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!

[sharpeimom]

i would never be fortunate enough to get the "temporary" insanity. with my luck, i'd end up in a lockdown unit drinking haldol cocktails for the next 50 years.

when i was doing my psych rotation as a student nurse, part ofit was at a va neuro/psych hospital. one day, i was assigned to an older man who had a great many problems. in the middle of my day, i was

trying to interview him, and suddenly, he just blurted out, out of absolutely nowhere, "i used to have papers to prove that i was sane once. did you ever have them or have you always been crazy?":lol2:

[ThrowEdNurse, BSN, RN]

1) 30 YOA male psych pt, sitting in ER bed (waiting on psych placement of course) masturbating naked. Due to rules governing how we manage our PEC pts, his door has to be open and we have an ERT watching him, and probably several others at the time. I walk past the room, on my way to check on another pt and see what he is doing. He is in full site of everyone, visitors, etc, so I keep walking and alert the 5 foot, 100 lb tech who is monitoring him in the hall. As usual, we are overly busy and understaffed. This probably contributed to me bunting the issue off on her, but anyway... She stands up, goes to his doorway and attempts to verbally redirect him. He then loses all control, chases her across the ER while she screams blue bloody murder and he finally tackles her in front of the nurses' station....naked....with an erection. It was horrible. I felt so badly. Went home in tears that day. You just can't get paid enough to deal with something like that.

2) 50 YOA female with hx of recent acute renal failure and ETOH and drug abuse found disoriented. She was obviously septic. The EMS report comes in, "there are ants." She has a fresh PICC line to R chest wall and literally, there are ants everywhere. She was covered head to toe. And the nephrologist came in and we removed the gauze dressing from the PICC line, ants went everywhere. Even later when she went ICU, there were still ants on the ER stretcher. They came out of her. It was soooo disgusting.

3) Pt born with some disease I can't remember name of. Disease is side effect of her mother taking an old anti nausea med while pregnant. She essentially is missing most of her bones. She is a big soft, lump with a head. She has been living in an apartment alone with an uneducated care giver coming occasionally. At some point in time, they both decided it would be a good idea for her to live on "a board." The board was a thin piece of fiberboard. The pt stayed 24/7 in a wheel chair with a piece of fiberboard placed under her buttocks, extending out where her legs sort of were. Most of her skin was black and rotten. It was the worse smell ever. The care giver would slide a bed pan under her genitalia and if it went in, great! If not, oh well, they had a spatula. Yeah, a spatula. They kept a spatula under her right thigh, with a corresponding long, thin, black decubitus. She would scrape the fecal matter down the length of "the board" and return it to her thigh. The board and her legs were black. WORSE SMELL EVER! We couldn't get IV access, we couldn't get a central line. She was so deformed from her birth defect, we couldn't get a BP. Her anatomy was so deformed, it was impossible to get a BP. We tried, for a long time, but it was impossible. Her bones were soft. She was altered from sepsis but would still scream in pain when moved because her bones would break. It was soooo horrible.

4) Road worker fell from machinery, face first into fresh, hot tar. 3rd degree burns to face including mouth and R eye. His face stuck to the road and he couldn't get up so his coworkers lifted him, leaving part of his face in the road and a lot of tar on his face and in his R eye.

5) Paraplegic fell asleep smoking in bed. 3rd degree burns over most of his body. His suprapubic was burned into his body and leaking. For some reason, of all the burns I've seen, there was something about a paraplegic with a burned up foley bag that has become ingrained in my head....

[Penelope_Pitstop, BSN, RN]

Disease is side effect of her mother taking an old anti nausea med while pregnant. She essentially is missing most of her bones. She is a big soft, lump with a head.

Sounds like a birth defect related to Thalidomide.

[rph3664]

Sounds like a birth defect related to Thalidomide.

I was thinking the same thing. Was this person normal mentally? I've heard of it causing limb reductions, but not no bones at all.

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

1) 30 YOA male psych pt, sitting in ER bed (waiting on psych placement of course) masturbating naked. Due to rules governing how we manage our PEC pts, his door has to be open and we have an ERT watching him, and probably several others at the time. I walk past the room, on my way to check on another pt and see what he is doing. He is in full site of everyone, visitors, etc, so I keep walking and alert the 5 foot, 100 lb tech who is monitoring him in the hall. As usual, we are overly busy and understaffed. This probably contributed to me bunting the issue off on her, but anyway... She stands up, goes to his doorway and attempts to verbally redirect him. He then loses all control, chases her across the ER while she screams blue bloody murder and he finally tackles her in front of the nurses' station....naked....with an erection. It was horrible. I felt so badly. Went home in tears that day. You just can't get paid enough to deal with something like that.

2) 50 YOA female with hx of recent acute renal failure and ETOH and drug abuse found disoriented. She was obviously septic. The EMS report comes in, "there are ants." She has a fresh PICC line to R chest wall and literally, there are ants everywhere. She was covered head to toe. And the nephrologist came in and we removed the gauze dressing from the PICC line, ants went everywhere. Even later when she went ICU, there were still ants on the ER stretcher. They came out of her. It was soooo disgusting.

3) Pt born with some disease I can't remember name of. Disease is side effect of her mother taking an old anti nausea med while pregnant. She essentially is missing most of her bones. She is a big soft, lump with a head. She has been living in an apartment alone with an uneducated care giver coming occasionally. At some point in time, they both decided it would be a good idea for her to live on "a board." The board was a thin piece of fiberboard. The pt stayed 24/7 in a wheel chair with a piece of fiberboard placed under her buttocks, extending out where her legs sort of were. Most of her skin was black and rotten. It was the worse smell ever. The care giver would slide a bed pan under her genitalia and if it went in, great! If not, oh well, they had a spatula. Yeah, a spatula. They kept a spatula under her right thigh, with a corresponding long, thin, black decubitus. She would scrape the fecal matter down the length of "the board" and return it to her thigh. The board and her legs were black. WORSE SMELL EVER! We couldn't get IV access, we couldn't get a central line. She was so deformed from her birth defect, we couldn't get a BP. Her anatomy was so deformed, it was impossible to get a BP. We tried, for a long time, but it was impossible. Her bones were soft. She was altered from sepsis but would still scream in pain when moved because her bones would break. It was soooo horrible.

4) Road worker fell from machinery, face first into fresh, hot tar. 3rd degree burns to face including mouth and R eye. His face stuck to the road and he couldn't get up so his coworkers lifted him, leaving part of his face in the road and a lot of tar on his face and in his R eye.

5) Paraplegic fell asleep smoking in bed. 3rd degree burns over most of his body. His suprapubic was burned into his body and leaking. For some reason, of all the burns I've seen, there was something about a paraplegic with a burned up foley bag that has become ingrained in my head....

Your post tickled my funny bone. # 1 Naked man with an erection tackles staff person

# 3 caregiver uses spatula to clean feces from patient's butt # 5 paraplegic burns foley bag up.

I know I have a sick sense of humor like many other nurses. Sorry, I just couldn't help it.

[nurseinthemaking2010]

I do not have any horror stories to share just yet... But next week I start clinicals at a local NH/rehab. And I must say I am using this more for education then humor. I like to know what I am getting into. Well now I know. But I must say my favorite so far that I have read is this thread so far (I am only on page 14) was the little old lady that pulled out the screamers cath and says now he has something to scream about. And I cannot say I blame her. Lol keep them coming they are a great education for us new nurses, LPN, CNAs.

[GHGoonette, BSN, RN]

This isn't so much of a horror story but I still laugh about it after nearly 30 years-and the joke was well and truly on me!

In my student days I nursed a very sweet old gentleman who had been tentatively diagnosed with Krohn's disease. He certainly had a chronic diarrhea but the diagnosis was not confirmed. Anyway, he hated using the bedpan, although he was pretty debilitated and could not walk to the toilet, so we used to put him on a commode and position it over the toilet bowl, and it worked perfectly!

One morning just before the end of my night shift, he asked me to take him to the loo, so I obligingly helped him onto the commode and pushed him to the toilet. When he called to me that he was finished I went in to help clean him and push him back to his bed..... :eek:

I had forgotten to lift up the toilet seat cover.....

[okiedokie123]

:eek::eek::eek:

[Elizabeth A]

Had a guy in the ER, mentally slow, with an infected stasis ulcer to the back of his calf x 1 month. Picture this, large round area of black escar surounded by a "canal" of non-existant and barely there flesh. The the decaying flesh had been gnawed away by non the less magotts which were still in residence in large numbers in his leg. The smell was so nasty!!!!! Stank up the whole ER! Then........it gets better. He decides he has to pee and can only do this standing up! Gets out of bed bleeding and dropping magotts everywhere! Then surgery decides to debride the nasty leg IN THE ROOM! EEWWWW!!! Discovered that lidocaine makes magotts "dance".

Needless to say not much appetite that shift!

:yeah:This is the kind of case that keeps me going!

[Elizabeth A]

Classic!!

[Vossome]

One time while working as a CNA in an ALF, a while back, we had a resident that probably should have been in a skilled facility because she was slightly more demented than originally assessed.

Anyway, my co-worker at the time (another CNA) and I were at the nurses station when all of a sudden the air started lingering with the smell of poo. This was pretty unusual, d/t most residents being continent of BM most of the time. So my partner and I investigate...

Upon entering this particular resident's room, we enter to first a smack in the face of smell, secondly a wonderfully coordinated path of poo from the doorway to the trashcan, as if we were Hansel and Gretel following the candy-path to the witches house. In the trashcan lies the largest BM I've seen to date. Along with a resident who was in severe need of an impromptu shower.

As I get the resident into the shower, and into some real lighting, I begin to notice some brown in and around her mouth. Instinctively I start praying. "Oh dear, God, NO!.... Please let it be chocolate!" This naturally prompts some further investigation, and on top of the resident's nightstand, next to her bed, lies an XL, Formed BM with TEETH MARKS in it. Oh. Dear. Lord...

"Well sweety, looks like we're going to be re-brushing those teeth tonight, too..."

Needless to say, didn't take too long for my DON to do a re-evaluation on this one.

[KAMRN_33]

1) Trauma male pt ETOH fell asleep on train tracks brought in by ems, we quickly stabilized and transported pt to OR, I had one part of him, his shoe with his foot still inside!

2) 80 y/o female pt trying to cath her with 3 RN's at bedside. we all know how every ladies anatomy is just a little different and we were havinf trouble hitting the urethra. This was not made any e=asier ny pt's comments: "ladies is it hard to find because I haven't had relations in a while? I just met up with an old HIgh school sweetheart of mine, I think I need a ***** lift" at which point we all busted out laughing and informed her it had nothing to do with her lack of relations...lol That was 4 years ago and still cracks me up

3) something male ETOH and overdose of some sort but alert and moving around the room. I gave pt charcoal and told him to enjoy his chocolate shake, at which point he chugged in seconds and minutes later the room was newly decorated with black splatters.

Ohhh how I love my job, it is stories llike these that make it easy to go back day after day. I admit sick and twisted sometimes, but hey somneone's gotta do it!!!!!!!