Strange things that you saw when you were a student

Rapheal · Apr 14, 2003

In school there was the code blue on the 2 month old baby. I couldn't believe we did not save him. It seemed like a horrible dream. Then the parents who were not on good terms got hysterical. After we thought they were somewhat more calm they got into a fist fight with each other. I tried to move 2 kids farther away from the fistfight (It had spilled into triage) and their mother later tried to get me in trouble. She thought that by moving her children 5 feet away from the triage desk that I had hindered them getting timely treatment (for their sore throats). It still seems so awfully surreal when I remember that day.

litebrite · Apr 14, 2003

It was my first year of nursing school. I was doing a dressing change on this elderly woman. She was so sweet and always chatting. GREAT for me as a student. She was a diabetic and had grangrene of her toes and part of her foot. My instructor comes in and wants to watch me doing the dressing change. I unwrap the dressing she has on and turn to throw it away. I turned back just in time to see her little toe fall off. I almost died. My face dropped. I no idea what to do. My instructor was like go to Mrs. Blank. She didn't want to upset the patient but wanted me out of the room. My mom will still say if I leave to go to work from her house, don't lose any toes!!!

maeyken · Apr 14, 2003

I guess the most interesting thing I've seen so far was a suction dressing being put on multiple pressure ulcers. Looked pretty gross, but fortunately the pt didn't seem to feel much. She was just scared the nurses were gonna kill her (???) Her granddaughter tried to reassure her, but I think the issue was that she didn't like lying on her side.

Quite the ordeal to get it all working right! Pretty cool when it finally worked though!

~ maeyken

ERNurse752, RN · Apr 14, 2003

Are we allowed to say, "bleep?"

nursedawn67, LPN · Apr 14, 2003

a pressure ulcer on this lady that was as big as a dinner plate and quite deep on the lower back/coccyx area and man did it stink...had to wear masks and open the windows!! EWWWWWWWWWW!!!!

cokie · Apr 15, 2003

wow, you guys have some awesome stories. some very gross. i thought of one more. i was at my first joby out of school, and i was irrigating a wound, and the bandage nearby was getting wet, so i took the other bandage off also, and you guessed it, tunneling. i went and got my preceptor, and told her what i thought, she was like "nah". put the ns in the one wound, and out it came through the other, just like a fountain. will never forget the look on my preceptors face. (she was actually the person orienting me, tormenting me, to the floor. would she have been my orientator???????)

Hellllllo Nurse, BSN, RN · Apr 16, 2003

When I was in clinicals in school, I saw pt without arms or legs. He was just a torso and a head. All his limbs had been amputated, he was a very bad, life-long diabetic. He had very deep tunneling, necrotic wounds in the coccycx/sacrum area. The nurse inserted an irrigation syringe with a very long attachment on it to reach the inside of the wounds. It went all the way up inside.

The weirdest part was that this pt was a very positive, happy person. He sang hymms and hummed to himself all the time.

He had a bladder-like call button, which he rang by pressing his cheek against it. He rang and asked me to scratch his nose for him, which I did.

I will never forget him.

OrthoNutter · Apr 16, 2003

Necrotising fascitis (for the spelling fanatics out there, sue me) of the scrotum, complete with maggots and I'm pretty sure some weevils or something too.

:eek:

zambezi, BSN, RN · Apr 16, 2003

I will never forget my first week in ICU as a student...I think that it was abscess tooth week...one patient had some abscessed teeth that had ended up infecting his whole mouth/neck...i have never seen a neck this large...pt was vented and had six penrose drains draining pus and other gross stuff...head and neck were the size of a fleshy basketball...down the hall was another patient that had a tooth abscess...went septic/gangrenous (sp?) was losing his hands/toes/nose...my lesson was learned...dental care is key...

MelRN13 · Apr 16, 2003

Necrotizing faciaitis(sp?don't kill me grammar police!)

When the doc came in to do the dressing change, I saw this pt's liver, intestines, everything.

Gator,SN · Apr 16, 2003

SO far in nursing school the thing that sticks with me is a patient that was shot in the back and developed chronic massive scrotal hernias. I did not know this could occur with such magnitude. When the order came for a foley cath, I was dumfounded and had no clue how to do this.

Gator

mark_LD_RN · Apr 16, 2003

Originally posted by ShandyLynnRN
When I had my son, I had a male LPN student examine me, from epis to peri care, to breast exam...

The next semester I started nursing school and guess who was there in my RN class??? Talk about embarrassing!!!

Why would you be ebarressed,think he remembered it by then:)

or do you have something remarkable to remember?:)

i think my stargest experience was when i did my ER rotation ,i discovered missing object night:) had one with coke bottle stuck in her,another one that lost a tampon 2 weeks prior reported foul odor and discharge, and other one was case of the missing condom patient insisted boyfriend had on bright yellow condom but when they finished it was gone,they could not find in in bed or room and we could not find in her either:)