Grossest thing that you've experienced?

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Specializes in PDN; Burn; Phone triage.

Story time! And the grosser, the better. Kudos to the first person who makes me throw up a bit in my mouth.

My story - I'm a burn nurse, relatively new. Anyway. I'm helping with a dressing change on a massive (90%+) burn who was also massively fluid resuscitated. Basically, that means that this guy is putting out gallons of insensible fluid loss. Plus skin sloughing. Picture this thick, partially congealed grey-brown liquid - like a poorly made Thanksgiving gravy - that is just sitting in the patient's bed.

Now, we do dressing changes in water proof gowns, hair nets, gloves (duh), and masks for a reason.

So we're turning the guy and, of course, a wave of fluid flows over the bed, coating my shoes and advancing upwards to soak through my scrub pants. I'm in the room for about an hour like that. We're almost done, turning the poor guy butt-towards me, when he starts to liquid stool everywhere. ("Burn poop.") It hits the wall behind me. I duck, manage to only get poop in my hair net. However, the turn buddy on my side who was holding up the patient's leg....drops said leg in order to get out of the way. Splat. (Splash?) I ended up getting a tidal wave of burn goo ALL OVER MY FACE. None in my mouth, thankfully.

Thank goodness for lock rooms and showers.

Admin Note: You might also like this topic with over 2000 fun nursing comments:

What Is Your Most Gross, Yucky, Disgusting Nursing Horror Story?

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

:barf01:That's pretty gnarly, hippie. I think you have my little story about the demented patient who mistook his own vomit for soup completely beat!

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Specializes in PDN; Burn; Phone triage.
:barf01:That's pretty gnarly, hippie. I think you have my little story about the demented patient who mistook his own vomit for soup completely beat!

Initially read your post as own poop for soup, which is really nasty. Vomit I can deal with but is still pretty nasty. ;)

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Specializes in NICU.

You've both fairly disgusted me! (Why did I click on this thread? :bugeyes: )

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

I've seen that too. I walked into a room one day only to find the resident with a ginormous ball of poo in his hand, staring at it raptly as if he'd never seen anything like it before. He was about to sample the goods when I stopped him by yelling, "Oh, no, Mr. ----, don't do that!!"

He looked at me curiously. "Do what?" he asked. "Take a bite of this chocolate here?"

"That's not chocolate!" I said loudly (he was pretty HOH in addition to being demented). "You have a handful of poop!!!"

Whereupon he looked back at his hand as if seeing it for the first time and replied, "Well, whaddaya know....you're right, that's (BROWN WORD)!!! How the hell did THAT get there??!" :rotfl:

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Ive shared this story before in the nursing humor section once, so if it sounds familiar...

In my pediatric clinicals I had a 12 year old boy who looked more like an 18 year old and was quite a bit bigger than me. He was in for a nasty respiratory infection, snot and secretions up the wazoo. Anyhow I walked in to do my mid-day assessment on him and he was having trouble working the play station. He said the CD kept skipping, so he spit a big fat green loogy on the CD and the wiped it on his shirt. I stood there stunned as he informed me that sometimes you have to do that to get to scratches out.

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Specializes in PACU.

At the time I was with the patient it was nothing worth noticing, just a few lesions on his chest, but I was too focused on keeping him safe and comfortable to worry about such things. Few weeks later? Yeah, grossest thing ever. I bet some of you crusty old bats know where this is headed. Yep, scabies sucks. I itched so bad I thought I was going to freak out and light myself on fire. The thought of those little buggers crawling around was disgusting.

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Specializes in Adult/Ped Emergency and Trauma.

I have to put two down, because they both were really gross, but the second story haunts me to this day with chills and hair straight up on my neck!!

1. A large male that when he drank coffee, if filled his colostomy up with gas. If not burped, it would shoot off. The smell was sooooooooooo strong and horrendous, I set my clock to remind me every thirty minutes to do the dreaded task. The room was still soooooooo rank even after thirty minutes that it was very hard to go in without making a face, It burned my eyes it was so tough. I would get everything in the room done to approach him, make sure I had everything he needed, and that I had a clear, non-obstructed route to the door. I would get a deep breath, Unclip, mash, and exhale out the words, "Ok Mr. XXXXXXX Call me back if you need anything, while folding it back and snapping it shut. I would make 10 or so paces down the hall and gasp for air (While the smell followed me down the hall I got some Real Funky Looks!)

2. In my first year of nursing, I had this small elderly lady with dementia. She was sound asleep, but renouned for picking at her IV (She had already asked me for a pocket knife to cut it off her arm). I just wanted to step in before shift ended to make sure I didn't pass a bad IV to oncoming nurse. Family remained at the bedside, so their were no restraints. I reached as quietly as I could over her, and just when I realized that she was laying there with her eyes open, . . .She grabbed my arm and began to gum it up and down like a corn on the cob, in a death grip. I was new, and terrified. I didn't want to hurt her, and I didn't want the family member to wake to this, so I played chew toy for a minute there until I could get loose. As soon as I did (arm looking like a glazed donut), she retracted back calmly like nothing happened. The good news is, the IV was ok!!!

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Specializes in PACU.

Think the patient in number two had become a zombie, Boston? Thank goodness she didn't have any teeth or you might've been infected--that'd probably be worse than scabies.

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Specializes in Adult/Ped Emergency and Trauma.

Lol, We nurses are a strange breed,. . . my wife said,"God! How can you eat and read that stuff!". . .(walking off disgusted, Lol)

She couldn't hang it on lunch break in the Nsg Lounge, Hahahaha

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Specializes in Telemetry.

Though I've certainly encountered some crazy big/rank wounds and gnarly "fecal events" :bugeyes:, and generally "ripe" pts, I would have to say that the one thing that almost made me lose it was during a terrible code. The guy was half way outta bed (of course the bed alarm did not go off since his weight was on it). He'd aspirated on emesis. Completely out. He was thrown back onto the bed and we went from there. Vomit in the mouth and nasal passages, coming out with the compressions, I'm sure many of you have been there. But the vomit did not really phase me, no, the part that got me was when I took my turn doing compressions, I could feel one of his ribs had broken at the sternum and with each push, I felt it raise and bump into my hand. Awful feeling. And I am not so sure that I was not the one that broke the rib. That was my first real time doing compressions, and it was not fun. It did not end well and threw a pallor over us all. So maybe that falls more under creepiest feeling, but I will never forget it....and reasonably sure it will happen again. :uhoh3:

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Specializes in Adult/Ped Emergency and Trauma.
Think the patient in number two had become a zombie, Boston? Thank goodness she didn't have any teeth or you might've been infected--that'd probably be worse than scabies.

You had to go and mention scabies, now I'm itching all over.

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