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!

[anndoodle]

The stoma?!?! *blechh....*

Here's my little tale: Was working 3-11 in a geri-psych and everyone was in the meeting hall eating BBQ chicken, potato salad...all the trimmings. About, oh, I'd have to say 14 elderly psychs, ranging in age from 50 - 92. Towards the end of the meal, one poor little man chokes a bit on a bite of food and can't breathe well, so another nurse does a "heimlich" to evacuate the bite of food that's stuck. A HUGE bite of BBQ chicken flies across the table and hits this 70 something little schiz patient smack dab between the eyes and falls onto her plate. Therefore, she looks down and promptly pukes up her dinner on the man sitting next to her. I swear...you've all heard of the domino effect? I couldn't eat BBQ chicken for MONTHS!!!! Every single patient was puking, right in a row. It was phenergan for dessert that night!!!

Yes, I've heard about this kind of thing before. How disgusting.

[jannecdote]

Yes, I've heard about this kind of thing before. How disgusting.

It's odd. A nurse at work was telling me about people doing this and the very next day I read this post. It never ceases to amaze me that people can come up with something warped or gross to do.

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

The stoma?!?! *blechh....*

Here's my little tale: Was working 3-11 in a geri-psych and everyone was in the meeting hall eating BBQ chicken, potato salad...all the trimmings. About, oh, I'd have to say 14 elderly psychs, ranging in age from 50 - 92. Towards the end of the meal, one poor little man chokes a bit on a bite of food and can't breathe well, so another nurse does a "heimlich" to evacuate the bite of food that's stuck. A HUGE bite of BBQ chicken flies across the table and hits this 70 something little schiz patient smack dab between the eyes and falls onto her plate. Therefore, she looks down and promptly pukes up her dinner on the man sitting next to her. I swear...you've all heard of the domino effect? I couldn't eat BBQ chicken for MONTHS!!!! Every single patient was puking, right in a row. It was phenergan for dessert that night!!!

:uhoh21: Oh my. Definite domino effect, but your description of it is hilarious!!!:rotfl: Thanks for the laugh.

[joannemojo]

haha, these stories are brilliant!! Gross, but brillaint!! The spunk in the eye story was the one that made me feel a bit queezy!!

I don't really have a gross story like some of these. I'm a 2nd year student so I'm sure it's all to come. I have one story tho.....

It was my first clinical placement and I had never been on a ward before. My friend and I was called to an elderly lady who we were quite fond of. She was getting more poorly by the day and because she was so nice we would go out of our way to help her.

Anyhoo, she was diagnosed with C-Diff and on ferrous sulphate.

One day she called us over for the toilet. My friend and I got the comode for her and were tansferring her from her bed. Just as we were half way to the comode she told us that she was going so we hurried up. Got her on the comode and thought that we had avoided disaster. My foot started to feel rather warm and when I moved my foot out I saw the biggest pile of BLACK SLIME on top of my shoe!! It was vile!! The smell was horrendous too. So bad with the iron tablets that we could both taste the metal!!

My friend found it really funny when I saw my foot until she looked down at her trousers!! On it's way to my shoe the slime had slide ALL the way down both legs of her trousers!! She smile soon disappeared from her face!!

I managed to clean the majority off my shoe and noticed that it had TAKEN THE POLISH OFF!!!

We both ended up having to be dry cleaned in the sleuse!!

Certainly a baptism of fire!! lol.

Oh and I threw my shoes away!!

[talaxandra]

I don't know if I can compete with some of the awesomely gross stories already posted, but here goes:

1/ We had a patient we nicknamed Daniel the Destroyer after he took apart a recliner chair with a plastic teaspoon, though (post stroke) he only had movement in one hand. He developed the charming habit of throwing handful of faeces into the corridor (amazing aim) - on nights we shone torches in a circle before entering his room after one nurse had some fall from the ceiling into her hair

2/ A friend of mine had to do CPR on an end-stage oncology patient who had a chest wall lypoma - with every compression she could feel it squish beneath her palms

3/ On night duty we were starting the 0200 turn round. Our little old demented chap had been put in the treatment room post open laparoscopy. As we got to the doorway we heard an odd splooshy sound and turned ont he light to find him playing with his dehisced bowel

4/ I was a student, doing my first set of nights. We had an elderly woman with urine the colour and consistancy of custard. I turned her over toward the RN and dropped the (almost full) catheter over to her side of the bed. Guess I didn't know my own strength, because the IDC landed on the ground, bounced, the burette broke, and a good 400ml of 'custard' ran into her shoe. It's really hard to sound sincere about your apology when you're laughing so hard you can barely breathe!

5/ I looked after a diabetic renal chap who'd complained of his testes feeling odd. The RMO palpated his scrotum, which split open. He then scraped out the pudding which had been his testes - never found out exactly why they'd necrosed and semi-liquified. BTW, patient's lying in bed throughout, no pain, no stress, bless him

6/ One of the grads came up to me and said "I know you'll know - what do you do for recurrent thrush?" (and there's me thinking I'd been so subtle with my scratching! :)) A bit nonplussed, I said I'd heard topical application of yoghurt was supposed to be good.

The next week she comes up to me and says that it'd worked well but "the strawberries keep getting caught in my pubes"!!!

[Chad_KY_SRNA]

SoldierMedic the pt. got poison ivy "down south" from wiping his bottom with poison ivy leaves and it spread to the genitals when he scratched. Seems like you would pay better attention to what you wipe with doesn't it?

My friend Jeannie is doing an ER clinical this month in a small rural hospital. She and a few students were assisting clearing out a trach and one of the students asked what made the sputum look green. The RT quickly replied, "The Funk" :rotfl:.

I have done far better than I expected, I have not gagged once while reading all of these pages, I have been sitting here for nearly four hours. Some of the stuff discussed by nursing folk would gag a maggot. Jeannie and I were talking about the funk the other night and a few of our coworkers at the LTC facility were turning green. I told her that I thought we both needed immediate mental help.

[teeituptom, BSN, RN]

welcome to the wonderfull world of nursing

[lpnin03]

I had a patient one night and I can't remember exactly what she was in for but she has a history of Chron's. Needless to say she had SEVERAL large, loose BMs during my shift. It always took two people to get her on and off the bedpan. I went in with a RN to get her cleaned up and lucky me was on the side of the bed that got to wipe her off first. I wiped and wiped and then noticed something sticking out of her rectum. I pulled it out and it was a slice of onion! I showed it to the RN that was helping me and tried my hardest not to laught or puke. After I left her room it was all I could do to keep myself from puking. I have been exposed to quite a bit and nothing has made me feel that nauseated. As a matter of fact, I feel a little sick now!!

[miphillli]

While I was working at a VA hospital,chronic care,we were two man lifting an old gentleman with the absolute worst looking and smelling urine...somehow the spiget on his foley bag opened and you guessed it...right in the opened mouth of my fellow nurse,I will never forget that day,the pt was pitched into bed,the other nurse vomited on the spot,I almost did,and the pt thought it was all so funny!!! The second disgusting thing was the lady that came in with maggots in her new mastectomy,I lost it that time....then the one about the Nut Case (sorry all you mental health folks out there,bless you all) that would eat to fast,vomit and then eat her vomit........I had forgotten about that one until now,gee, now my stomach hurts!:rotfl:

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

While I was working at a VA hospital,chronic care,we were two man lifting an old gentleman with the absolute worst looking and smelling urine...somehow the spiget on his foley bag opened and you guessed it...right in the opened mouth of my fellow nurse,I will never forget that day,the pt was pitched into bed,the other nurse vomited on the spot,I almost did,and the pt thought it was all so funny!!! The second disgusting thing was the lady that came in with maggots in her new mastectomy,I lost it that time....then the one about the Nut Case (sorry all you mental health folks out there,bless you all) that would eat to fast,vomit and then eat her vomit........I had forgotten about that one until now,gee, now my stomach hurts!:rotfl:

[GARYLPN]

MY most disgusting incident: I was bent over a guy on a vent. He pulled the tube out and all of his mucus and fluid sprayed out into my face. I was momentarily a walking snot ball. One other nurse in the room who witnessed my misfortune went into the pt's bathroom and threw up. Fortunately I did not but I did scrub about 5 layers of skin off.

[talaxandra]

I've been thinking, and I've come up with some more:

1/ Two of us were washing an unconscious woman with diarrhoea. She was on her side, facing me, and my friend was washing her peroneum, with my holding up the top leg. We'd been chatting and I suddenly thought of something, so I said my firend's name excitedly. She jerked upright, just as the patient let loose a fountain of matter that hit the wall - less than a second after my friend has been down there, mouth open!

2/ Actually happened to a colleague - when she was a junior (hospital-based) student, she was seconded to ED to assist with a burns transfer from Pentridge (the local prison). This guy had been accused of child molestation by another inmate. A group of guys then covered him in glue and pieces of paper, then took it in turns flicking lit matches at him until he caught on fire. They transferred him up to the burns unit (>80% burns) and, as they turned him my colleague supported his head with her gloved hands. When she removed her hands an ear came off, stuck to her glove.

3/ Old guy with COAD and a lot of sputum - he used to spend half the day eating Scotch Finger biscuits, and the other half coughing up thick, biscuit-streaked sputum. If you didn't get in there before the cup was half full he'd swallow it and start again.

4/ Saving what I think is the worst for last - you kind of expect less from patients than from staff :) A student approached one of the RN's on my ward, concerned about a nursing practice she'd seen performed by one of the nurses she was working with.

The patient, from a nursing home, was incontinent and had dementia; he was with us following a stroke. They'd had trouble loosening the spigot of the patient's naso-gastric tube, so the RN leaned over, popped the end in her mouth, and pulled out the spigot with her teeth!!!

The student was assured that she was right, this really wasn't approved nursing practice. :uhoh21: