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!)
(english hospital funny story: sorry if you dont understand some of what im chatting about but you will get the jist)
This is one that happened in the resus area of the Accident and emergency department where i work. We had and blue call come in with a patient who had arrested. in the department cpr was continued and he was shocked several times and the cycle was caried out several times with people swapping around with cpr and shocking this went on for 20 mins when the medical registrar on call decide to shock the patient once again and try one more cycle before stopping. She was on call and had been in clinic she wasnt wearing scrubs or a Dr,s coat but a very nice trouser suit that and had just had her hair done that morning. any way she placed tha paddles on the patient and shocked him as she did so the patient as a reflex response ejaculated straight into her hair and over the side of her jacket. The funnist part of this was that she didnt actualy notice and carried on working on the patient and couldnt for the life of her understand why all the staff in there with her kept crying with laughter whilst still working and it wasnt until the end of the arrest that anybody told her what had happend where upon she sprinted to the toilet to clean herslef up and be sick lol :roll luckily she did see the funny side to this as she has been getting wound up about it by every Dr. in the place ever since it happened :roll:chuckle
Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..
Hi there Untamedspirit,
Thanks for posting a reply to my message. I think it's therapy for the soul to post and to read humorous experiences in nursing. It keeps us going, don't you think?
I see that you're from Monticello, Ny. I lived in Neversink, Ny until February 1996, and lived in Sullivan county all my life until then. I'd like to learn more about your bio if you would like to email me.
By the way, I'm a second career nurse who just LOVES to laugh. If you're curious about my bio, log into my profile. I'll tell give you more info thru email if you so choose to send me a reply.
This was a pretty gross story, maybe not as bad as the others!
Quite a few years ago, I was working in a trauma/general surgery ICU. At the time, I was doing permanent weekends and was working with a great group of people. Anyway, my friend Jan asked me to come in and help turn this poor elderly trauma patient who had hip surgery s/p a MVC. Well, the hip was quite swollen, inflamed and red and definitely looked infected. Jan must have had some kind of premonition because as I and a fellow coworker turned the patient towards us, Jan yelled "hit the deck!" (which was pretty funny considering Jan was an ex-Army nurse). The next thing I knew, Jan was on her knees, the hip wound burst open and signicant amounts of yellow pus and sh*t went flying and spattered on the wall and curtains. Totally gross and thank God for Jan that she "hit the deck" at the right time! I shudder to think what she would have looked like had she not dropped. Needless to say, the patient made a quick trip to the OR. Yuck!
Whoa! these stories are a trip.....don't have a gross out one, but the strangest pt I ever had was the guy who came in w/ sepsis, alcohol poisoning....he had a pic of the common housefly tatooed onto the head of his member (ouch!). Surrounding his peri-area were six clumps of long horse hair, sutured in. He was intubated and unable to give us a hx. That was supplied by his SO, who shared with us that they had been tattoed together--he w/ a fly and her with a fly swatter........ain't love grand.......
Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..
Woooo hooo! What an experience!
In the recent past, I was a patient recovering from an anaphylactoid reaction to Niacin. Being a light sleeper, I heard a shuffling sound. When I opened my eyes, I saw an elderly man, naked as the day he was born entering our room. I asked him if I could help him, and he told me he was looking for the bathroom. I got out of bed, took him by the arm, and led him out to the nurses' desk where I handed him over to one of the nurses.
The next morning I related the incident to my roommate who was a sound sleeper. She replied, "I always miss the good stuff!" :chuckle
Being a newbie in the ICU of a military hospital, I was in charge of an obese, elderly dependent wife who came in complaining of chest pain at the top of the shift. She was so large that the beds side rails were suffocated with her flesh rolls. There was also a slight tangy stench that came off of the woman that made you think of rotting flesh.
The Cardiologist finally decided to come down and admit her to us, talks with the patient briefly and comes over to the nurses station and informs us to clean her up and that he wasn't seeing her until we did. Of course that meant me, the newbie.
Time to suck it up and get the deed over and done with. As I was giving her a bed bath I noticed the smell, that tanginess was getting worse with every drop of water that touched her skin. As I lifted one roll of flesh to wash under, I noticed that the reason for her smell was the flesh was rotting away in between the rolls.
As I lifted one beast that was so huge I thought it looked like a thigh, I couldn't believe what was lying there. A popsicle stick that had been under her breast so long you couldn't tell what flavor it was and that the flesh under it was rotted out in the shape of that stick. Gross!! I could hardly contain my laughter.
Oh, and it gets worse.. We had to cath the woman. This is where the initiation got me really considering running for the door. As I got my head down below the nether regions of her lady parts to insert the cath my eyeballs just about popped out of my head first from the stench, then from the fact that the whole outer lady partsl area was a hugh patch of white, bulbous pustule cysts. There were so many I couldn't determine where I could possibly squeeze the little cath through..I shoved and shoved as sweat was pouring down my face as I was losing my breath from not trying to breathe. Finally I gave up and told the Lt. nurse it was her turn, I gave up.
She could not get the damn thing inside her either, two male nurses were holding each leg up that was the size of an elephant cursing us under their breath to hurry it up. Finally, after about 20 mins of trying the LT was able to squeeze the cath in.
Ok, now how could you not know that your stuff had a major problem like that?? Ladies the OB/GYN is your friend!!
Has anyone ever 'lanced' an infected sebaceous cyst?? I assisted my charge nurse when we discovered one the size of a half-dollar on this woman's chest (at the nursing home we work at). She wiped it down with betadine & alcohol, then made a tiny opening in it with a 19g needle. We each pushed from opposite sides, and the stuff came out with such force & so much that it hit the wall & wardrobe closet across the room!! It looked like a crime scene!!! NASTY!!!!!!! I retched the whole time!!!!!...And I thought loogies were bad enough...............lol
Wasn't lancing it...I simply had put a warm compress on and "lightly palpated" the dang thing to see if is softened. It exploded in a 180 degree side to side and up and down. I had it in my hair, on my face (couldn't see out of my glasses) on my clothing etc. And I was sitting to the side. Took my jacket off and put it in a garbage bag. wiped everything else down with alcohol.
The really gross part was I got home and set the bag next to the front door. (This is Sat. night). Sunday morning it wasn't there. Thought to myself "have to thank DH for putting it in the laundry." Monday when I go to put away clean laundry I discover my DH had put it in a basket of folded clean laundry. He thought it was an "extra" that I had taken to work. And brought home to hang back up.
Now we have a rule. Anything in a garbage bag goes in the laundry room.
I did more laundry that day than I have ever done in my life.
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
OK, that's pretty gross.......but did you ever happen to think how embarrassing that entire episode must have been for the PATIENT?? This poor woman obviously cannot take care of her own hygiene, let alone get up on an exam table and into the stirrups. I hope someone was kind enough to refer her to a home health agency, as she needs help with personal care so that she doesn't offend the staff next time she ends up in the hospital.
Once had a self confessed 'vampire' on a mixed medical admissions ward I worked on. This guy would draw blood from his IV cannulas, collect it in a glass and drink the blood. Psych referall ASAP!
--cries-- 
SavageWist
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