What is the grossest thing that's happened to you???

ThatChickOmi, ADN, RN · Jun 16, 2017

Man, some of these are terrible...but some are almost funny. Hah

Boomer MS, RN · Jun 16, 2017

Am I weird or what, but I have enjoyed all 96 descriptive responses so far. They could be compiled and published for those who are so inclined to read such "exemplars".

Cafelattee · Jun 16, 2017

projectile GI bleed both ends he was elderly when I came into the room he was bend over in pain, naked, demented. I got sprayed from the back end, then I back away and come around to his front and he blew vomit, guy was a mess, I was a mess, it was hell! Never thought I would get clean. Its the worse of my 25 year career. He died a few days later. I transferred off the floor. I wanted ICU sedated patients for the rest of my career. LOL Then I went to ER what was I thinking but still the old guy has been the worse. I learned more about body language and got good observation skills these days. I've manage to miss being covered by anything since but I've had plenty thrown my way. Reflexes are faster now LOL The first years of nursing are the best learning experiences

Qing · Jun 16, 2017

Patient throwing up feces. So lucky it never hit me but once the ng tube was in place... you saw the tube filling up with it and it smelled so bad I almost passed out. Anyways, pt had an obstruction and was treated but that is by far the grossest thing I have ever seen.

whatdayisit11to7Nrse · Jun 16, 2017

I had a patient with an undiagnosed ABD-Thoracic aneurysm, and he called for help. When I went into the room he was bleeding internally, from the mouth, and it looked like a murder scene. I had only been a nurse for two weeks, and panicked. Didn't even put gloves on (eek!) and I suctioned him. I lost him, and afterwards there were still my handprints in blood all over the place. I think I was traumatized.

Another time I was cleaning patient who had a GI bleed and got it all over my pants. Then I vomited later on from the smell, while getting changed into OR scrubs!

Another time a combative patient threw a bedpan full of cdiff-feces at the CNA and I. I believe that's how I caught cdiff. Just my intuition!

And lastly this didn't happen to me but one of my coworkers was changing a colostomy when the patient passed gas and fecal matter flew into her hair.

ghstegall60 · Jun 17, 2017

I was working in PACU when I extubated a man who had been nasally intubated for oral surgery. As soon as the tube came out, he reached up and closed off one nostril, and blew out the biggest nastiest blood clot out of the other nostril. And that thing hit me square in the face. And,of course, I had witnesses who thought it was very, very funny. And, now, it is. :roflmao:

Psychtrish39, BSN, RN · Jun 17, 2017

I was working in a PCU and a man was having a STEMI and I was trying to IV push him morphine and he promptly threw up all over me and my scrubs. It made the CNA start gagging and she had to run up to the surgery floor and get me some surgical scrubs because its not like I could leave and change clothes. I asked the patient later in the shift if he felt better he just grinned. LOL I have often wondered if he did it on purpose he had some issues with a lot of the nurses. Since then I keep myself out of the line of fire if it can be helped. Never have gotten hosed like that again though. :sarcastic:

SharePRN · Jun 17, 2017

I started pushing with a woman who had a 38 week fetal demise. The first push shot meconium stained amniotic fluid forcefully in my face, hair and hit the wall behind me. The baby was then crowning, so I just grabbed a paper towel and called for the doctor. That was my first day as a L&D nurse all on my own. I learned where to position myself when helping a patient push. It was a rough shift!

retiredmednurse · Jun 17, 2017

I have had just about every body fluid on me at one time or another. Though gross, it is just part of the job on working on a medical floor. The grossest thing that happened to me was the patient I admitted with lice. I was up for the next admit. And sure enough, the call came from ER that they needed to admit a female in her mid-thirties with lice in her hair. The report I got from the ER nurse was to wear PPE from head-to-toe as these lice were jumpers! Sure enough, she came up to her private room and those of us in the room had caps, gowns, eye goggles, gloves and booties on. One nurse stayed with me to help get her admitted, as the others needed to watch the floor. One order-"wash hair with (the lice shampoo)". Her hair was knotted and matted as a solid mass, but it moved as a single mass. There were no individual hair strands. And the lice were jumping all over the place! I told the patient that the only way to wash her hair was to cut it all off and she agreed. There was only about 1/4 inch between her hair mass and her scalp. The other nurse and I got out our scissors and slowly started cutting the mass of hair from her scalp. It was then that as we were cutting, there was this horrible sticky brown liquid between the hair mass and the scalp, that allowed the mass to move. The liquid reminded me of maple syrup-same color and constancy. Within the hair mass, there were nests-hundreds of them-that looked like cooked rice. It was at this point that the other nurse, an ex-army nurse, excused herself as she couldn't take it any more and left. After an hour from start, I finally got the hair mass loose and thrown into the garbage. Then it was a simply a matter of washing her hair with the specified shampoo in the sink. At the end of the shift, we bagged and knotted tightly all the garbage and linen bags wanting to make sure none of them jumped out. The following day when the next shift came on, I heard that several nurses the previous day, almost lost their breakfast from my report regarding this patient. We did ask and receive from pharmacy the same shampoo to use at home for our protection. Though the other nurse and I probably didn't have any lice on us, you just felt itchey thinking about it.

TitaniumPlates · Jun 17, 2017

I was a nursing student at a hospital that let my cohort take part in an autopsy. We were all gowned like it was a biological apocalypse. Full face shields, hats, these gloves that went up to our armpits---the whole 9 yards.

So we're all standing around the exsanguinating table and tech just got done with taking out the intestines. He then stops for dramatic effect and says, "So. We do special things with the glands. We have to pull them out separately, dissect them for the path and lay them on the table. We did the pituitary and the thyroid and the adrenals...and since this is a MALE, we have to take out the testicles. Does anybody have an idea of how we get them out?"

Lots of suggestions...pretty much cutting open the scrotal sac was the consensus.

Nope. Dude reaches down into the peritoneum, where he had just evacuated the intestines, and we all rush forward to see what the hell this guy is really gonna do---he pokes his fingers down past the bladder, into the INSIDE of the guy's scrotum....and promptly pulls the guy's testicles out through the peritoneal cavity.

He plops the testicles down onto the cutting board (yes. cutting board.) Takes his scapel and makes a nice quick incision down the testicle.

My best friend is standing at this tech's shoulder watching in complete fascination. Like...maybe a few inches off this guy's left shoulder.

Tech cuts the testicle and a creamy white substance SHOOTS out of the guy's testicle and hits my bestie in the FACE.

SHIELDS UP!!!

Never went into a procedure without a face shield again.

(go ahead. i can only imagine the jokes in the collective heads of everyone here.)

klcrn1987 · Jun 17, 2017

I was working in a PCU and a man was having a STEMI and I was trying to IV push him morphine and he promptly threw up all over me and my scrubs. It made the CNA start gagging and she had to run up to the surgery floor and get me some surgical scrubs because its not like I could leave and change clothes. I asked the patient later in the shift if he felt better he just grinned. LOL I have often wondered if he did it on purpose he had some issues with a lot of the nurses. Since then I keep myself out of the line of fire if it can be helped. Never have gotten hosed like that again though.

Just an FYI... (not saying you did but) if you push Morphine too fast it will react with the nausea receptors in the brain and cause almost instantaneous emesis. A doctor told me this and I found out first hand when I received Morphine during a gallbladder attack. The nurse pushed it in the IV and I promptly threw up... luckily I had a basin close!!! So chances are he really didn't do it on purpose... maybe!!!

klcrn1987 · Jun 17, 2017

I'm sure I have grosser stories... but the one that jumped up on my consciousness: My group was out on our first clinical rotation ever. Two female students and I were in a patient room to get a dressing change experience. The RN removed the bandage, put some clean towels and linens around the "wound" which looked like a large ruddy area with a hole in the top. We had to "express" the wound. Remember those paper-mache volcano models in grade school? Yah, you guessed it. First decent press, out comes a very substantial lava flow of pus and blood. If you pressed too hard, it would shoot up quite nicely, in loads of "lava". Needless to say, but what the heck.... it took a lot of courses of expression, all of which were both colorful and foul.
One of the ladies with me was just fascinated, and determined as I was to clear out all the gunk. The other? Stood a few feet away cringing and half hidden from sight. After a couple years of preparatory classes of nursing, which she did very well...top of the class type (she was moving from a career in accounting to nursing).... quit after her first clinical day.
Never did see her again. I wonder where she is today ;-)

My 1st clinical day we had a girl that put a woman on the bedpan and when the woman finished and she when to take her off, the smell of BM hit her. She let the woman go, said, and I quote, "This **** ain't for me!!!" and turned on her heels and walked away... never to be seen again! LOL