What freak occurrences have you seen?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

A few months ago, I cared for a 25 year old female who coded on the operating room table after getting an analgesic shot in the eyeball for Lasik surgery. I cared for her in LTAC after a few weeks of being unresponsive (forgot the Glasgow coma scales I gave her). Yes she had hypothyroidism, hypertension, and brittle diabetes, but to have such a violent reaction to a little shot that millions of people get every year... that's a freak occurence.

Anyone else have similar stories of incredibly rare occurences?

Specializes in Psychiatry, Case Management, also OR/OB.

Pt with minor finger lac... local to sew shut.. Pt of course reports no allergy to local anesthetic... Doc injects... pt. codes before syringe is empty... Boy anaphylaxis. you never know when it's gonna getcha.

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Specializes in Psychiatry.
During a bowel resection (toxic megacolon) and they remove a piece of bowel about (NO LIE) 4 feet long and 1.5 feet wide. I sit the specimen in my basin for a little bit and prepare to hand off to the circulator. Theres corn left in my basin......:scrm:

:barf01::barf01::barf01:

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Specializes in LTC, Acute Care.

This was in a LTC very recently...

A sweet LOL I took care of 7 years ago was mentally with it but unable to do anything more than propel her wheelchair by herself, let alone get out of bed, walk, or transfer herself.

An extremely reliable source to me cared for her again recently. She had made it past a century of life, still very much with it, relying on her faith and religion to get her though her long life. She hadn't shown any signs of rapid decline. It was just a normal day for her.

When this little old lady was checked on that day, she had been left resting in bed the last anyone had seen her. During these rounds, she was found to have passed away. She had scooted herself out of bed, kneeling next to her bed, with her hands clasped, as if to say her final prayer. This is how she was found.

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hispanic male brought into the er with a peice barn wood imbedded 4 inches into his crani -----all the way from the frontal lobe to the occipital...he was awake. i ( speakminimal spanish) and asked "estas bien?" ...hoping to get a yes/no nod. he proceeds to go into a very rapid verbal barrage of spanish....very clear fluent speech....that is ....if you could interpret spanish

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Specializes in ICU, Telemetry.
BUT HOW DID IT END UP IN THE HALLWAY?!!! My charge nurse's theory, it must have sling shot across the room and out the door. My theory is that the inflated balloon must have helped it bounce another 10 ft. You can't make this stuff up!

Oh, my God, it's the attack of the rabid ankle biting foleys....They always look like snakes to me....

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This is too funny!! Please keep em coming!! I needed a good LOL!

:lol_hitti

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Specializes in Infusion Nursing, Home Health Infusion.

This just happened a few weeks ago....they take this patient for an open heart.......day after surgery patient starts getting severe bowel/gut symptoms...they suspect a rupture....they take the patient to OR urgently and ...what did they find? ..... a 100 mg of Colace in the unit dose wrapper had caused all the problems!!!!! Perhaps a nurse left it in the unit dose wrapper at the bedside and the pt just downed it without looking...just goes to show you....the little things we do or do not DO........really matter!!!!

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Specializes in ER/ICU/Flight.

a young man stuck a dental pick into his rectum, was collecting the blood into a cup and drinking it, while quoting Scripture.

lady wrecked her car and was found to be completely naked, demanding "arrest that man" while pointing at the tree she had run into. she also produced about .35 cents in change and a small pebble out of her lady parts when we asked if she had any identification. we bagged it up and turned it in to hospital security who refused to process it, so it ended up tacked on our bulletin board in a specimen bag for weeks.

another young man had an illegal pet, a black cobra. he tried to get it out of it's cage and was bit in the hand. he had ascending paralysis and everything. when we brought him into the ER he said "dude, this was the same room I was in when I got bit by a copperhead!" I'm sure it's happened to him again, by now.

college fraternity brother got his member stuck in the ribeye bone of a steak. when the ER doc asked for the bone saw, he freaked out and had to be restrained because he thought we were going to amputate his member (that one brought nurses out of the woodwork!!)

gangbanger got shot execution-style in the back of the head and his right eye was blown out. we got called by the surgeon when he was discharged later the next day, it had traveled the circumference of his skull and exited his orbit but we naturally assumed it had gone length-wise through his skull. he had no problems other than the loss of his eye.

older man (hunting out of season) blew his leg completely off below the knee while climbing over a fence and still managed to drag himself 2-3 miles to the nearest farmhouse for help. his pulse and bp were both in the 50s when we got him but he survived.

a few weeks ago a man extubated himself and threw the ET tube on the floor. when we ran into his room he looked at us and said with a perfectly clear voice "can i have some orange juice?"

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Specializes in ICU.

I worked with this pt for a couple weeks. He had been a trucker, but had just quit his job for rehab, because he had an MI a couple weeks ago. He was sitting on his couch at home when a truck went through 2 walls of his house and HIT HIM. (When you think you're safe...) The driver had a seizure and lost control at a high speed. Anyway my pt had tons of fractures and quite a bit of hardware put in, but remained amazingly optimistic! My hero!

This was just after I had a patient (straight laced, no IVDA) with bilateral shoulder necrotizing fasciitis. I've worked at this hospital for exactly 6 months now, and suddenly ridiculous Grey's Anatomy cases don't seem as ridiculous...

And I had a pt with RABIES, that's right, rabies!! No one has rabies! I could NOT believe what I was hearing when I got report! I tried not to laugh all shift, as I kept remembering "The Office" episode where Michael makes them do a rabies fun run. This poor pt was bitten by a bat 3 times on her neck, and did not seek medical attention for two months when the site was numb/tingling . Maybe she was embarrassed? My heart goes out to her because she seemed like a wonderful person. If you are bitten by a rabid animal, please wash and go to the ER.

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Long time ago, in LTC, we aides would often opt to work short and get the job done and done right, come hell or high water, than use agency.

Here's why:

We hired a aide from agency. They sent us a rather questionable looking middle-aged male aide. He, honestly, looked "slimy", but, hey. Who are we to judge?

Anyhoo, one of his patients was a old gal who never talked anymore. She would hit you with her balled up fists and maybe scream, but no talking. She also was very very "bottom-heavy" and, hence, she was a 2 assist to transfer.

I guess this ding-dong aide decided he could transfer her himself... and he dropped her... and she hit her head.

He tossed her back into bed and then (a little too late!) went to get help.

The LPN noticed... that his breath... smelled like booze.

Cute, huh?

Now, for TWO WEEKS after our old gal was dumped on her head... she was bright and speaking clearly. FULL SENTENCES!

I kid you not.

It was very much a freak occurrence that made us wonder if there wouldn't be some benefit to dropping all our patients on their heads.

We were joking, of course.

We did not use agency again (or at least the remainder of my stay there) but, as much as we wondered "***" with this aide, we also were left with a "***" phenomena we never ever forgot!

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