What is the Craziest Nursing Story You Have?

nurse12b · Jun 22, 2009

WOW! that is hard to top, that is crazy.

Ok, I went to change this women and when was cleaning her up I had to clean around her cath and I found she didn't have everything she was supposed too. She was from another country and she had had it cut off when she was a child and the rest of her sewn up.

I have another one. Well its not my story but it was on untold stories of the ER. A handyman came in with the complain that his foot was burning. He had broken his foot when he fell off a latter and instead of going to the hospital he had put a cement cast on his foot and it was burning his foot. He said he treats hisself he is a handyman. Well after they got it off he had several acid burns and they were able to wrap it up. He had a fever and so they know he had infection somewhere and the Dr. asked him if he had hurt himself somewhere else. He said yes but he thought it was looking good. He had lifted his shirt and on his side he had a big cut and the stitched it up with copper wire and it was infected. They fixed him up, but he was in the hospital for awhile.:trout:

jmanshutt, LPN · Jun 24, 2009

We had to do this rotation in the OR and i have never seen anything like that before, anyways i went in to the first room and it was an abdominal total hysterectomy and they put me right up beside the doctor. It all went good till the doctor had the uterus in his hands and was pulling on it and he couldn't get it out so he decided to put his knees up on the operating table and yanks on this woman's uterus. Well by the third pull her uterus popped out and blood squirted out. and I WENT DOWN. i woke up a few seconds later on the floor. haha it sucked!!

kato · Jul 2, 2009

An old man, s/p hip replacement and had mild dementia asked me if I was a "full fledged nurse" in a serious tone. I asked him what he needed assistance with, and he told me to get a wash cloth, moisten it a little, and scratch the area between his cheeks. He had no sores, and since he couldn't scratch his butt and it was bothering him (probably just needed a little bit of cleaning), I decided that I should help him. So I start scratching and cleaning and he screams "HARDER! HARDER!," then he farted a big one on my hand. I stopped, he just looked at me and said thank you as I awkwardly nodded and stepped out of the room. LOL

Matt,RN · Jul 23, 2009

As a student nurse we are told that there are many things, i.e. injections, foley insertions, NG tubes, etc., that we probably will not get the chance to do on a actual patient, so therefore, we must try to "grab" the chance whenever we can.....well apparently I "grabbed" the wrong one....

I overheard a doctor talking to an obvious busy nurse (as she had multiple items in her hand and stood there red faced and sweating), asking the nurse to get a stat urine specimen via straight cath on a patient prior to his transport to another facility. I asked the nurse if I could help her out with this and she gratefully agreed. I quickly got my instructor, proud to be able to show off my mad skills, gathered the supplies, and entered the patient's room.

All started fine until we realized just how combative this dementia patient was going to be...apparently he doesnt like it when someone removes his diaper and grabs at his private parts.....hmmmm, go figure....

With the CNA holding one arm, my instructor holding the other arm, me laying on top of the patients legs, trying to maintain my "sterile field", and inserting the catheter, all wasnt going as perfect as I had planned.

As the patient tried to repeatedly bite my instructor (which I found slightly amusing) and punch the CNA, my instructor gave me instruction just to "get it in quickly"......so I did. My sterile field was a mess and it wasnt the best working environment (haha, never is), but I managed to keep the cath sterile until its insertion....

We also had to restrain the patient until the bag filled.....this was a joy....

Anyways, with this all said and done, and an interesting experience under my belt, I returned to the RN and the MD stating that I had gotten the specimen....to my continued surprise, the doctor rushed around the nurses station, jumped for joy, and proceeded to give me a high-five and congratulate me on a job well done.....I smiled, high-fived the doctor (being even more proud of myself), and returned to apologizing to my instructor for what I had gotten her into/volunteered us for.... :-D

Ruby Vee, BSN · Jul 23, 2009

i'm a . . . seasoned nurse. yes, that's it. seasoned. i graduated from nursing school in 1977.

during one of my first clinicals, the nurses at the clinical site were all thrilled because they had finally gotten their new beds. electric beds. the first electric beds ever in this small, rural hospital. we had electric beds in our practice lab, so i proudly announced to the nurse i was paired with that i knew how to use the electric beds. i demonstrated -- pressing the little button and the bed went up. and up. and up. i had failed to notice the attached iv pole until it went right through the flourescent bulb in the ceiling. the bulb smashed and there was glass everywhere. i've been a little intimidated by the beds ever since.

and then there was my first injection . . . back in the days of the metal tubex. i carefully checked my mar for the correct med, dose, route, patient, etc. and prepared my tubex of b vitamins for the alcoholic patient in full dts. with my instructor, i went into the room, carefully located my injection site and cleaned it with alcohol. then with the instructor looking on, i darted the needle into the guy's buttock. at this point, he decided he'd had enough and lept out of the bed and ran off down the hall, the tubex with the glass tube flapping back and forth in his buttock as he ran. until it fell out and smashed when it it the floor . . . .

i've been a little intimidated by im injections ever since.

dayspringacres · Oct 17, 2009

1. In the ER, the aide offered to show me her patient's lady parts. I wasn't sure what was going on until she took me into the room opened the paper sack with that MAN's lady parts -- along with several other erotic toys removed from, on, and out of this man's person -- after the battery power was turned off, of course.

2. A fellow nursing student -- Very large, very dark, very big voice, very male -- during rotation in labor and delivery. He related a discussion regarding nursing of the newborn infant. He was trying to reassure the new mom that she was indeed going to be able to nurse Baby, since her nipples were "very good." If he hadn't been so dark skinned, he would have been blushing. I blushed for him.

HumptyDumpty · Oct 21, 2009

During psych rotation, I went with my nurse to do a physical exam on a large "country" man upon admission. Well, on this unit, you had to spread your cheeks and cough to discover if they were bringing anything onto the unit, and well, no sh!t 2 cans of dip (smokeless tobacco) came out of this dudes orifice...

talaxandra · Oct 21, 2009

Inspired by the OP and patients leaving things too long -

when I was a student I looked after a man in his eighties who'd come in with a strangulated inguinal hernia. He'd had the hernia for over forty years and never seen a doctor about it. Over that four decades that a significant amount of his bowel had slid into his scrotum, which had so stretched to accommodate the increased mass that it hung to his knees.

In contrast, his abdomen was flat and taut - so much so that when the surgeons repaired the hernia and the bowel they had to resect metres of it because the full length wouldn't fit. They also 'tucked' his scrotum so it wouldn't get caught in anything.

TampaTech · Nov 7, 2009

Not a nurse yet but was in an iso room with a pt with c-diff and 4 others were in there. This person was VERY large and inc. We kept trying to insert and re-insert a flexiseal so as we didnt have to keep cleaning her up all the time since she didnt roll hardly at all. Anyways, we were trying to get the flexiseal in for a thrid time, and just as the nurse had gotten it in the pt screamed and blew the flexiseal out and sprayed the opposite wall with diarreah. Completly covers the wall almost and makes it for a very precarious situation on getting out and getting things cleaned up. That was prolly the craziest story that I can think of that moment!

chuckz, BSN, RN · Nov 11, 2009

I work in an ER:

The ems brought in a lady on a cart with a towel draped over her midsection. The lady was sitting up in the cart and had a dazed look in her eyes. The paramedic called me over and said, "you have to see this." He lifted the towel and there was a breached 20 week old fetus halfway out of her lady parts. The lady was on crack and really had no response. I couldn't believe it.

dariuz · Nov 11, 2009

oh my good the crazy think was done done by me haha when i done my first injection for my patient that time i am so nervous

nothing can"t explain that time haha...

second is when first time i do the clean my patient feces

but its is a nice expirience ,for that be cool when do the proceder...