Hospitals are a mess.
Have you been?
Count your blessings if the answer is a "NO."
The further away one can stay from a hospital, the better.
The things that people who work there see can never be unseen.
Yes, miracles happen, and babies and blah, blah, blah.
But there can also be true horror podcasts about hospital life.
Redditor mhunter1323 wanted to hear some hospital horror stories, so they asked:
"Anyone who works in hospitals: What's the most insane thing you've seen?"
HELL
"I’m a hospice volunteer and I visit a patient in a facility that is mostly old people on Medicare. The other day the census was 85. There were 10 employees in total, and only 5 of them were nurses. It is like a vision of Hell."
- Maleficent_Scale_296
"I'm a hospice nurse who goes to visit these pts. I'll often see nurses with 30-40 pts overnight- all of them agency. It's devastating."
- pastamonster3
Kyle Mooney Goodbye GIF by Saturday Night LiveGiphy
Poor Treatment
"I was 11-7 pm Critical Care Supervisor in a 400 bed Community Hospital in Texas. Around 1981 or so. We had a rush admission from the Oncology floor. A middle-aged lady with Ovarian cancer and metastases started to vaginal hemorrhage. The ER physician on call for codes ordered her transferred while I tried to get a hold of her Surgeon. He wouldn’t return calls or attend to the patient."
"I got orders from the ER Doc for heavy pain medication and called the Chief of Surgery who was there in 30 mins. The RNs and Aides were carrying basins of blood out of the room. Thankfully she passed relatively peacefully. The Surgeon was thrown off the staff when more neglect and poor treatment was revealed."
- YorkshieBoyUS
Knifed
"A 20-year-old put his sports bike into guard rails at high speed. Arrived alive and ultimately survived with their left arm, left leg, and right leg completely severed from his body. Just formalized all three amputations in surgery for hemostasis and skin coverage."
"Runner up was a girl in her 30s with a locking blade knife through stabbed through the left temple all the way to the hilt with the blade crossing through her sinuses to the other side of her face. She was completely fine and we removed the knife with no significant problems resulting."
- onacloverifalive
Insane?
"Define insane. Critical care doctor here. Insane? A late 20s-year-old woman of about 35kg/120cm size (that's 77lbs/4ft) with multiple congenital abnormalities resulting in an inability to eat, talk, read, or understand who had been that way since birth. She required total care for EVERY bodily function and had for her entire life. She was in and out of the hospital monthly due to what was essentially unfixable body failure."
"Each time we had to jam tubes in her, put her on various forms of life support and repeatedly subjected her to painful procedures while knowing all along that we could not, and would not ever FIX her in any kind of meaningful way. She was neurologically 'gone,' yet her mother insisted she responded to her and expressed her feelings, insisting that we 'do everything.' Ultimately, we had to put this poor soul through the pointlessness of prolonged CPR before she finally died."
"THAT was insane. And cruel."
- hotjalapenolover
Where's Goldilocks?
"One of the funniest was patient on Halcion Sleeper (now off the market) thought he was a bear and roamed the halls naked, growling and pooping his bowel prep. He was 'captured' in a female patient’s closet. He suffered no injuries and didn’t remember a thing. One of many stories from the night shift."
- pjflyr13
Hungry Comedy GIF by Cocaine BearGiphy
1:1
"A patient who was a 1:1 but acting ok suddenly ran out of his room and punched the back of a new NP’s head, knocking her to the ground. She was young and in training and her whole career was ruined due to the health complications from it."
"Another is an IV drug user taking off with an IV port…When we noticed he was missing, security saw footage of him walking off the campus 20 minutes prior."
- Plaingirl123
It Was Horrendous
"The therapeutic leech decided to make a run for freedom and somehow escaped the ICU room and made it across the hall before the nurse realized. Left a trail of blood all the way from the bedside out into and across the hallway."
"Most disturbing though was probably a woman in the trauma ICU after sustaining a traumatic brain injury when a tree fell onto her car while she was driving."
"The tree killed her teenage son who was the passenger in her car. The TBI had severely impaired her short-term memory which meant she kept waking up in the ICU, panicking, asking how her son was doing, and demanding to see him. So several times a day this woman would learn anew that her son was dead."
"We had to ask the hospital ethics department if we should keep telling her he was dead (she was very insistent on seeing him if she was told he was alive) and force her to re-live that pain over and over OR lie to her repeatedly. It was horrendous."
- Sp4ceh0rse
Floored
"Had an admission on the medical floor. A man had been found at his home, lying on the floor. Apparently, he had suffered from a CVA (a stroke) and had been on the floor for quite some time."
"The gentleman lived alone in a small house without neighbors nearby. He was eventually found (I am unsure by who and how); and brought to the ED."
"Upon his ED visit, he was found to have developed decubiti (bedsores) to one of his hips and upper arm; from where he had lain on the floor. There were maggots in the bedsores."
- rva23221
Eyes Wide Shut
"Lady came to the emergency department after super gluing her eyes shut. Apparently mistook the glue for lubricating eyedrops."
- Affectionate-Focus98
Scenes from a Movie
"My wife is a nurse and used to work in an ER close to a major city. They had a lot of mental patients come through all the time. Usually, these patients have someone who sits at their door and keeps an eye on them. The person fell asleep so the patient tried to escape... by climbing into the ceiling tiles."
"He made it further than you would think and the security guard waited until the guy was right above him, punched his hand through a tile, grabbed the guy's ankle, and pulled him down through the ceiling. I always thought that sounded like something in a movie."
- HereForTheComments57
Twisted
"Don’t work in a hospital, but I was an EMT. Saw a girl and her boyfriend wreck a motorcycle on the highway, with no helmets. Her arm was completely twisted on her back. We had to break it again to move it back in position. I felt so bad for her. She got plenty of drugs in the helicopter ride though so she wasn’t in pain for long thankfully."
- Longjumping-Bet5293
Welcome to America
"What nurses are expected to accomplish in a 12-hour shift. It’s complete BS how the nursing staff is pilled on, what used to take twice the nurses to accomplish. Welcome to America, where nobody cares as long as insurance companies are making money!
- No-Independence-6842
Super Hero Doctor GIF by GIPHY Studios 2021Giphy
So many people working in the medical field need a pay raise.
A lot of these people are actual heroes.
These stories are the stuff of nightmares.
I wouldn't know what to do with myself in these situations.
Well, actually, I do. I'd be doing nothing because I'd be passed out on the floor.
I'd probably wake up in the morgue. That's how deep my faint would be.
Thank you all for your service.
@joehas/X