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!

[wam79]

We had an alcholic patient in his 50's, a smoker, who was at the end of the hall on med/surg. He was wearing oxygen per nasal cannula and had been warned about not smoking while wearing the O2.

Anyway, we were all at the nursing station--which is odd considering how busy we always were--when we hear this loud KABOOM down the hallway. We all looked at each other and then took off running toward this guys room.

We find him staring blankly at the wall, oxygen tubing melted to his mustache, black soot-like stuff around his mouth and nose, lighter on the bed next to a pack of smokes. I don't remember if we found the cigarette he had been smoking or not.

Funny thing, this guy never acknowledged he had been smoking. His wife later admits she had brought him the cigs/lighter but never imagined anything like this could happen.

I know this could have ended up more serious than it did, but the guy was all right, superficial burns on his lip healed quickly, etc. Don't :uhoh21: at me for saying this, but every time I think about that blank look he had on his face I can't help but laugh.

(Since no one was hurt) That is funny ..

We all have cared for pt's like this. I can see it. He's sitting there with soot on his face ,O2 lines melted and he looks you in the eye and says " No' I wasn't smoking"

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

We had an alcholic patient in his 50's, a smoker, who was at the end of the hall on med/surg. He was wearing oxygen per nasal cannula and had been warned about not smoking while wearing the O2.

Anyway, we were all at the nursing station--which is odd considering how busy we always were--when we hear this loud KABOOM down the hallway. We all looked at each other and then took off running toward this guys room.

We find him staring blankly at the wall, oxygen tubing melted to his mustache, black soot-like stuff around his mouth and nose, lighter on the bed next to a pack of smokes. I don't remember if we found the cigarette he had been smoking or not.

Funny thing, this guy never acknowledged he had been smoking. His wife later admits she had brought him the cigs/lighter but never imagined anything like this could happen.

I know this could have ended up more serious than it did, but the guy was all right, superficial burns on his lip healed quickly, etc. Don't :uhoh21: at me for saying this, but every time I think about that blank look he had on his face I can't help but laugh.

:rotfl: I can see it all now. [/url]

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

(Since no one was hurt) That is funny ..

We all have cared for pt's like this. I can see it. He's sitting there with soot on his face ,O2 lines melted and he looks you in the eye and says " No' I wasn't smoking"

Here's your sign..........! :rotfl:

I get that with people who sneak smokes in the bathroom. The entire floor will start smelling like a tavern, and it's easy to find out where it's coming from because the smoke drifts out and carries right into the hall---then you confront the patient or family member, and they bare-face LIE, like you're too blind to see the smoke literally billowing out of the bathroom or too stupid to know what that toxic cloud around them is! Sheesh!

[Melanie_C]

that was really a funny experienced of yours... i was thinking it was a horrifying story at first... :) anyways, I am Mel, female, 23 years old from Philippines.. I am a BSN student.. hope we could be a good friends..:) Bye for now... God bless

[teeituptom, BSN, RN]

I remember one night in the ER, when we had a drunk patient become combative. Fortunately an Officer was in the ER and he came in to help subdue the pt. However the patients behaviour escalated and the officer pulled out his little thingee of pepper spray. and just as he sprayed the pt I leapt out of the room and closed the door.

a few minutes later the patient was handcuffed to the bed and the officer opened the door to air the room out. The patients eyes were red and watery and he was crying like a baby, and had snotcycles hanging from his nose, so did the officer and the 2 young techs who stayed in the room. Not a pretty site indeed,

The wisdom of the aged in getting out of the room before the pepper was sprayed.

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

that was really a funny experienced of yours... i was thinking it was a horrifying story at first... :) anyways, I am Mel, female, 23 years old from Philippines.. I am a BSN student.. hope we could be a good friends..:) Bye for now... God bless

Welcome, Mel!

[NurseStacey143, ADN, RN]

50 pages down WHEW. I seriously must have no life LOL! I have a couple stories, not as bad as ya'lls though.

1- in nursing school I gave an AIDS patient her HAART therapy. She vomited maybe 15 minutes later all over me and I was giving her some IV pain meds. Thats not the bad part though. I then had to look through this terribly stinky vomit and see which pills came up, so I could give her some more. That was nasty.

2- When we learned about pressure ulcers in school, our instructors told us we would probably never see a stage 4. I hate feet more than anything. So of course when I was in nursing school my first patient had a stage 4 coccyx and stage 4 bilateral heel ulcers. So after I proceeded to clean all the poop out of her sacral ulcer...down to the bone.....she had a watery BM again. UGH!!!! SO then I had to watch them debride the foot ulcers. seriosly ya'll even a foot commercial really gets to me. The room smelled SO AWFUL!!!!

3-Now as a RN. A good looking doctor came in, 3 weeks s/p cholecystectomy from another facility with a bile leak. Okay..I didnt really know what to expect. Walk in, do a quick initial assessment as he is wheeled up, seems fine. Walk out to look at his chart, call the dr. etc. Go back into the room to really do the "full" assessment. Lift up his shirt and see some very wet and large dressings. As I am pulling them off, the tape is ripping his skin...im thinking LAtex allergy. Pull back the dressing to find, you guessed it hundreds of BILE filled blisters. IT was just leaking throughout his body. The ones that popped took a good 3 inch by 3 inch aea of skin off with it. Bile is nasty stuff and just ate the skin away. I felt so bad for him. Had to do dressing changes at least q2hours just to keep his bed dry until he could go down for surgery.

4- my floor is mainly liver/renal. So needless to say we have some very confused and combaTIVE patients. Ive been spit on, hit at, one patient tried to throw me out the window. Ive had them actually pull their foleys out then throw it at me when i came into the room among millions of other things.

Still my stories dont compare to many. Just had to add my too cents since I am finally done with this thread.

[rhonda L]

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!

salt does the trick on magotts also

[rhonda L]

Administrator's Note:

Please note this user's entire post has been removed due to racial and innapropriate comments. Thanks to those who have reported it. This user also has been banned from posting.

I am glad to know these kind of nurses are banned

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

I have done dressings on stage 4 pressure ulsers. They are nasty. One elderly lady had one on her hip that was so deep you could see the exposed bone.

Anothe lady had arterial stasis in her right, and the right one would often ulcerate, so we would change the dressings until it healed. A couple days later she had a brand new one. That went on and on for as long as I took care of her. She also had the worst case or rhumatoid arthritis I had ever seen. Her fingers were so gnarled, she used a special metal rod to do a lot of her tasks. I admired her though. I don't know how she managed to do it, but she had a sewing machine in her room, and made doll clothes. Then when it was time for the annual fair, she would enter them. She won a lot of ribbons, too. Her work was amazing.

[shape0fmyheart]

:chuckle I am finally done reading these! It took me 3 days... I'm only a 2nd year nursing student so I haven't seen many gross things yet, my worse would be the Stage IV ulcer that I had to get a culture on and then pack wet to dry. They wanted the culture because the wound STUNK so bad they were sure it was infected! When my instructor started making faces I knew I was in for it :chuckle. Anyway, I have a newfound respect for nurses and only hope that someday I can live to tell even a few stories as good as these! :rotfl:

[T-GIRL]

As students, my friend and I always had to do the really gross things. Low man on the totem pole, I guess. Anyways, one day on a med surg floor, my friend comes to me, asking for help with a really obese patient. She was going to do the the humane thing and bathe this lady, because she smelled- BAD. This poor lady was so obese, my friend needed me to "lift the fat" so she could clean her up. (we're talking in excess of 500 pounds here) So, I happily agree to help. D'OH! About two minutres into it, my friend suddenly gasps! and runs out of the room, waving at me to follow. She looked so stupefied. She tells me, "you gotta go back in there and look at this, 'cause I don't know what to think!" :uhoh21: Oh Great... Back in this lady's room, my friend pulls back this large "flap", and there is a 3 to 4 inch thick layer of nasty, cheesey looking yeast growing on this woman's body!!! It was in every crack and crevice, and the smell was beyond putrid. I stepped back, agast, and proceeded to grab about 60 wascloths from the supply room. We literally wiped this stuff up and threw them away, there was no way we were going to rinse them out. We were both gagging, and trying really hard to not show it. I'm sure this poor lady was horrified herself, but GEEZ! For the next year in nursing school, every time this friend asked for help, I would say "It's not gonna make me vomit- is it?" or, "you already owe me your first-born..." I think though, that was a baptism by fire, because now, nothing grosses me out anymore.