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

[yazisizit]

I was working a night shift on a tele floor as a new Nurse.

We had this one poor old lady who was confused and was restrained as usual for her safety. She was our designated resident nightmare geri from hell, so she was placed near the Nurse's station.

So we are chilling out at the Nurse's station, chatting and trying to get through another night...

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see our lady in question standing in the dimly lit doorway of her room!

I instantly leap out and run to her. As I approach her, she appears to be falling towards me, so I meet her in a bear hug...my arms around her waste, and her arms around my shoulders.

As I catch the lady, I notice a very strong smell of feces, and I feel something warm on my hands, arms and shoulders...

My fellow heroes come in behind me, and as the lights are turned on, my worst fears are instantly realized.

Yes, I caught the poor old lady with a good old bear hung football catch, but I was also covered in the lady's feces.

As I look at her, she has feces smeared all over her arms and hands... (and even her face!)

And of course, now so did I!

[pca_85]

I cannot believe I just read every single post in this thread and only got grossed out twice.

Do you know how many posts I've read and immediately thought "I'm sooooooooooooo glad I'm not the one cleaning that up!"

[aem31]

I dont understand how people forget tampons and things in their lady partss and behinds. It makes me wonder what this world is coming to...

Google "lost tampon". It happens a lot!

[canadianwoman]

Do you know how many posts I've read and immediately thought "I'm sooooooooooooo glad I'm not the one cleaning that up!"

Several I would guess.

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

We approach the cell and sh** and greenish stuff is coming out, oh yeah and the corn! He was flicking it at us!

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::kiss. I can just picture the corn flick.:lol2:

[DanaOatman]

I worked in a county hospital ER that had the jail contract.. i had a prisoner coming in with chains on..it was christmas time.. i began hearing jingles..as they walked past me, i heard jink jink jink.. as he hurried along, his chains went into a full rendition on jingle bells.. lol had to be there.. my bad.. :) gotta find your fun in this profession some how!! lol

[JSlice., ASN, RN]

As a New CNA: I removed a large dressing off a man with what i was only told was a "very infected foot" for his shower. As i began unwrapping, yellow drainage appeared darker and darker on the dressing and the odor of rotting flesh and infection swept through my nostrils and filled the room. I soon uncovered the first most gruesome sight and smell ever. the man's foot looked like swiss cheese. Gangrene eating away at a couple toes, deep yellow/green craters in the heal and top of the foot. that was the first time i smelled something raunchy enough to cause my stomach to twist.

As an Older CNA: I was told a man had a swollen scrotum and had crapped all over the place. I walked in the room to find the scrotum was not only swollen, but swollen to the size of a beach ball. My job? I had to lift the scrotum up while the other CNA cleaned out the liquid stool from all crevices. Seeing how the pt was a 300 pounder, we were cleaning poopy out from crevices and off Beach Ball Scrotum for an hour.

As a Fresh Nurse: I HATE having to help the Dr with female pelvic exams. Most women have the nastiest odors down there. The smell of unshowered lady parts is enough to make me want to croak.

[dankimal]

Fortunately, so far I have been spared the grossest of the gross, so I will offer the best I have and tell a tale from nursing school:

I was taking my Human Anatomy class as a pre-requisite for entering the BSN program at my school. I was in the lab studying overtime for the upcoming lab practical. My lab partner and I were working our way through the cadaver, locating and identifying various nerves, vessels, muscles, etc., making good progress.

Now, for those of you who don't know, our cadavers were stored in a contraption that resembled a stainless steel pit barbecue filled with a formaldehyde and formalin "soup." You would crank the handle on the outside of the tank, open the top, and the cadaver would emerge from the preservative. The "soup" was this purplish, red-cabbage color that smelled like latex and something awful, and had a fine colloid of proteins and other dissolved body tissues.

So as I was working away, I lifted off the thoracic organs to expose the anterior portion of the thoracic spine so we could locate the sympathetic chain ganglion. "Soup" had collected at the bottom of the cadavers chest cavity in a neat little puddle. In the middle of that puddle, was a red piece of yarn that was tied around a structure we were to identify. Without thinking, I took my gloved hand to move the yarn, flicked it out of the way of the nerve we were examining, and saw, in seeming slow motion, a splash and splatter of soup arc through the air towards my face. Before I could react, I felt a distinct moisture on my mouth and lips... I froze... My lab partner asked what was wrong... I replied in a panic, "I think I just drank some of the soup!"

It tasted awful. Like latex and poo.

[optimist]

I do wound care in LTC. One day I was doing a routine dry dressing change on a ladys hand as she had dry gangrene to her fingers. We were casually talking as I pulled the old dressing off when something landed in my lap. She looked down first and said " Are you gonna put that back on?" I looked down to see her detached middle finger resting on my leg. It was all I could do to keep my professionalism! (about a month later her toes began to follow suit but I was prepared)

[Leonca]

Hello, all! I've been following this thread for years, and I've finally decided to sign up so I can join in the discussion. It has brought me much understanding in the field of human medicine and appeals to my morbid sense of humor as well.

I am almost at the point where I will receive my license as a Registered Veterinary Technician. I'd love to share some of the more interesting stories from my field, if you're cool with that. If not I'll just be re-reading this and commenting as I go.

I will leave one story from my practicum before I head off to bed. A client brought in a Labrador retriever mix that he said had been missing for weeks and just found again that day. The dog was thin and dirty, and absolutely covered in ticks of all sizes. As the client walked him into the exam room he was literally shedding ticks with each step. He got to stay overnight in isolation while the meds killed them. I went back after he was settled in to pick up as many ticks as I could find and drop them in a jar of alcohol to die. I was so glad none of the other clients sitting in the reception room asked me what I was doing. I can only imagine how grossed out they would have been! :rotfl:

[rph3664]

Leonca, welcome aboard! You do not have to be a nurse to post here. I'm a pharmacist, and there are physicians, dental hygienists, and at least one other vet tech named Fuzzy who stops by occasionally.

[wound warrier]

To add to what Optomist wrote, this incident happened soon after I graduated. Had a patient with dry gangrene of her foot and ankle, that the family finally consented for surgery. Night before surgery, family outside of room, I turned the patient and the foot fell off. Did not know what to do. So I propped the foot in line with the leg, covered the lady up, and let her family finish their visit. it was quite funny at the time!!

[Leonca]

thanks rph3664. i don't have a whole lot to add yet, and certainly not nearly as disturbing as most of the posts here, but i'm sure that will change with more experience.

when i worked in med-surg i was walking down the hall and i kept hearing this awful spuing sound. i kept walking till i found out where it was coming from. i walked in a pts. room and here lays this man about 80 y/o totally not with it. he had been restrained

and was laying there coughing up loogies and spitting them straight up in the air, of course they (the loogies) came back and splattered him in the face. referrelative="t" o:spt="75" coordsize="21600,21600">http://img.an-file.info/smilies/uhoh3.gif" src="file:///c:\users\aimee\appdata\local\temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image001.gif">i stood there for a minute and tried to figure out which direction i could run and hide

but as i stood there i was wondering my god how in the world am i gonna get this cleaned up? i will vomit just from the nasty sounds he was making. so heres my secret. i went to get wash cloths and cleaning stuff and when i came back two other nurses were there to clean him and since they were doing such a nice job a third person would had just been in the way right???

oh man, i remember this! this was actually my favorite story and the one that stuck in my head the most for the bizarre mental image it created. i'm not sure if i would want to vomit or burst out laughing if i came across that.

one of the worst things i saw was total fecal and urinary incontinence in a cat caused by the manx gene. some manx are missing nerves which prevents them from having control of their bowels. the kitten was 15 weeks old. i don't know how the client was able to put up with that for so long before bringing it in. the client agreed to euthanasia since it isn't treatable and an x-ray we took afterward showed severe megacolon from inability to properly empty the bowels.