down when she told me she wished she would just die soon so that the debt would stop accumulating. That one hurt to hear."
When Mom Only Wants One Baby
"Respiratory therapist here. When I was a student we had to do a rotation through a NICU/PICU. The NICU was very busy with 7 or 8 sets of twins all on mechanical ventilation. As the therapist I was with was giving me a generalized report on the babies and trying to teach me about the disease states the babies were experiencing, she said "and mom only wants one of them" and moved on like it was nothing."
"I asked if it was common if a family only wanted one baby and she said "Oh, yes. all the times. sometimes it's because one baby is a lot worse than the other and mom doesn't want to get too attached in case it doesn't make it, or, like those two over there, mom can only afford one of them."
"I couldn't believe something like that took place and was as common place as it was. Made me never want to work in pediatrics. The human experience is far, far worse than the traumas and illnesses."
- rip_lyl
"People think they want everything possible done to save them until they see what that means on a dying family member. We had it happen in our family. It took two months for her spouse to finally let their dying partner go and the shock and grief made our younger daughter not talk for a year. I went gray in those two months and my husband barely spoke during that time. Death with dignity should be available for anyone who needs it."
"Our younger daughter is back to singing again after years of therapy. We all wish more people knew the importance of medical wishes being filed before things go really wrong so that nobody else suffers the way my family member did because of someone that just doesn't want to let go. She needlessly suffered and it devastated everyone else."
Worthless Nephew
"I worked a temp job for a local hospital's home health/hospice department. One of my jobs was to call new patients and confirm their address before the nurse and/or therapist would make their first visit. I had to call this one patient who tried to take his own life by jumping in front of a commuter train."
"When I called, his uncle answered and went on a twenty minute rant about how worthless his nephew was and how he was a complete burden on the family now and that it would have been better if he died. I understand suicide can be seen as a selfish act but my heart went out to this guy."
"The patient obviously had some stuff going on to push to the point of attempting to end his life and then for him to survive and have to listen to his family member say such harsh things... it was brutal to say the least. I often wonder what happened to him."
Diarrhea Blood Fountain
Giphy"I was a 3rd year med student on my 3 month internal medicine rotation. For people who don't know, this is generally the time in your life where you feel the most stupid every minute of every day."
"I had arrived for work just barely on time (at 430 am) for my 573 hour shift. Of course I was dressed to the nines because medicine is stupid sometimes and you have to dress to impress. Tie, nice shoes, slacks, button up, that sort of thing. Might as well have had on tails and a top hat. Imagine a monocole for effect."
"I started rounding of course. I went in to see a patient I will call "Mr. Hipaa." I had seen him for several days at this point and he was usually pretty chipper. He had been in the ICU for a GI bleed, but had done great and now stepped down to the floor. This morning he wasn't talking very much. That's not unusual though, it was 442 AM and I was barely conscious myself. But something felt off and there was just an odor in the room."
"My spider sense was tingling so I checked the bathroom. They always say you only have to smell melena once to never forget. This was my once. The floor, the toilet, the walls, were covered in that inky black anal spray. I was assaulted by the pungent aroma of iron shavings and death. It was icky. So I went, "Oh. Mr. Hipaa I'll be right back!"
"I toddled off to find one of my residents. Those lazy bums didn't usually wander in until after 5. Managed to find my chief who seemed uninterested in what I had to say. I wasn't chicken little, I had never cried wolf before. I remember this seemed fairly important and him showing no interest whatsoever. Bad resident, no donut."
"So I went to the real power on the floor, the nurses station."
"They promptly did the wrong thing too."
"They check his BP and systolic is in the low 80s. Prior had always hovered in the 130/40s. My internal dialogue is screaming "that boy aint right!" but my third year medical student body is standing there, now surrounded by multiple nurses, just trying not to get in the way and trying not to look even more stupid or say the wrong thing."
"Well, they want to move him to the chair. I still all these years later have no idea why. I managed to squeak out a "Should we be standing him up right now given the crazy low BP and massive blood loss?" but an MS3 speaking is like a fart in the wind so I went unheard."
"So we stand him up. I'm holding on to his left arm, another nurse on his right. He had little strength to support himself. A half a gallon of blood-tinged feces (or feces tinged blood?) promptly falls out of him and on to the floor. I mean it literally fell. Imagine moving your china cabinet and it tilts a little bit and the dishes just FALL. It didn't squirt, or spray. It just fell as a mass, hitting the floor and splashing out."
"At that point Mr. Hipaa decides, "Enough with being conscious!" and promptly passes out. It could have been something to do with he now had a Hgb around 3 and went from laying to standing with a BP on the lower end of life compatibility. Now I'm a regular sized big guy, 6' 200 pounds. My nurse was 5'3 120. Mr. Hipaa was 6'3 250. There was no stopping this fall once it began. Timmmmbbbeeeeeerrrrrr He fell face forward and planted... right into his bed! Crisis averted! My moment of joy was instantly changed to terror as I looked down at his bare behind, jack-knifed into the air like a Whataburger A-Frame. Then it happened."
"Diarrhea blood fountain."
"The perfect symmetry of it as it exploded from him is something I'll never forget. It was like the Bellagio, or Buckingham fountain in Chicago. Just this perfect fluid dynamic cone that reached a foot and a half into the air then gently allowed gravity to pull it down making that gorgeous trumpet like flare."
"Except it was made of diarrhea and blood."
"I, in my tie and fancy clothes suddenly became Neo from the matrix. My concrete pillars were the various nurses. They took hit after hit, while I dodged like Christian Bale in Equilibrium. I danced, I juked, I spun like no one has ever spun before. I was the Fred Astaire of sh*t swerving."
"When it was all said and done, three nurses lost their lives that day (meaning were covered in feces and blood) while I, who had been staring down that fleshy barrel, had gotten away without one speck of red or brown or black on me."
"The outcome? Mr. Hipaa went back to the ICU, little bit of PRBC, another embolization and he was home happy and healthy two weeks later, I got in trouble for not letting my resident know what was going on (WHAT?!), And as far as I'm aware those nurses are still showering to this day."
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
We thank all the medical professionals out there for their commitment to their patients.
Do you have any experiences to share? Let us know in the comments below.
Doctors Share The Most Miraculous Recovery They Have Ever Witnessed
Working as a medical professional is often a very rewarding career; you get to help people stay healthy and save lives on a regular basis.
Some of those lives saved can seem like miracles, as people recover from seemingly terminal illnesses or injuries.
Reddit user u/marybroadmore asked:
"Doctors of Reddit, what is the most mind blowing recovery you’ve ever witnessed?"
*Content Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of injury to humans and animals.*
10. Feelin' Fine
Resident here.
When I was a medical student on a cardiology rotation, we had a very nice 40 yr old lady that was being treated for a heart attack (kinda young, but ok). This type of heart attack, deemed an NSTEMI, is the type where she did not have to be urgently rushed to the cath lab. So she had hers the morning after she was admitted, seemingly fine before going down. While in the cath lab, she spontaneously went into cardiac arrest. They got her back after 2 shocks, multiple rounds of CPR, and a round of epi. Usually, if someone is coding for awhile, it doesn't look good for them. But she came back and was intubated, so it's more of a "watch and wait" deal after.
Well, overnight, she self extubated herself. When I rounded on her in the morning, she was awake and said she felt fine. Her only complaint was that she felt like she got burned on her chest, and that was irritating her a bit. Uhhh yea, that was the 200 J of electricity going through you a few hours ago. She then went on asking when she was going to be discharged because she needed to go home and take care of her two dogs.
The fact that she went into cardiac arrest in house and in a shockable rhythm definitely helped her chances of a good outcome. But it's still one of my cooler stories.. bc contrary to what people see in the TV shows, people don't just wake up, eager to take on the day, after cardiac arrest.
9. A True 180
Have seen a lot of remarkable recoveries back to baseline from people unconscious and intubated in ICU. Especially in young people who have high physiological reserve to bounce back from catastrophic events e.g. thyroid storm, aneurysms, ketoacidosis.
I'd say the most surprising recovery was in a drug & alcohol patient. Man in his twenties with a very difficult upbringing, dropped out of high school at 15 and was just hooked on meth and alcohol since. Very expensive habit so he'd commit crimes to fund the drugs, get out of prison and back to us for rehabilitation, commit another crime. A horrible cycle.
He wasn't motivated to recover because he didn't have much of a life to return to. Serious health problems from drug use, nobody would hire him due to his criminal record, parents in prison. Also seemed mildly intellectually impaired, possibly from chronic drug use. He only had his girlfriend.
Then his girlfriend died of a drug overdose. I thought he'd follow after because he was hanging on just for her. But he did a total 180. Booked himself into detox, attended all his appointments, got his high school equivalency. Stayed clean for years and got hired as a security guard. On discharge, he was with a new partner and they had a baby on the way. During his last appointment he'd dropped into the dollar store and had a bag with a stuffed elephant and pink blanket inside.
8. Changed Her Mind
Not a doctor but a nurse who worked in long term care.
I had a patient who was apparently actively dying. She had stopped eating for 3-4 days and was on comfort measures only. This meant she was receiving morphine every hour and the rest of her medications were discontinued, and she was only being fed and given water as tolerated.
Out of nowhere one day she just sat up and said "I'm hungry," and like that she was back to normal. She lived for around another year or so after that.
7. One In A Million
Paramedic fireman here. Had a guy (65ish years old) who dropped dead while on a treadmill. Leads showed asystole, which means dead as hell, zero electrical activity in his heart. 1 round of CPR with 1 round of ALS meds, goes into a shockable rhythm, defibrillate ("shock") 1 time, guy gets a normal heart rhythm back with a pulse. Loaded em up, had a 5 minute transport. By the time we got to the hospital, this man was making jokes with us and would have walked in if we let him.
This is not how cardiac arrests go. You usually die. And if you live, your quality of life after is usually greatly reduced if not negligible. This was absolutely incredible.
6. Don't Try This One At Home
As a resident I admitted a patient for a COPD exacerbation. Pretty routine. What wasn't was her history. She had been discharged from the hospital 4 years before with hospice. She had biopsy proven small cell lung cancer that had metastasized to other organs. Essentially zero survival and she had gone home to receive medicine to make her comfortable. She hadn't taken any cancer treatment.
Four years later when I admitted her there was no trace of cancer. The only suggestion from the pulmonologist was her crack cocaine habit must have been lethal to the cancer. Or her body just found a way to fight it off. Basically we don't know how and her odds of doing it should be about zero.
5. Still Here
Sorry i am not a doctor, but my brother had been given hours to live 3 times during his battle with cancer. I flew to see him and say goodbye all 3 times and another 20 odd times to give morale support over the two years he fought. One night in the hospital the doctors told us to say goodbye as he had only hours to live. We all fell asleep holding his hand and at 6am i opened my eyes and listened to see if i could hear breathing. It was quite dark and all i heard was my brother's voice saying "holy sh*t i am still here!!" He lived for another year.
4. A Chain Reaction
Not a doctor, but a relative. My grandma ended up in bed for a about a year when she was in her mid 70's. She had been declining for a fair while, and just kept getting more and more medication to take care of her different illnesses and discomfort. I went up there three months before this and I was sure I wouldn't see her again, she was almost comatose just lying in her bed barely being responsive.
At one point my 7 year old second cousin randomly overhears my mom telling my aunt that grandma started on yet another type of medication (far into double digits). 7 year old start crying because apparently she thinks that medicine is making grandma more sick and "everytime she gets more pills, she gets more tired".
My mom and aunt comfort this poor kid, telling her that it is not the medicine that is making her sick and whatever you tell a 7 year old to calm them down.
My mom is a nurse (or was back then, she is retired now), she worked with her best friend at a smaller private hospital in Denmark and a week later in the lunch room she is telling her friend the story about my cousin. The in house anaesthetists picks up on the convo, asks about what type of medication grandma is on, mom starts mentioning the ones she remembers. Which really gets this guys attention; basically my mom names a chain reaction; like medicine A has lack of energy as a side effect and another side effect, which is then treated with B that causes lack of energy and another side effect that is then treated with C etc. So basically if grandma didn't get A, she wouldn't need B, C, D or E and that is just the 5 medicines that my mom remembered of the top of her head.
Mom gets a list of all the medicines together for her colleague, apparently him and his doctor misses went over them as an after dinner activity and the next morning he had a three page letter written up that my mom could give grandma's doctor arguing why 25 out of 28 medications where at best unnecessary if not harmful.
Mum got the next day off, drove 450 km to see grandma's doctor, showed up with out an appointment, pulled a Karen, got to see him, showed him the letter and half an hour later left with a new medicine schedule to step grandma out of 25 different medicines and half the dose of the three remainings.
Two days later my grandma got out of bed for no apparent reason for the first time in six months, two months later she was walking the dog and baking again. 15 years later grandma is still alive, she is missing a leg now and 4 years ago she moved into a retirement home with my grandpa. I haven't seen her for 3 years, but she is doing good. She ended up getting compensated by the stated, can't remember the figures but it was the maximum amount (Mind you, not that high in Denmark).
3. Back Up On 4 Legs
Someone brought their cat in that had been missing for a week. It had pulled itself in through the cat flap that morning dragging both back legs, matted, thin, and covered in oil. Very high likelihood that it had been run over.
His right hind was obviously broken with the knee completely in the wrong place, couldn't immediately tell what was wrong with the other leg just by palpating. The owner didn't have the money to x-ray, much less do surgery and the cat was less than 1 year old, so I offered to have them sign it into my care so I would become financially responsible for the cat.
Took some x-rays, hoping for one shattered leg and one relatively normal one, as an amputation was looking pretty likely at this point. The other femur was still intact, but had come entirely out of it's hip joint, which pretty much skunked amputation as an option. I'm a passable soft tissue surgeon, but I am not an orthopedic surgeon by any means. So I contacted a friend and asked him if he wanted a crack at the leg. He managed to wire to together for a bit before the wires failed, but cats heal remarkably well, particularly young cats, and he managed to get a pretty functional limb out of the ordeal after several weeks of cage rest and popping the other hip back in.
He currently lives on a farm and catches rats, climbs trees, and gets on the barn roof just as well as the rest of the cats.
2. Stayin' Alive
Cardiac care nurse here, got called to the ER to assist with a cardiac arrest of this patient in his 50's. He had a delay of 10 minutes (no oxygen to his brains for 10 minutes), the EMT already tried reviving him for 45 minutes on a flatline. After 15 minutes the doctor said, last check before we declare this patient deceased and when we did he actually had a pulse and a decent rhythm on the monitor. Mind you, we use an automatic CPR machine so we don't have to do manual compressions so we had to turn off the machine to check. He got wheeled to the ICU, ended up on the corony care 2 days later (pretty confused I might add) and a week later he walked out of the hospital when the doctors discharged him without any brain damage or visual physical damage.
Edit: they give him a pacemaker before his discharge.
1.
When I was in trauma surgery in upstate by, got a notification about a man who was shot 3 times in the head. He comes in, literally one eye hanging out of the socket, blood everywhere, and he's slumped forward. Apparently he was shot in the temple, exited out his right eye socket, in the nose exited from the roof of the mouth, and In the cheek one with exit from the side of the head. At this point I'm thinking they just brought him in so we can pronounce him in the ER because he looked dead. I go to examine him and tilt his head back, and he's says "yoooo be gentle!!!!" I jump back and scream like a little boy, as did everyone in the room. Literally the bullets missed his brain in every single shot.