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!

[sticknurse]

OH THAT TAKES THE CAKE ugh...........................

[lauftrbstmedicine]

I am a 10 yr LVN and have worked as a CNA 10 yrs before I could tell some real dooooosies....I was a fresh LVN at a LTC facility working the 2-10shift, I had a elderly male pt. with alzhemiers/dementia and a glass eye...the glass eye is a good thing to keep in mind....back in those days we could use vest restraints for safety..this man had a bad habit of crawling over siderails and falling...he could just barely stand up alone....his room was across from the nurses station because of his hercules acts of getting loose and trying to ambulate and falling so much...it was bedtime and finally everyone was in bed and the aides were making last rounds, I am at the opposite end of the hall trying to give a sleepaide when I hear a scream from a CNA, I tear off running back and up the hall to where the screaming is coming...I see blood running in a stream mixed with water infront of the patients room, I hear water gurgling....the CNA backs out of the front of the bathroom entrance and I see the most horrific sight tothis day that gives me nightmares....the man had crawled over the foot of his bed with Siderails up, getting out of the vest restraint leaving it tied perfectly to have made his way into the bathroom before falling...where he fell face forward striking his face on the porcelian sinks edge breaking it into a chunk and knocking the entire sink off the wall, the man lying face down is gurgling in the torrent of water... I struggled to manuever the sink off this mans back and find a shut off valve..i had sent the aide for 911 and proceed to realize that I am seeing his jawbone at the back of his neck and that his glass eye is behind the tiolet!! Once the emt and paramedics arrived, they were not aware of it being a glass eye...I witnessed one EMt become violently ill..... well, after they had him on the stretcher wheeling him out I managed to pluck the glass eye up and place it in a denture cup...the next day his daughter came in to see if it had been located so she could take it to the hospital. There was a horrific amount of blood everywhere...it looked like a slaughterhouse with its splatterings even reaching the ceiling. I cannot to this day get that image out of my mind. The patient did return about a month later with a g-tube and with his glass eye in place.

[txspadequeenRN, BSN, RN]

good grief!!!!! this really isnt funny, but the glass eye behind the toilet...now that's funny right there....

i am a 10 yr lvn and have worked as a cna 10 yrs before i could tell some real dooooosies....i was a fresh lvn at a ltc facility working the 2-10shift, i had a elderly male pt. with alzhemiers/dementia and a glass eye...the glass eye is a good thing to keep in mind....back in those days we could use vest restraints for safety..this man had a bad habit of crawling over siderails and falling...he could just barely stand up alone....his room was across from the nurses station because of his hercules acts of getting loose and trying to ambulate and falling so much...it was bedtime and finally everyone was in bed and the aides were making last rounds, i am at the opposite end of the hall trying to give a sleepaide when i hear a scream from a cna, i tear off running back and up the hall to where the screaming is coming...i see blood running in a stream mixed with water infront of the patients room, i hear water gurgling....the cna backs out of the front of the bathroom entrance and i see the most horrific sight tothis day that gives me nightmares....the man had crawled over the foot of his bed with siderails up, getting out of the vest restraint leaving it tied perfectly to have made his way into the bathroom before falling...where he fell face forward striking his face on the porcelian sinks edge breaking it into a chunk and knocking the entire sink off the wall, the man lying face down is gurgling in the torrent of water... i struggled to manuever the sink off this mans back and find a shut off valve..i had sent the aide for 911 and proceed to realize that i am seeing his jawbone at the back of his neck and that his glass eye is behind the tiolet!! once the emt and paramedics arrived, they were not aware of it being a glass eye...i witnessed one emt become violently ill..... well, after they had him on the stretcher wheeling him out i managed to pluck the glass eye up and place it in a denture cup...the next day his daughter came in to see if it had been located so she could take it to the hospital. there was a horrific amount of blood everywhere...it looked like a slaughterhouse with its splatterings even reaching the ceiling. i cannot to this day get that image out of my mind. the patient did return about a month later with a g-tube and with his glass eye in place.

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

oh my god!!!!!!!!! ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!! ewwwww!!!!!!!

:chair:

that makes two of us. the reason you never that cute little 18 yo girl again may be due to that very incident. it could have traumatized her so much she decided against pursuing a nursing career. just the thought of it makes me want to vomit!!!!!

he definitely was a disgusting dirty old man.

[Hrtnurse14]

I think working in the ED you can get the most disgusting. One of the last ones I dealt with was a lady who was transported in by ambulance from home. Her reason for coming was "sores that don't heal on her legs". She was fairly young, maybe 40's and she had both legs wrapped. Problem was the wraps looked like they were about a year old. The ambulance personnell told us (a little late) that she seemed to have some psych problems. Her apartment had paper bags w/ used tissue lined up neatly in rows. Also, when they were in the rig on the way over they noticed some maggots. Well, needless to say when we removed the bandages from her legs (and later we found out she had bandages on her groin along with underware from God knows when) maggots fell all over the place and curled up. It was so gross! Even though we were completely covered in precaution gear I don't think one of us didn't shed our scrubs and take a shower before we left. On a positive note, the ID doc said the maggots saved her from having her legs taken off from gangrene. He said without all of them the dead flesh would have taken over and she would have lost her legs.

Mary Ann

[Eyefish999]

a guy stuck a paintbrush up his butt (here come the picasso jokes)

[suanna]

I was floatimg out of my nice quiet SICU to a med surg dumping ground. My task-to swab culture a blister for viral study on this middle aged lady. As I rolled the swab across what appeared to be an oozing pustule the blessed thing popped and spurted a goodly amount of its contents into my open mouth-YUMMY! Needless to say I always wear a mask when culturing anything anymore.

[suanna]

I was on my way into work one afternoon when a guy standing in the middle of the road flagged me down. His buddy had just dumped hin donorcycle and "wasn't looking too good". I figured I would just keep him down and calm untill the EMTs arrived- Oh my- not arousable- Oh My My MY- no pulse no resp. I started CPR- of course I have no mask or gloves. Mouth to mouth was fun when he would blow back a torrent of blood and broken bits of teeth into my mouth and face with each breath. 15 compressions, to breaths SPIT SPIT GAG SPIT- 15 compressions two breaths..... 15min later paramedics arrive- pt has weak pulse and shallow slow resp that still required asst. I carry a one way mask on the front seat with me from then on.

[TDub, MSN, EdD]

New stroke patient, no gag reflex. Discovered this by giving him one tiny 1-cc ice chip and seeing him turn purple momentarily. Okay, it's NPO for you mister!

.

Finally I got my penlight out and looked in his mouth. The dried secretions were in a solid band of matter that ran from the back of the tongue to the very back of the roof of the mouth. I'd just been sliding around it with the suction catheters.

God bless you for pursuing that and relieving him of that horrible thing in his mouth! You're the nurse I'd want if I was in that position.

You too, suanna. I don't know if he lived or not, but it was incredibly brave of you to give him the chance!

[kat7ap]

Back when I was a CNA in a nursing home we had a very elderly female resident who had genital warts. Another CNA and I were cleaning her up in bed and when we did peri care several of her little warts had came off into my washcloth and we also found some buried in her sheets!

[sticknurse]

we took care of this fellow in the nursing home (vent patient) with down's syndrome...well he was kinda spoiled, we usually tried to keep him happy as much as possible, and he really enjoyed his thickened soda pop...well when he didn't get his way, he'd been known to act up. One night an agency nurse was working and she was too busy to get the soda, so he got her back. He chewed off (to the bone!!) his middle and index fingers to the bone....needless to say, the agency nurse never returned to work with us.

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

I was floatimg out of my nice quiet SICU to a med surg dumping ground. My task-to swab culture a blister for viral study on this middle aged lady. As I rolled the swab across what appeared to be an oozing pustule the blessed thing popped and spurted a goodly amount of its contents into my open mouth-YUMMY! Needless to say I always wear a mask when culturing anything anymore.

:barf02:Can you remember the taste?