From dumb patients to heartbreaking diagnoses to unbelievable injuries, these medical "OMG" moments are not for the faint of heart.
1. Yikes, This Sounds Awful
I was at the ER when patients involved in a car wreck and rollover were brought in. The driver was not wearing his seatbelt and at some point, we had to call a “traumatic code," alerting doctors that his heart had stopped due to trauma rather than a blockage. He had a horrible fate—his whole leg had been de-gloved (skinned off).
After witnessing all of that, I always tell myself that if I'm having a bad day, it could always be worse.
2. Ribbit, Ribbet
I did an abdominal exam on a large woman (with a BMI of 74). I lifted a large flap of her skin to find a rotting frog—and the patient had no idea it was even under there.
It turns out the husband and the wife had been swimming in a pond, and the wildlife suffered for it.
3. A Valuable Lesson Learned
When I was a kid, I had one of those erasers that you can sit on top of a pencil. It was a Yogi Bear eraser, about 2 inches big with a hole at the bottom.
For no other reason than I was a moron, I decided I needed to know if Yogi's ear would fit into mine. I still remember the little horrible moment. It definitely fit, but it got stuck. I was terrified.
I had to go to the doctor and have them remove it, and it took a long time. They were using water to flush it out, while fishing around with tweezers.
A little while and some red tinged tweezers later, it was out. I’ll never try another experiment like this again. Lesson learned.
wuttichai tongsuk, Shutterstock
4. Lesson Learned Twice
I had this ingrown hair from shaving my ‘sensitive’ area. I noticed it in the shower and figured I'd go ahead and pop it. A few days later, my family jewels were in extreme pain, so I decided to go to a walk-in clinic and get it checked out.
In case you’re wondering, there is no dignified way to tell someone that you have very sore and very swollen nuts, but I did my best. I saw the doctor and showed him what happened, and he said in an alarmingly concerned tone, "Oh, that is very infected".
He informed me that I shouldn't have popped it, especially not in that region because if it doesn't pop, the infection goes inside. Ouch.
He gave me some medication and informed me that I may develop an abscess. If that happened, he said I'd have to come back so he can drain it. I did the medical regime he prescribed, and it started to feel mildly better after a couple of days.
I got out of the shower one day and noticed that the area had indeed formed an abscess. It looked like a piece of raw chicken skin, and I thought to myself that I could probably just pick it off, and so I did.
I was feeling pretty good about myself, that is until I see the dime-sized hole. I found a bandage to cover it and headed to the emergency room. Again.
Much like telling someone your balls and very sore and swollen, there is no dignified way to tell anyone you have a dime-sized hole in it. However, fun fact, if you tell someone you have a hole in your scrotum, you go to the front of the line.
I leapfrogged ahead of a bunch of old ladies to get an ultrasound. So, after having my balls handled by no less than 7 people, they told me I must wait for a urologist. They checked me over, admonished me a few more times for squeezing an in grown hair, and told me that if I take all my meds, I should be alright, which I was.
5. So Close!
My grandfather was a doctor and had a patient come to his office complaining of a slight headache. His receptionist told him to wait in the waiting room.
They called his name, but the guy never came up to the desk. The consequences were dire—he suffered a major brain hemorrhage and didn’t survive, all this happened while waiting to be seen in the chair.
6. They Took The Patient To 7/11
Once, we received an ambulance call from a guy who was involved in a motor vehicle accident. He was riding as a front passenger. His buddy hit a lamppost and the post impaled his entire abdomen. The post was at least 10 to 15 cm in diameter.
Lucky for him the post penetrated his entire abdomen, thus stopping excessive bleeding. When we arrived on scene the fire department was working on cutting the lamppost as it was too long for the ambulance and cutting too close would cause too much heat and risk injury. Things were looking bad—but we knew we needed to act swiftly.
So, we took the ambulance to the nearest seven-eleven (convenience store) to get some ice to cool the post. Then, we placed him in the ambulance. On the way there I called the surgeon and presented the case. He accepted and we prepared the patient.
As we were wheeling him into the elevator, the pole got lodged as it was too big for the elevator door. We had to call the fire department again but, this time they came with packets of ice from seven-eleven. The patient went on to the OR where they managed to remove the pole. He survived with no disabilities.
Super stoked
7. Cause, Effect, And 7-Year-Olds
This was a ripple effect. One doctor, from a religious office that my parents sent me to, prescribed me medication for my migraines. Another doctor, about two years later, prescribed me birth control.
Neither doctor told me that for every 50 mg of this headache medication you took lowered the effectiveness of your birth control by 25%. I was taking 200 mg. This led to some totally unwanted consequences.
The first doctor didn’t tell me because I was 19 and unmarried, therefore I shouldn’t be engaging in intimacy, at least according to that doctor. The next one didn’t tell me because it was a Planned Parenthood and they were extremely overworked and there were protesters outside, so everyone was a bit on edge.
Suffice to say, I have a 7-year-old now. Thankfully, I have an amazing partner who’s got my back through everything, and we roll with the punches. But I wonder a lot how much different my life would’ve been if that first doctor would’ve been forthcoming with information.
8. Oh, The Gall!
It took me 13 years to find out my gallbladder was done. I went to my doctor repeatedly, then another, and then another. I saw seven different doctors. I had excruciating pain that never moved and always flared when I ate. It would last for hours.
If I felt the pain coming on, it would stick around for about six to nine hours before it abated. It was a solid 10 on the pain scale. If I ate anything other than toast the next day, it would come back. It was impossible to sit, stand, move, lie down, and just exist.
I went to the ER a few times. They’d give me ultrasound after ultrasound, and because they saw NO GALLSTONES, they always wrote it off. They told me I was probably constipated or just overweight.
After begging for a referral to another specialist, they gave me a full body MRI and several hours of testing (a HIDA scan—this was the test that caught it) to watch the minute-by-minute function of my organs.
Turns out my gallbladder had 93% non-function. It was mostly a dead organ. They had me scheduled for surgery the next week. I had the gallbladder removed and it was life-changing.
It was only AFTER having it removed that I realized how super common the surgery is, and how any doctor who’d given me even vague consideration might have realized a gallbladder can malfunction WITHOUT stones.
I did not know how to advocate for myself because I kept being dismissed. I wish I’d been more assertive because I suffered A LOT.
9. Sad, With A Happy Ending
UCSF, Mt. Zion: A guy comes in complaining of a headache. It turns out he tried to end his life with a 22-caliber pistol. It gave him a concussion and short-term memory loss. The shot was stuck in his head.
We were able to remove the shot from his head and he was okay. He got the help he needed.
10. A Year Full Of You-Know-What
I'm a medical professional at a hospital. A patient came in stating that he had blood in his stool for almost a year and he was convinced that it was just because of hemorrhoids.
He only came in when he started to get abdominal pains—but by then, it was too late. It turned out to be colorectal cancer. The moral of the story is, that if you have blood in your stool, especially dark colored, don't ignore it.
11. M.R…Why?
It’s a long story, but a sports injury surgeon ordered a contrast MRI and it hurt so much. It was worse than what was going on with my actual injury. He reviewed the MRI and decided there was nothing wrong with me. He had me doing physical therapy on it for like 2 months and I only got worse.
He couldn’t figure anything out, so he referred me to a hand specialist in the same office. Within the first visit, she used the EXACT SAME disc with the MRI he had done, and she immediately figured out what was wrong. I had a complete sever of one of my ligaments.
She not only could see it (and she showed me the image itself), but the VERY LAST sentence of the report, which was on the last page by itself, literally said that it was a complete sever or tear of said ligament.
She showed me the report. The first doctor neither read the imaging properly nor could he be bothered to read the entire report.
Unfortunately, despite all the pain, suffering, and lost work time for over a year, I can’t pursue anything legally because I didn’t have any lasting disability.
12. It Was All An Act
I was a volunteer intern (not medical, a critical care extender) and my most memorable time in the ER was when a 13-year-old boy with a rat-tail braid came in after he and his friends decided it would be a wonderful idea to get very tipsy off some kind of hard booze, and then run and jump out of the second story window.
We had to staple his wound on the back of his head without anesthesia because he had drunk too much. But my absolute favorite part was when his mom came and he instantly started crying, "Mama I'm so sorry!! I didn't mean to let you down, don't be mad". It was especially funny because this hospital was in the more dangerous part of long beach, and he was trying to act especially tough before she arrived.
13. I’d Rather Give Birth
I had a brown recluse bite under my nose, and it began to open up. I went to the urgent care and the doctor told me to lay down and prepare myself. Now, I work in healthcare so I already knew this wouldn’t feel good.
He told me he was going to scrape out what was going on, pack it, and send me on my way. He comes in, doesn’t give me any warning, and shoves a needle in my face with lidocaine. He doesn’t wait for it to localize, and he begins to scrape out the wound.
I gave birth NATURALLY and I would rather do that again than have to go through that horror ever again. I was in shock, just uncontrollably shaking after from the pain.
14. Diagnosis: Giant Ego
I was having debilitating migraines, to the point where I couldn’t work or function. I waited nearly a month to see a neurologist. Upon a brief examination, he said, “You don’t have anything wrong with you. Just exercise and try not to have headaches”.
Three months later, he finally relented and did an MRI. I had massive lesions on my brain. I was diagnosed with MS. The smug jerk was somehow irritated I had a positive diagnosis. My health wasn’t as important as his ego.
15. That Wasn’t Supposed To Happen
I was wearing brand new tall platform Doc Martens I’d barely broken in. Tipsy and walking back to the bar, I wanted to demonstrate to my new friend how short I was without them.
I intentionally bent my ankle to the side to shorten the height given by my shoe base, as if I was wearing sneakers or short heels. My tipping centre of gravity did the rest—I heard a crunch, pop, snap, and I was down for the count.
The next morning my ankle was the size of a grapefruit. I had zero first aid gear on hand. Luckily, I live 5 minutes away from the hospital. After an X-ray, I was told I had a Grade II sprain. And that’s how I “intentionally” sprained my ankle.
16. The Cons Of Bravery
I broke my hip getting up from the couch. I already had a bad hip thanks to some medication I’d been on for years but hurt a lot. When it finally snapped, I didn’t think “Darn! My hip broke!” I thought “Darn! This thing’s acting up!” But then came a plot twist.
Turns out the bone was necrotic and released a massive infection into my system. I passed out and I woke up from a medically-induced coma a month later with no idea how I wound up in the hospital.
17. Tampon Gone Rogue
I couldn’t find my tampon and I was freaking out. I even had a friend try to help me find it...that’s how desperate I was. Finally, I realized I had to go to the hospital.
I don’t know how much of this was influenced by being younger and reading romance novels—but while my feet were up in the stirrups, in walked a young, terribly handsome doctor. I wanted to just die from embarrassment.
The only thing worse than going to the hospital because a tampon got stuck inside you is finding out there is no tampon lodged inside you. I hid under my covers for three days.
18. Oops, Someone Messed Up
Throughout an evening, nine teenagers were brought in by their parents for hallucinations. None of them were able to tell us what was going on and they trickled in over about four hours.
The dope screens were negative but they were all pretty badly out of it. Finally, one of the siblings was able to tell us they had all been at the same party. One of the teens had talked the others into trying mushrooms except they were mildly poisonous ones instead of the ones you take for partying.
They were all tripping like crazy for the night and they had to stay in the ER until they were clear of mind.
It was amusing for the staff but the parents were quite irate.
19. Oops! That Was Close
I worked in a hospital and a couple of people from the same house were brought in with confusion, agitation, and other non-descriptive, strange symptoms. Within an hour, from the same house, in multiple ambulances, more people arrived with similar symptoms.
One of our nurses noted that they had all come from the same house and called the fire department. Turns out they all were suffering from carbon monoxide from an indoor cooking fire.
Luckily, everyone was fine in the end.
20. Tick, Tick, Boom
One of the grossest things I've seen is a person coming in holding his detached hand in the other hand. And how did that happen? The guy blew it off with a homemade explosive.
21. Out Of The Blue
I was rushed to the ER as a kid because I woke up and my face was blue. My parents thought I wasn't breathing. I was 8 or 9 years old at the time, and everyone's sudden change in demeanor made me a little scared. All the while, I was just getting bluer.
At the ER, they were running all kinds of tests that didn't show anything wrong with me, until finally, my dad realized that I put the brand-new Toronto Maple Leafs pillowcase I just got on my pillow.
One washcloth later, I was all better.
22. Not A UTI
He had some belly pain and thought he had a UTI.
He also had weight loss, night sweats, and some other stuff. He had terminal pancreatic cancer and two weeks later, he was delirious and almost gone.
23. Oh Lord
I'm a nurse. I recently had a patient who claimed that he used to have diabetes, but Jesus cured him of it. His glucose was nearly 300 on admission and he was in the hospital to cut off a gangrenous toe that didn't heal because of the diabetes.
I'll never forget the doctor's note. It said: "Patient had a history of diabetes, but states Jesus healed him of that, but since his blood glucose was 289 on admission, we will treat him as if he were a diabetic..."
Monkey Business Images, Shutterstock
24. 200% Is A Bad Grade
I walked in with chest pains and severe pain area around my left shoulder blade. I filled in the paperwork, and I was told to wait in one place, told to walk back over, told to go back to the waiting room, and then told to come back again.
Finally, the doctor walks up, first time I saw him, and he hands me discharge papers. He tells me to follow up with my doctor in a few days. My wife drove me 40 miles to another hospital. They freak and rush me to the cath lab just in the nick of time.
I had a 200% blockage of coronary LAD, which is also known as the widow maker heart attack.
25. Bullseye!
Son of an ER doctor here. My dad always told me some wild things about the late-night shifts.
One night he came home and told me a thief had broken into someone's house that night and was bent over, rummaging through the homeowner’s belongings.
The homeowner was five feet away in a closet with a crossbow... They had to carry the thief into the ER because the homeowner shot him square in the bum.
My dad said he'd never been so mortified by a wound until he saw that.
26. What Happened To You?
I'm a medical assistant. I did my placement at a kidney and hypertension center. I had a guy come in complaining of painful urination and he thought he had a UTI. I gave him a cup, told him to pee, and set it in the window.
The lab took the cup and immediately brought him back to the room, which was strange because this place was packed, and it was all a first come first serve kind of thing. Well, this guy went back because there was blood in his urine. A lot of it.
This guy was beyond 300 lbs; just massive and extremely tall. Doctors got him in the room and stayed for maybe 15 minutes before we had him transferred to the ER.
He fractured his thing and he had no idea. The nurse above me said they lifted his gut, and his entire groin was purple and black, and his thing was at a weird, swollen angle. She said she'd never forget it for the rest of her life.
The guy never did tell us what happened or anything. He acted just as surprised as everyone else.
27. Congratulations, You Are A Mom
After a couple of years working in an emergency room, by far the most common egregious self-misdiagnoses involve pregnancy.
Tons of active patients come in complaining of morning sickness and gaining weight, and they are just sure they have some sort of GI issue or infectious disease.
When it comes to asking questions, they say: “Oh yeah, come to think about it, I haven't had my period in three, four, or five months!”
That's not to mention the people coming in fully in labor and delivering in the ED, truly shocked that they were pregnant at all.
Now I understand people can have irregular periods and there are many cases where the patient is reasonable in not guessing what's going on. But there is a large group of patients who miss a lot of obvious hints.
Denial ain't just a river in Egypt I guess, and I do have empathy for patients in situations where they don't want to be pregnant and are perhaps subconsciously blocking it out of their mind. But a medical mystery it is not...
Zoriana Zaitseva, Shutterstock
28. A Failure Of Too Much Communication
My family practitioner referred me to the therapist connected to their office. Before our session, I made sure to ask about patient confidentiality. The therapist assured me that it was all private, locked behind a different level of access, so only she would be able to see this part of my records.
I was struggling a lot with my mental health at the time and really needed the help, so I was brutally honest about what I was going through during the session.
At my next appointment with my FP, the nurse doing my pre-assessment started going down the list of all the very private things I had told the therapist, asking me for updates for the record.
There was no extra layer of privacy, the therapist had simply entered it into my patient notes that the entire office staff could see.
I ended up walking out. Never went back to that office.
29. Well, Now He Knows
My new doctor looked up my pharmacy report before my visit, as is customary. I lived with my terminally ill brother, whose name was James and mine is Jamie. So, we had the same address, phone number, initials, and similar names.
When they ran my pharmacy report, as they normally do, my brother’s many medications showed up on my list. The doctor yelled at me, called me a pill seeker, and kicked me out of the office while I cried and pleaded with him to listen to me.
I swore to him that those medications were my brother’s and not mine. He said that is not possible and that couldn’t happen.
I ended up calling the board of pharmacy who informed me that yes, closely named relatives who live together could show up on the same report. Also, the name doesn’t show, but a patient number does, and if the doctor looks closely, he will see two different numbers.
The board member called the doctor and said he had to search by my social security number to get a more thorough search. Upon doing this, he realized his mistake and profusely apologized, and my visit was free.
He had no idea that two people could show up on the same report if they have similar details, and now he tells this story at all his conferences so other doctors don’t make the same mistake. Most of them had no idea that could happen either! Well, they do now!
30. Nurse Wanted Me To Be Pregnant
When I was in high school, I started getting nauseous in the mornings.
It seemed the more active I was in the mornings, the worse it would be, and it was troubling for me.
I had my mom take me to the doctor and the first thing the nurse asked upon hearing my symptoms was if I was active. I wasn't at the time, so I told her no.
That's when things got tense—she thought I was lying and that maybe I was too scared to admit it in front of my mother. She took me aside and asked me again in private, and I told her the same thing. She responded with, "You know there is no point lying about this right? We're going to find out".
This honestly made me pretty angry; something was not right with me, and I wanted them to find out what was causing it. But if no one would take me seriously, that wasn't going to happen.
So, she ordered a pregnancy test. The test came back negative.
She ordered three more pregnancy tests. Yes, four tests in total. Those come up negative as well. Her face turned red.
She seemed angered by this, which I found to be profoundly unprofessional. This was all done by the nurse before the actual doctor had come to see me. And when the doctor finally showed up, I heard her say to the doctor in the hall. "She might be too early still and that's why it's giving false negatives".
Well, I was surely not pregnant and I was experiencing physical symptoms of anxiety. I overheard the doctor scolding the nurse for wasting resources by giving me multiple of the same test before I left. Made me feel a bit better.
31. Don't Open Doors This Way
I hate touching doorknobs with my hands. I always use my forearm to rub against the doorknob in a downward motion using friction to turn it. I was joking around with my girlfriend saying I can open a door with my bum exactly like how I use my forearm.
I jumped at the door butt first and the little metal latch that guides the door cut me. It wasn’t a clean cut because the thing wasn’t that sharp. I needed over 30 stitches.
While I healed my girlfriend had to stand behind me holding a bowl to cover my bum every time I took a shower so it didn’t get wet.
32. Perils of Childhood Boredom
When I was 8, I was bored so I got a bottle of Gatorade from my pantry. I grabbed a kitchen blade and proceeded to stab it over the sink to see how easily it would go through the thicker plastic of the bottle. It surprised no one I cut myself badly, and I almost lost my thumb.
33. It’s Supposed To Come Back
I threw a boomerang, but lost sight of it in the sun. I stood there with my hand on my forehead, to shieled my eyes from the sun while trying to regain sight of it. Then, all of a sudden, BAM—it came back and hit me square in the face. My friends called me an ambulance.
As I was being wheeling into the A&E waiting room, the ambulance driver announced to everyone: "You'll never believe what this one did!"
34. Apparently, This Happens A Lot
There was an older man who thought something sounded off in his lawnmower. He thought the blades had stopped spinning when he turned over the mower to investigate. The blades were still moving...
He lost the tips of his fingers on one of his hands. He was oddly calm between the shock and the pain medication when I was taking his X-rays, which was nice because it was quite a vivid case for me at that time as a radiography student.
I was told though that this isn’t all that uncommon, unfortunately.
35. This Was Too Much For Them
I did ER clinicals a few years ago for a PCT class. The first one was an older veteran brought in by his wife. He was catheterized and hadn't passed urine in nearly 24 hours, so he was in some pretty severe pain.
It was determined there was a clog somewhere, so the guy I was shadowing changed out the catheter with a new one and at least a liter of red, chunky urine just gushed through the line and filled up an entire bag.
The whole ER later made jokes about cranberry juice and jellied cranberry sauce never being the same again.
36. No Appy For Your Baby
One night, I started getting some excruciating cramps that were so bad I had to wake my mom.
She asked me where the pain was, and I pointed out the right side of my stomach. Instantly, she told me to get in the car, and we went to the ER.
She thought I had appendicitis.
We got there and they hooked up to morphine. They then ordered an X-ray. I didn't have appendicitis... I just had to poop badly.
37. Remembering The Night Before
I once thought I had a perforated colon because my poop was bright red.
I spent an hour on the toilet in pain googling symptoms, and then I remembered the night before and I crushed a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.
38. I Diagnosed Myself And Got My Medicines
I had a very nice gentleman come to the ED with severe weakness, going on for weeks. It all started with chest pain a couple of months earlier. He thought he was having heart trouble, and he knew to take aspirin for a heart attack...
So, he took a couple of aspirin, every day for the next few weeks. The pain got worse and also started affecting his legs. He also started getting weaker.
Then, he pooped blood. A lot of it. That's what prompted the emergency department visit. When I checked his labs, his HGB was around 4, which is low enough to make me raise my eyebrows. Normal is 13 to 15, and typically you'll start feeling weak or tired around 10.
So, his symptoms, including chest pain, weren't from heart trouble, they were from severe anemia!
Turns out he had a small bleed from his colon, and taking aspirin, which thins your blood and makes you bleed more, turned it into a large bleed.
So, I got him tanked back up with blood, we did a few tests including a colonoscopy to see why he was bleeding in the first place, and “Whoops”, we found a locally advanced colon cancer.
Thankfully it hadn't spread anywhere, so he eventually ended up getting surgery and therapy, and last I checked he's doing great.
So, this guy was incredibly lucky...by misdiagnosing himself with coronary artery disease, he took an inappropriate medication, which caused a side effect that set off a chain reaction that led him to me, and his diagnosis of a severe sickness at an early enough stage to be cured.
If he hadn't taken that aspirin, that sickness could have sat another year or two undetected and continued to spread, at which point it would have been incurable and he'd likely be gone right now.
39. Proof the Patriarchy Is Alive And Well
When I wanted a hysterectomy, because my life was literally in danger due to anemia and non-stop bleeding, I was told no. The reason was because my husband might want kids. I am not, nor have I ever been, married.
I was in my 40s and I didn't want kids in the first place. Even after explaining all of this, I was still told no because I might meet a man and he might want to knock me up at over 40, and I did not get a say, apparently.
I went to Mexico, and they yoinked that thing out for me. I came back and met with a completely different doctor for a follow-up. When he learned I'd had a hysterectomy without my future husband's consent, he told me he wouldn't treat me.
This was six years ago in 2017, if you're wondering. I have no reason to think anything has changed and quite a few reasons to think it's getting worse.
40. Wrong Time, Wrong Place, Terrible Joke
I was having a pap smear from a doctor who was at least 450 lbs. As he did my exam, he made the most appalling comment to the nurse—he told her that one time, a bigger lady was having a pap smear and the table somehow failed and she fell crotch first right into his face.
I was overweight at the time, and I just couldn't believe he'd bring up something so nonchalant like that. The nurse looked horrified.
41. The Gasp Heard Round The Waiting Room
I went to the doctor’s for a 9am appointment. 11am rolls around and I’m still waiting. The pharmacy reps come in with pizza. By now it’s noon. I go up to tell them I have to leave, and the receptionist wants to charge me $25.
She said the doctor was very busy that morning. I said, “Not too busy to have pizza with pharmacy reps”. Everyone else waiting collectively gasped. I did not get billed and I never went back.
42. An Embarrassing Lesion
I’d developed a weird looking red mark on my forehead. My not-exactly-put-together father was convinced that I’d been bitten by a brown recluse spider, which are very poisonous. He thought he even saw "fang marks".
So, to get my father to calm down, my mom took me to the ER. When we got there, they did some tests, and it wasn’t a spider bite, or a bite at all. It ended up being herpes...yes, on my forehead.
43. Help Me Doc, I’m Blue
When I was younger my family brought me to the ER because my fingers turned blue. We Googled all sorts of fancy and exotic diseases that they were worried about.
Without saying much, the doctor swiped my hand with a disinfectant swab and then did the same thing on my jeans. They were the same color. It was the blue dye from my brand-new jeans.
44. The Classic: I Fell
My mom worked in the OR and said some so many guys ended up there because of things they, "slipped and fell" on. The craziest one for her was the guy who "slipped and fell" on a snow globe.
The stories she tells me are hilarious, even though I still feel bad for these people.
Dark Light Studio , Shutterstock
45. Yeah, This Got Weird
Around two in the morning, EMS called to let us know what they were bringing in (age, chief complaint, etc.) I picked up the phone and the paramedic was laughing so hard he said, “We’ll just tell you when we get there”.
They wheeled in a little old lady which could mean anything from feeling lightheaded while singing at church to crawling on the ceiling with a raging UTI. It turns out she wanted to get a rabies shot, “just in case”, because she had been bitten by her “service animal”.
So, we asked, “What kind of service animal do you have, ma’am”?
She replies with, “A capuchin monkey”.
The paramedic standing behind her was trying to hold back his laughter. He said when they went into her house to pick her up the monkey was sitting on the couch with one arm in a bag of Doritos and the other was…playing with himself.
I guess he wasn’t too happy about being interrupted, either.
46. Tales Of The Psych Ward
It's mostly psychs and drug users that give you your run for your money.
A scary one was four teenage boys who all took like 6mg of Xanax each. Three of them passed out at home and one was brought into the ER, VERY sleepy, and nobody had any idea what was wrong with him. We couldn't get a hold of the three other boys he was hanging out with because they were all passed out. It was extremely hard to figure out what he had taken.
47. Kids Do The Weirdest Things
When I was 2 years old, I shoved a broken crayon up my nose. It took a week until I finally complained. We saw two doctors, then made a trip to the ER with no luck. The ER doctor managed to shove it in farther.
I finally was able to get an appointment with a pediatric ear, nose and throat doctor who had it out in about 60 seconds.
48. I Complained, You Didn’t Listen
When my husband was eight years old, he complained about having intense pains in his stomach and he became so lethargic that he couldn't be woken up. His doctor said there was nothing wrong and that he had growing pains for two years.
But the truth was a lot more serious than that—it turns out his gallbladder had stopped working and would only function correctly a few days out of the month. After the doctor refused him a referral to another doctor for a second opinion, his mom took him to the emergency room and within 15 minutes he was going into surgery to have his gallbladder removed.
To top it off, they jam-packed him with so many pain medicines that he became so constipated, he couldn't use the bathroom for two weeks. He complained about his stomach hurting again and the nurses never once asked him when his last BM was, claiming that they forgot.
He had to receive an additional surgery later that week in which he had 15 pounds of matter removed from him. Talk about a bad time…
49. Nothing Is Wrong With Me
I was in high school, walking to class when I got a sudden sharp pain in my foot. I was running late and didn't have time to deal with it right then, but I only really felt it while I was walking; it faded quickly when I was still, and even then, it was minor enough that I figured it would go away on its own.
After a couple of weeks of dealing with it, I mentioned it to my mom, who thought it might be gout.
I was a really lazy kid, so it was a definite possibility. We went to the doctor, and he ordered an X-ray. IT turns out I broke one of the bones in the ball of my foot.
In short, I broke my foot and tried to walk it off for two weeks.
50. A Doomed Generation
Pediatrician here—a lot of parents come in thinking their child has a severe sickness because they "won't eat anything".
But in reality, they just don't like vegetables and they stuff themselves to obesity with the stuff the parents substitute it with.
51. Not Faking It!
I had a non-emergency emergency out of network. I later found out that I have PCOS and one of the cysts had popped. I 10/10 do not recommend! So, I managed to get back into my health insurance network area and a doctor's office was closer than an ER.
I went to said doctor and he was convinced that I was either faking it for attention or faking it to obtain some pain meds.
During his examination, he kept pushing on my lower torso and uterus area and every time I screamed in pain, he'd tell me to stop being dramatic and that if I didn't stop flexing that area then he'd have to push harder. I wasn't flexing that area, but he insisted that I was.
I kind of zoned in and out of the rest of the exam, but I remember realizing I was completely screwed when he was literally hopping up and down to be able to feel what was going on.
Eventually he proclaimed that I probably just have an upset stomach due to being fat and that he'd draw blood if I got my mom to stop "enabling" me.
The nurse couldn't get a vein after multiple attempts in both arms. When a different nurse tried multiple times, she finally said, "Oh, you're really dehydrated" to which the doctor then chastised me for drinking too much soda which likely caused the dehydration.
My mom was frantic and kept my doctor up to date with everything that was happening. My doctor told her to just take me and leave and try to hold out until we reached the closest ER.
As we were leaving, the doctor told us that he had already called ahead to multiple nearby ERs in our plan to let them know that I was just trying to get pain meds and to not give them to me.
Eventually my pain started subsiding and we drove to my regular doctor. She was beyond angry and ended up helping us file a ton of paperwork to complain to the medical board about what happened.
My doctor's biggest push to my mom about why she should file an official complaint and negligence claim was because:
1) he didn't know what was wrong and if someone complains of pain somewhere you shouldn't be pushing so hard that you're jumping up and down to dig in because you could be making things WAY worse,
2) due to the pain being caused by a cyst popping there was a good chance that digging his fingers into my lower torso could have caused more to pop, and
3) If a patient comes in screaming and crying saying they're in pain, you shouldn't automatically dismiss it, especially when they continue showing signs of pain when you touch the area they're complaining about.
52. I.U. Don’t!
Hands down, my IUD insertion was my worst experience at the doctor’s office. No warning. No numbing. I was just spread on a table and an evil lady shoved a barb up in my cervix. Swear to God, I screamed at the top of my lungs, I threw up, and then I blacked out for two minutes.
I then spent the next hour in the fetal position in the bathroom crying and throwing up. THEN, I drove myself home in the fetal position shaking from the pain.
53. Just Have a Baby, Already!
I was sent to a rheumatologist for a test and medicine for lupus. The doctor's attitude filled me with rage—she told me she had medicine to help, but she wasn’t going to give it to me because I was in the “prime birthing age range”.
54. When A.I. Fights Back
I was building a self-balancing robot that had a sizeable battery pack, so it was heavy. It was maybe 25 lbs. I didn't realize how poorly I'd calibrated it was until I started it up. What ensued was absolute horror.
It immediately zipped forward, and then spined. I tried to step in and pick it up to get it under control and it rammed directly into my shin. It was hard enough to break the skin which required 7 to 8 stitches.
55. The Hidden Dangers Of Having Asthma
I went into the ER with some severe unexplained chest pain. Since I have asthma, I worried it could be serious. It turned out I pulled a muscle in my chest that resulted from my asthma inhaler use.
56. A Rare Case of ‘Kimichitus’
About 24 years ago, I ate almost a whole quart of Korean kimchi for dinner. It was so peppery, but so good. I just couldn’t stop eating it. That night, I experienced the most excruciating stomach pains, much worse than when my appendix burst 10 years prior.
It was so bad, I stripped off all my clothes and sat in my boxer briefs on my front porch step writhing in agony while holding my now bloated stomach.
My wife finally took me to the ER, and they put an IV in my arm with some painkiller and admitted me for a 23-hour observation. As the night went on, the pain subsided, and I finally started feeling better.
Fast forward to the morning—I was feeling much better and pretty much back to normal. As the hospital was preparing to discharge me, the night shift was replaced by the dayl shift, and a few nurses came in to check on me followed by the new attending ER doctor, who happened to be Korean!
He was smiling and chuckling. He told me I had suffered from “kimchiitis” and proceeded to lecture me that kimchi is supposed to be a side dish to a meal, and not the main course!
I really made his day, and everyone, including my sleep-deprived wife who sat with me the whole night, were laughing, shaking their heads, and grinning at my stupidity.
To this day, I still wonder if that Korean ER doctor used my case as one of his funniest ER stories.
57. The Lost Finger
I don’t work in the ER, but I was in the ER when I saw this happen.
A couple casually walked into the reception, talked to a nurse and the nurse simply asked why they were there, why they skipped the line, etc. Many why's.
The guy calmly said: "We had a couple of friends over for drinks and cheese and, while cutting one of the cheeses, I cut my finger".
The nurse, at this point, very annoyed asked why he cut in line just for a finger cut. The guy just looked at her with the calmness of a saint, then he admitted the shocking truth: "No, you don't understand, I cut my finger off". And he proceeded to show his hand wrapped in a very thick towel.
The nurse went crazy and rushed out to call a doctor. Three doctors came in and took the guy and left. Another nurse asked where the finger was, and the girlfriend explained that friends were coming to bring the finger.
Fast forward some minutes, the nurse finally calmed down and another couple showed up. Coincidentally, they go to the SAME nurse or were warned by the girlfriend. The nurse once again, slightly annoyed skipped the line, the couple just stared at her raised a bowl, and said, "We got the finger".
The nurse quickly took the bowl and ran off again. It all happened so fast and it was surreal. I fear my pain caused me to see all that happen. It was like a panic scene in a movie.
58. This One Is Interesting!
The EMT instructor leading my refresher course told us that one day while they were at the station, a car pulled into their lot and some lady jumps out with her daughter. The mom says they were at the playground when her daughter started having an asthma attack.
The kid is heard wheezing the whole time and in a tripod position, hence why the mom was going to take her to the hospital.
During the evaluation, the instructor listens to her lung fields and notes they all sound clear. He asked another medic to take the mom inside and get her billing info. The guy looks at him funny but ultimately complies. Once the mom is out of earshot, he looks at the girl and says:
"Stop it! You're not having an asthma attack". She instantly stops her wheezing and says, "Okay".
It turns out they were at the playground and while mom wasn't paying attention, the daughter fell off a swing and got the wind knocked out of her. When the mom did look up, she just saw her daughter in the tripod position and assumed she was having an asthma attack.
The daughter, having heard her mom say that's what was happening just went along with it and started mimicking the signs.
59. Mom’s Unnecessary Details
There was an old guy that came in one night with a plastic teaspoon inserted into his front end. When he was asked why it was there, he said “I did it for gratification”. We just sort of looked at him funny. So, when he says, “It doesn’t work, in case you’re wondering”. He was very matter-of-fact. We were not wondering.
The nursing home said they stopped using plastic cutlery because of him and couldn’t work out how he got one!
60. I Googled So I Know Better
I am a physician assistant who works in the emergency department here. I had a woman, around 45 years old, come in with her mother for a complaint of a spider bite to her back. It was an abscess.
No big deal, that's pretty common. People think abscesses are spider bites all the time. I incised and drained it and sent her home on antibiotics, a pretty standard procedure. Then I told her to come back in two days for a recheck.
When she came back, it was looking better. She and her mother thought it was something serious because it still wasn't all the way gone yet, but it was healing well and there wasn't much to do.
She and her mother came back again another two days later and told me it was gangrene. I tried to reassure them, but they both kept arguing with me that I didn't know what I was talking about.
It was a healing abscess and was looking for a lot better. Looked nothing like gangrene, which they had Googled. Had to get two of my colleagues to come into the room to reassure them but they still didn't believe us. I think they ended up going to another hospital.
61. Chain Of Unfortunate Events
I got incredibly tipsy one night and decided to finish off the night with an amazing Taco Bell feast. I woke up the next morning with an incredibly bad stomach ache. This continued for about three days, and I was constipated the whole time.
My roommates, all pre-med or nursing, thought it was just the Taco Bell causing some issues, but on about the fourth day, I couldn't take it anymore and had one of them drive me to the hospital. He continued to call me very bad words, and said they were just going to tell me to take laxatives.
But while at the hospital, they made a shocking discovery—they noticed my appendix was incredibly swollen and about to burst, so I was rushed into surgery. On my way to surgery, a doctor came running and screaming to stop and he showed the X-ray to the surgeon, and they decided it wasn't the appendix that was the problem, but my intestine.
Somehow my colon folded into itself like a sock and caused incredible swelling and build-up. I ended up going on antibiotics and other medicines for a couple of days.
I have no idea how this happened, and the doctors tried explaining the possibilities, but I was too tired of medicines to understand. I remember them asking me if I recently went to Haiti or the DR. About three years later, I started to have similar pain and went to the doctor immediately, and that time, they just took my appendix out.
62. What If?
When I went to see a physician a year back, I had severely shaking hands. I was told that it was a short-term problem that would likely go away in my late 20s.
I told him I was on medication, and he dismissed it as an unrelated issue.
Recently, I went to a different doctor. He assessed my symptoms. Jolting limbs, twitchy face, shaking hands, locking jaw, etc. Turns out I have tardive dyskinesia, which is a very rare side effect of one of the medications I was on.
It is irreversible after age 25. If I had listened to the first doctor, I would have had permanent brain damage as young as 25 years old.
63. Oops!
I went to the dermatologist to have a mole on my back removed and biopsied. I was laying on my stomach and the doctor was on one side of me and his assistant on the other.
They're talking like they hadn’t caught up in months, and I feel like an afterthought and I’m getting annoyed. Is this my time or theirs?
Then I feel this searing pain immediately followed by a warm liquid falling down my side and I hear the doctor say, "Oops". You never want to hear a doctor say “oops”.
I was completely angry at this point, and I said, "Would you mind paying attention to what you're doing when you have a scalpel in your hand?"
I ended up needing around five stitches, and I have an inch long scar there now. When I went back into the changing room, they initially put me in to get dressed, I was getting changed when I noticed a window washer hanging outside the window just looking in.
My anger turned into outrage. After I got dressed, I went out in the waiting room and unloaded on the staff in front of a room full of people waiting to be seen, leaving nothing out. I hope at least a few of them decided to cancel their appointments. I never went back, that's for sure.
64. Anxiety Is Real
When I was 15 years old, I told my pediatrician I was having chest spasms and anxiety, and I wanted to see a therapist. My mom was in the room. He told me to stop googling things, I’m fine, and teenagers don’t have anxiety because there’s nothing to worry about.
I never went back to him ever, and I didn’t see another doctor until I turned 19 to be committed in a psych ward. Turns out the anxiety was real, and intervening at 15 possibly could have prevented many, many things from happening.
65. Type 1 Negligence
I had a whole list of symptoms pointing to type 1 diabetes. I was sent for a blood test and the results showed I was diabetic, but my doctor didn’t refer me for treatment. I was left untreated for an extra ten days before action was taken, which absolutely could have killed me.
I was given the option to sue after everything was eventually sorted out.
66. A Really Big Ouch
I once stubbed my toe very hard. That’s all I thought it was. I’d never broken a bone before, so I didn’t know what to expect personally, and I have a high pain tolerance, so it only hurt when I put pressure on it.
I ignored it for two days, then I woke up the third morning and realised my toe was colorless and immobile. It turns out I stubbed my toe so hard that I split the phalanx in half. Explaining to the triage nurse that I really did just stub my toe that hard was fun.
67. Call Me Mr. Potato Head
I don’t know why, but I made a homemade spud gun —you know, those things that fire potatoes? I added an accelerant to it to make it go off and pulled the trigger to test fire it. This is when things got bad.
It didn't go off, so I looked right into the barrel to see what was happening. And as I was looking into the barrel, I pulled the trigger again. A fire potato shot out of the end and burned my eyeball.
68. “Welcome Home Lefty”
I was experiencing some discomfort around the family jewels, but being a giant scaredy cat about hospitals, doctors, and needles, Idecided to ignore it and I just hoped it went away. It did not.
I was telling everyone I was fine; that it was a stomach bug; or that I was just feeling under the weather. I eventually admitted I couldn’t really sit right.
So, we drove off the ER. We were promptly informed by the doctor on duty that one of my testes was the size of a small grapefruit. It had no blood flow, and it had to come out right away. Testicular torsion is no joke.
So, my worst nightmare happened—I spent the night in the hospital, then came home to a “Welcome Home Lefty” cake courtesy of his sarcastic of kids.
69. This Is Why ER Shows Are Classified As Dramas
I had the whiniest French exchange student. This grown man was hilarious. He legitimately woke up at like two in the morning, and was like, “I want a snack, I shall prepare myself some chicken”. He took out some completely raw chicken and was about to make himself a whole meal, in the middle of the night.
He went to take the blade out of the block and cut his finger open. I don’t even understand how that happened. He moaned and cried and groaned with every movement or task like his life was ending. He barely needed a couple of stitches. I had him rinse it off and just rinsing it took like seven minutes because he was so dramatic about it. Gosh, I love the French.
I also had a very dramatic teenager who came in for, “Feeling a little numb, slightly anxious, and like his heart might be beating a little too fast. Maybe slightly paranoid”. My man had smoked some stuff. We asked if he was hungry, basically gave him a cup of water and a snack, and sent him home.
And then another time, I had a six-year-old and the triage note said, “Rollover MVC” (motor vehicle crash). I was like oh gosh, I need to make sure my room has trauma supplies. My team and I panicked, thinking this was going to be a tough one.
I look up from my desk and the child and family are walking in. “Well, that’s reassuring,” I think to myself.
The child wasn’t just in the front seat in an 85 mph rollover, he was the one driving and a tire slipped off the curb.
Thankfully, the child barely had a scratch on him.
70. Because It Was Hot
I am not an ER worker but I am a chronically ill person who has been hospitalized and in the ER many, many times. The best one ever was a man who got himself in a truly awkward predicament—he got his junk stuck in a toaster in the room next to me.
He would not stop screaming, “You HAVE to save my junk! You have to”!
You hear a lot when separated by flimsy walls and when a situation is so silly even nurses can’t help but pause and giggle.
I never found out if the toaster was on or not. But I couldn’t help but wonder how this could happen in the first place. Why a toaster?
71. Doctor Almost Separated Us
A doctor diagnosed my wife with an STD, chlamydia maybe. We had a huge fight. My wife was emotionally crushed.
She accused me of cheating. It was messed up. I punched her symptoms into WebMD and told her it was probably kidney stones. Turned out to be kidney stones.
72. Apparently, I Was Sick
I was never overweight, but I had a muffin top I was self-conscious about. So finally, when I was 20, I decided to do something about it. I began going to the gym regularly, ate a healthier diet, and the pounds just started rolling off.
After a year, I was down nearly 50 lbs, and my mom was worried, so she took me to the doctor. That's when I found out I had stage four lymphoma...
73. Not A Pink Eye
I’m a pharmacy technician. I had a patient yesterday tell me they went to urgent care and the nurse diagnosed pink eye.
But the patient didn't feel right about that—and her gut feeling was right. She went to the eye doctor and was told she had an ulcer on her eye. If it went untreated properly, she would lose eyesight and possibly the eye.
74. A Trip From BC To The Hospital
I went on a boating trip off the coast of BC. We went through various small channels of water and docked somewhere where we could go kayaking on the open water.
We took turns managing various aspects of the ship, doing menial tasks such as watching for logs or otters and stuff in the water that might mess up the propeller or helping out in the extremely loud engine room.
This was over maybe three weeks.
On the last day of the trip, everyone started to get "seasick", myself included. We flew home the next day, and when we landed, I felt fine, For two hours, waiting in the airport and driving home, I started to feel worse and worse.
It was to the point where I was lying in the back seat of the car, and we had to pull over maybe 50 feet from my house to let me throw up. I had had migraines before, and it felt just like one.
Fast forward to later that night and it was so bad that even the little light coming in from the slit under my door caused incredible pain. We went to the emergency walk-in.
The whole time I was there I had to have my right eye covered, or the pain would overtake me. They prescribed something, I can't remember what, but it had no effect at all.
The next day the pain was still there, and it was so bad during the day that I tried to claw my eye out whilst trying frantically to get a hold of my parents to take me to hospital.
Once they finally took me to the hospital, they admitted me and took me in for a CAT scan. They found that I was suffering from sinusitis. This sinusitis had led to pressure on my optic nerve, which in turn caused a blood clot to form.
I was in hospital for two months, under strict quarantine whilst the doctors pumped me full of blood thinners and an antibiotic concoction that removed all my white blood cells.
When released, they had me outfitted with a pump that pumped medicine through my arm and directly into my heart through a vein.
I don't think anyone could have caught that diagnosis from light sensitivity and a headache, but I'm awfully glad I went to the hospital, and that the children in that city are one of if not the best in the world.
The trip itself cost about $8,000, and the treatment probably far more. Thank God I live in Canada.
75. This Is Almost As Dumb As Tide Pods
A work colleague told me this peach: She and some student friends were drinking and watching TV and there was a show on that stated if you shoved one of the old-fashioned round light bulbs into your mouth, it was easy to do, but getting it out would be impossible.
Well, of course, they took this as a challenge. Two friends tried it, and yes, the dummies couldn't get the bulbs out of their mouths. They went to the emergency department where a less-than-pleased doctor ended up using a small hammer to break the bulbs and slowly extract the glass out without cutting their mouths.
After a lot of apologizing, the group left the hospital just as another group of tipsy students came in the door...
You guessed it! Three of them had light bulbs jammed in their mouths.
76. Stage Five Whiner
My story is absurd and also made me want to throttle someone.
It was an extremely busy day in the emergency department and during the peak of COVID. Amidst all the drama and very sick patients, had a 32-year-old male walked in and make a fuss for being made to wait for two hours… with a stubbed toe.
He stubbed his tiny toe on a table leg and, “felt like the world was ending, in the worst pain ever”. He made such a fuss that I had to assess him and calm him down. Was his toe broken? No. Was it swollen? No. Was he in any pain now? No. Was it bleeding? No.
The pain had lasted for five minutes and he HAD to be seen because it was the worst pain ever, we couldn’t imagine it.
I can imagine. Every human being stubs their toe at some point. It sucks and then it’s fine. You can sit here until I manage my COVID patient with respiratory failure.
Talk about absurd. It still angers me when I think about it.
77. He Looks Healthy
My husband was almost gone because of an incorrect diagnosis in the urgent care clinic. He went in with horrible back pain and fever. The fever should've tipped off the urgent care doctor that something more serious was wrong, but she missed it.
He's young, 30 years old, healthy, no recent injuries, so she assumed he'd thrown his back out. "Go home and take ibuprofen" was her recommendation
A day later, I watched my healthy husband fall on the floor. He was unable to get up. Lost all ability to use his legs. We're on the third floor and he's 6'4". I'm 5' 4" and I had no idea how to even get him down the stairs, so we called an ambulance.
At that point I was freaking out, thinking it was what the onset of MS looked like, and that I was going to lose my husband.
We were in the ER waiting for tests all day, the doctors were perplexed. Finally, they found it: MRSA, antibiotic-resistant staph infection. It had expanded into a huge abscess running the length of his back, pressing on his spinal cord and damaging the nerves.
He was rushed for a five-hour emergency surgery that night.
As they were bringing him back, they were telling me, "Luckily the only spinal surgeon who could do this surgery can make it to this hospital. Otherwise, we'd have had to move him, and that would have been bad".
I didn't realize until much later why they said that. If they moved him and the abscess burst, he would have been paralyzed.
It took him weeks to learn to walk again, but now a year later he's okay. If you're young and otherwise healthy, it's easy for a doctor to miss something serious because it's not what they're looking for.
78. Something Feels Wrong
I fell rock climbing directly on my knee and immediately went to the emergency room, I knew it was bad, and they took an X-ray and told me I dislocated my knee and that I might have a small fracture. It didn't look like a big deal though, and they recommended me to go to an orthopedic surgeon in the next week or so.
No prescription—they suggested I take Tylenol for pain.
I went to an OS later that week who immediately put me on painkillers and got me in for an MRI the next morning.
I went back the next day, and I had a very seriously broken tibial plateau, which is basically where the shin meets the knee, completely tearing my ACL, PCL, LCL, and meniscus.
He rescheduled surgery to get me in as soon as possible to place my knee with a plate and eight screws. I had another surgery six months later to fix everything else.
My medical moral of the story is generally if something feels wrong, something is probably really wrong.
79. You Mean “Wind”?
I know a girl who woke up one morning and felt pain in her abdomen. She thought she had gallstones and she phoned the ambulance—but the truth of her condition was scoffable.
Wind. All she had was trapped wind. I thought people only made these kinds of mistakes in cartoons.
80. Now THAT’S A Pregnant Pause
I was in the ER for dehydration, and I was almost 12 weeks pregnant. I have crappy veins to begin with, so when the doctor told me he was going to start my IV I asked him to get the nurse.
I work in the medical field, and I know that the nurses are almost always placing the IVs and have ton more experience than the doctor. He tried and failed on four sticks, blew one vein, and then let his resident try who failed three sticks before they finally called a nurse in to try.
It took her two sticks, but in her defense, she was chasing bad veins since my good spots had already been poked multiple times.
It gets worse though. They can’t find a fetal heartbeat on the Doppler. It’s ok, they assure me, it’s still early to try and pick it up on the Doppler. They know I have a history of reoccurring miscarriages, so the doctor tells the resident to do an ultrasound and he leaves.
The resident rolls in the ultrasound machine and begins to start the ultrasound. After about five minutes of a lot of back and forth on my stomach, he says, “Hmmm I’m having a hard time picking up a heartbeat”—and then he goes silent for 30 minutes.
I am crying at this point. My husband is holding my hand and he’s crying. We had multiple ultrasounds that had confirmed a healthy pregnancy so far. We had heard the heartbeat at three separate ultrasounds before this.
We were both 100% convinced we had lost another baby. The resident finally finishes the ultrasound and says, “everything looks good”. I said, “wait, you found a heartbeat?” And he replied, “oh yeah, did I not say that?”
81. A Multi-Pronged Fishing Hook
I went to my urologist just to ask questions, literally just to ask questions. So, I have a catheter at this point, and the doctor said, “Hey let’s change that”. This man used no anesthesia at all, he yanked the old one out, and then shoved the new one in.
I started screaming because of the no anesthesia. He shoved this thing in me that felt like a multi-pronged fishing hook all through my nether regions. He said, “Yeah, it’s in there. Let’s inflate it”. The pain was so intense that I blacked out.
So, the next day, the bag had less than an ounce in it. I went back, and they said, “Oh you have to go to the ER”. Nine hours later, they booked me with the original guy that put the last one in.
I had to go into surgery because the badly placed one was floating in my body, distending and expanding my body. They got the old one out and the new one in with no issues, and this guy used anesthesia. My private area is so sore because of that failed replacement.
82. Lucky Number 13
I went to go get blood drawn before surgery. I got stuck 13 times in my hands, wrist, and elbow, and they still couldn’t draw a drop. My mom, who came with me because this was TWO HOURS out of the way, asked if she could try.
She got it on the first try. (For context, my mom used to be a phlebotomist).
83. Internal Panicking!
I woke up in the ER to a bunch of people running tests and stuff. I couldn't remember my name or anything for about a minute, then it all started coming back to me.
I didn't panic externally, because I’m a doctor myself, but I was terrified internally because I had no clue why I was in the ER. I had a seizure in my late 40s with no prior history of brain injury or seizures.
They ended up being caused by untreated sleep apnea, but man, to this day I still get anxious about that.
84. This One Is Wholesome
I don’t work in a hospital, but my profession requires me to respond to the hospital to make reports for patients who walk in with suspicious injuries (if you can only guess what I do for a living). This one was interesting as the story unfolded the more that I spoke to the kid.
A 12-year-old kid walks into the ER with his friends at two in the morning and asks to make a report about his injury. I get there and ask him what’s up and ask where his parents are.
He said he was bitten by a mouse and wanted to report it. Bit by a mouse on his finger. What? Yep. He was bitten by a mouse. The hospital sterilized it for him and I called his parents to come pick him up.
I then found out that he was a runaway juvenile and was living under a bridge for the last four months amongst the rats and mice.
All it took was for this one small mouse bite, and he was finally reunited with his parents. And thankfully, it was a happy reunion.
85. They Always Say, You Know Your Own Body
Here’s a weird one for you. I work in an Emergency Department and we had a patient who came in at three in the morning because he ate a bowl of cucumbers and didn't burp.
He always burps after eating cucumbers and this time he didn’t. He was very concerned, so he had to come right in and get checked out.
86. When Improvising Gets You In Serious Trouble
I spent a night at a big fire camp party spitting fire. By the morning, the special "secure" fluid I use to breathe fire safely had run out, but I still felt like performing.
I decided to try using Zippo lighter fluid that I found. It was a disaster waiting to happen. At the worst possible moment, as I began spitting fire, a sudden gust of wind blew in my face, igniting my face in flames.
Panicking, I attempted to smother the fire with my hands and by wiping my face, but my hands also caught fire. In a desperate move, I managed to extinguish the flames by quickly wrapping myself in my sweatshirt. Never again.
87. A Series of Unfortunate Events
I got a porcupine quill stuck in my ankle. I had a bad reaction and my eyes swelled shut. It turns out I’m allergic to porcupines. I was on crutches for a while, and I couldn’t wear contacts because my eyes were still swollen.
After class one day, while hobbling on crutches and not being able to see well, I tripped and fell down the stairs. Another ER visit later, and I added a sprained arm to the list. It was a horrible week.
Dotun55, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
88. Better Out Than In
I went to the ER for some serious stomach pain. They took me in for an ultrasound. The nurse came in and teold me it was trapped gas.
Shortly after, I stood up to get dressed and leave. The nurse was helping me as I was still in pain, and I let out the longest, most explosive sounding gas I'd ever released. There was such instant relief, and many giggles from me and the nurse.
ORION PRODUCTION, Shutterstock
89. Back Pain To Heaven
I worked in a medical office. We had a patient come in because he was having back pain.
He figured he lifted something wrong working on his truck and the pain was just not going away on its own like it normally would. Turns out he had spinal cancer. He was gone about two months later.
90. No Pain, Yes Surgery
I was 21 and I went to the ER. Technically, I was ordered to go by my NCOIC, because of pain in my abdomen. I had a right lower quadrant pain and high fever. I couldn't stand up straight, and the ER staff said I was turning green.
Doctors said appendicitis and sent me straight off to surgery.
They got me in the OR and my appendix was perfectly fine... It was actually a perforated colon caused by a ruptured diverticulum. They said that was rare for someone in their early 20s and even more rare for a non-Asian to have one on the right side.
They rejected my colon and took my appendix anyway since they were in there.
I probably should have been seen sooner, but it didn't hurt too bad until that day that I finally did get seen. I think my pain tolerance is broken.
91. That Pediatrician Is My Nemesis
My daughter had severe constipation as an infant to the point where we had to give her enemas every day. As expected this was traumatizing for both her and us.
Her pediatrician told me, my husband, and my mother-in-law who came with me to a few appointments that she would grow out of it.
At almost five years old she was still suffering, although he did relent and put her on a daily laxative. We could not get her potty trained.
She was embarrassed about this as well and she tried her best, but she told us she didn't know when she had to go. I begged and begged her pediatrician to write us a referral to this potty-training program that I had read about where there was a very high success rate.
He finally relented and said it was not her primary physician who wrote the referral but the other pediatrician who shared the office. I'd always liked him but, on the day he wrote us the referral, he threatened my daughter by telling her he wasn't going to let her leave the office until she went on the potty. He then told me I was a neglectful mother for not having her potty trained.
When we left the office that day my daughter was in tears, and we never went back. I wish I'd made that decision a longer time ago now.
My husband had been going to nursing school and he decided that when the potty-training class ended up leading to nothing, we would take her to see a urologist.
I wish I'd gone with them to that appointment. I was so frustrated and confused at that point and I figured it would be another appointment with no answered questions.
Nope. An ultrasound showed that she was missing the bottom of her spinal cord, the sacral nerves, which give the sensation of needing to go to the bathroom.
She had sacral agenesis. Sacral agenesis and caudal regression. Because this disorder usually goes along with deformed feet and/or legs, no one had brought it up as a possibility before.
However, although it's rare, it's much more common in children with Type I diabetic mothers.
So basically, my daughter's pediatrician wrote me off as a hysterical mother. I'm assuming because I had her at a young age. Then, let my daughter struggle with a disorder for years before we finally were able to figure it out for ourselves.
There are so many days I have wished I had stormed back into his office and sued him.
On a positive note, my daughter has an exceptional pediatrician now who is very supportive and familiar with her disorder, and she is now happy and healthy as can be.
92. Advil, The Universal Cure, Apparently
I had a panic attack for the first time and went to the ER. The doctor just told me to take some Advil and then told me to get out. That kind of experience has made it hard for me to reach out for professional help about my anxiety.
93. He’s Alive!
I was mistaken for a dead kid. I was right across the hall from a kid who passed, and somehow the staff got our paperwork mixed up. They went to inform my parents that I died! One of the many mistakes that hospital made.
It got so bad that they had to replace board members, staff, and even change the name of the hospital.
94. An Almost-Souvenir
The doctor forgot to remove the speculum. I had to call him back as he was leaving the room to get him to remove it. He acted as though I was wasting his time.
95. Whoa, Talk About A Miracle
This isn’t a funny or weird story, but it was quite insane, so I think it still counts.
I work in the emergency department and a woman walked in around four in the afternoon, complaining of mild neck pain. She'd been in a car accident that morning, seen by paramedics at the scene, and cleared. They told her to go to ER if she got headaches or neck pain. She now had some mild neck pain so she felt she should come in just in case.
And it’s a darn good thing she did.
We put her on spinal precautions and wheel her off for x-ray. She comes back and is just chilling on her bed, still in pain but nothing major.
The very next minute the head of radiology calls the ER, literally screaming: "DON'T LET THAT WOMAN MOVE".
It turns out, she had a c1 dislocation. Her skull had been dislocated from her first vertebrae. A single twitch and her demise would've been instant.
Somehow, she'd walked into ER hours after the accident, managing to not pass away the whole day from one wrong turn of the head.
She was rushed into surgery and survived.
96. The Classic DIYer
I don’t work in the ER, but I have a story of myself going to the ER that caused quite a stir.
I was working on my truck with a buddy and we were unbolting body panels. I was holding a wrench on the back of the bolt while he zipped the nuts off with a high-torque electric impact. One of the bolts was in a difficult spot, and the wrench slipped out of my hand, spun around, and pinned my thumb to the frame with the open end of the wrench at full speed.
After running it under cold water and wrapping it with whatever we could find, I lay on his floor for a couple of hours until I got called into work. On my way to work, they called me back and said never mind. It was at this point I noticed two things: my thumb was still bleeding consistently, and I was coincidentally near the hospital. May as well go in, I’m off for the day now.
So, I walk up to the reception desk, calm as daisies. The receptionist looks up and says, “Hi! How can I- oh, you’re bleeding”! And I was like, “Yeah, uh, the darn thing won’t stop”.
After soaking my hand in that sterilized water stuff to loosen off my “bandaging”, they removed my paper towel, electrical tape, gauze, and the darn nasal strips we used to jimmy up a bandage, and gave me like five or six stitches and some proper bandages along with cleaning instructions.
The nurses gave me a lot of trouble for not coming in sooner, but everyone found my DIY bandaging job to be quite amusing.
It continued to bleed a little bit from under my nail for the next coupleof days. Nearly 10 months later, the thumbnail is almost grown back completely.
ShotPrime Studio , Shutterstock
97. Ok, The Ending Though
This one isn’t just weird; it was one of the creepiest things I had seen during my first years working in the emergency department.
A woman chopped off her own hand with a rusty hatchet because she sinned and Jesus told her it’s what was needed (harsh).
Oddly, she whacked from the top down and fortunately, the metacarpal bones prevented her from chopping through the ligaments and tendons. Here’s the creepy part:
Even though it appeared the hand was not attached (98% was not), when the doctor held the hand and I was holding the forearm she wiggled her fingers on command.
It was so creepy! There was a two-inch gap between her hand and forearm except for some strings of stuff and this fool wiggled her fingers!
The hand was saved after a long surgery and healed nicely from what I heard, minus initial necrotic issues.
…But then I also heard she sinned again and there was no saving it this time.
98. Even I Learned A Lesson Today
My mom worked in the ER, and I was meeting her for lunch one day. She called at the very last minute and had to cancel because of a trauma coming in. I decided to go to her anyway and wait. That’s when I got to witness this atrocity.
The dude was rolled in and covered in fishing lures. His buddy had put the tackle box on the dash and when they had to slam on the brakes it flew open. He had hooks and lures all over his face, down his arms, and stuck to his chest and stomach.
You could see him trying not to move because any stretch of skin would pull at the barb. It was terrifying. He was crying out in so much pain every time he moved.
Everyone there learned a lesson that day.
cottonbro studio , Pexels
99. The Ugly Tooth
I was a children’s nurse. On my first week in the pediatric ED, we had a young girl, about six or seven, come in with a really swollen jaw and face. The poor girl was unable to move her jaw without intense pain and hadn’t been able to eat for several days.
It turned out she had only just started cleaning her teeth for the first time ever, and managed to develop several abscesses and rotten teeth in the process. To make it worse, her mom told us she was recovering from the same procedures to remove most of her teeth because of almost the same thing.
They didn’t want to bother going to the GP, as they thought she was just messing about to get out of school.
Freepik, DCStudio
100. Life Was Squeezing By
My mom was an ER nurse right after college. A family got in a car crash, and there weren’t any serious injuries; they were just taken to the ER to be assessed. They had a baby, and my mom was asking them questions about its health, etc. When she asked what the baby was being fed, the mom said, “Juice”. Just juice. She had heard that at six months, you could start feeding the baby juice, not realizing it was juice, in addition to baby food or milk. This woman had been feeding her baby ONLY JUICE for months.
101. Not Your Ordinary Blackhead
I was working at an old folks center near our house, and I was with this one older gentleman. On his hip, was a blackhead the size of a dime, on top of a decent-sized lump, about 5 cm (2 in) long. So, I threw on some gloves, made sure I had the permission of the man of course, and squeezed the black head. To my shock, out popped this roll of gauze that was left over from his hip surgery 10 years prior that he never bothered to get removed.
The smell was horrid and I will never forget it.
102. It Ultimately Wasn’t Very Fun-Knee
I overheard a conversation between a nurse, a doctor, and a patient in the ER. They were trying to figure out whether the patient was very stupid or had a head injury. It was both hilarious and sad. He kept telling them that he was there for a hurt leg, but he couldn’t explain why his leg was hurt, how it was hurt, or how he got there—nearly anything.
I heard them talking in a hallway to each other. The nurse was convinced the patient hit his head. The doctor, without skipping a beat, dropped his unexpected diagnosis: “No, he is just an idiot". It turned out the doctor was right. They got ahold of the guy’s wife. She told them in the hallway he’s always this dumb, and if she left him, he would get lost in his own house and starve.
It sounded like the patient’s leg was visibly injured or swollen. But when asked what happened or how it felt, he gave nonsensical idiot answers. He wasn’t slurring, but answering in a regular idiot voice, saying things like, “It feels hurt”, and “I was talking to Jimmy, and we were doing our usual work, and my leg hurts”.
The doctor would ask, “Did something happen? What is the work”? But the patient kept responding, “Something always happens; you know how it goes”, or “I just want my leg fixed”.
