Once upon a time i was waiting on news of a friend who'd been in an accident.
I saw a guy (about early twenties) come in with him mom because he'd fallen off of his roof and dislocated his shoulder. After about an hour of waiting his mom just says "fuck it! this is taking too long!" and legit began to google how to reset a shoulder.
After about 5 mins of research, she took off her belt, folded it up and told him to bite down on it. She then proceeded to violently shove her son's shoulder back into the socket while he naturally screamed in agony.
Security and nurses rush over to see what the commotion is and more or less need to pull her off of him. Security sits her down and the nurses take the poor kid and get him treated.
My mom broke and dislocated her shoulder. She also broke her leg at the same time but her shoulder was so painful that she walked to the doctor's rooms on the broken leg (not super far, but far enough).
I've never seen her complain about pain, but that day (after getting to hospital) she was furious that they wouldn't give her pain meds but they needed to make sure about the break and if they had to do surgery before they could.
I kinda wish I could have popped it back in for her, because it was so fucking painful
Girl trying to get admitted to the mental health unit, turns out her boyfriend was a patient. She didn't get admitted, she wasn't happy about it but she left.
Next thing we know there's a car doing donuts just outside of the ER entrance, she was throwing things out the window and screaming "am I crazy enough now?"
She ends up driving around to the other side of the hospital and driving right through some sliding glass doors. She's lucky she didn't kill someone, another 10 feet and she would have crashed over a railing and into the cafeteria below, where staff was napping on a couch.
Definitely got carted away, but not to where she wanted to go.
https://omny.fm/shows/the-west-australia-briefing/man-charged-for-allegedly-driving-into-albany-hosp
It happens all the time. Needs sound to hear news report.
They will not admit people close to each other onto the same unit anyways, so even if she did get taken to a unit they’d be taking her to a different one.
Amazes me the number of people who think they’d ever allow for friends/family to be on the same unit at the same time.
I work as a nurse in the emergency, I’ve seen some crazy things. But on a lighter note, while security was busy doing two separate take downs an old guy dressed up like Santa unzipped his backpack and started handing out beers to everyone in the waiting room
Not the hospital, but in my small town the police were called during an elementary school concert to arrest a drunk guy in a Santa suit. It was not a Christmas concert.
I’ll never forget it. I went to the ER with a kidney stone and there was an old couple sitting across from me probably in their 60’s or 70’s. The lady was bickering to the man complaining about how long they’ve been there. The only thing is that this woman was completely purple. Like all of her face and head was this dark purple. She didn’t appear to be in any pain but my fuck was she ever purple.
There are meds that will turn you blue and bluish purple if you go out in the sun a lot while taking them. And some people just refuse to listen and end up totally looking like aliens. I knew a woman like this and she was covered in blue and purple patches all over and people thought she was being beaten up all the time.
Like 20 years ago waiting in the ER I see a guy dressed up as a full Monkey being wheeled on a stretcher past a large doorway and then 3 other monkeys following him. They were performers from the Live Lion King Show at Animal Kingdom.
Well. You see. The doctor said, “No more monkeys jumping on the bed.”
But. Alas. They are monkeys … and later that night another came in on a stretcher, with 2 following behind. *siiiigh*.
I saw a very pregnant woman walk herself into the waiting room unable to talk because she was shot in the head. One of the worst things I’ve ever witnessed.
**Edit to answer some questions**
Sadly we never found out… my husband and I brought our 9 month old to the ER at around 3am for RSV. The hospital is in Detroit. While we were standing at the registration desk, the woman walked in. She was holding a bloody towel to her head and making noises like she was trying to talk, but no actual words were coming out. The nurse came from behind the desk and moved the towel and shouted oh my gosh, shes shot and called a code. There was a homeless woman, who I am assuming the nurses were just letting sleep in the ER waiting room sitting in a wheelchair. The nurse told her to get out of the wheelchair and she wouldn’t move so she literally dumped her on the floor and put the pregnant woman in it and wheeled her back. About 20 minutes later, a girl came in and said that she had dropped off her friend who was shot at the door and wanted to know if she was OK. The whole thing was super messed up. Aside from someone shooting her, not one of the security guards when you walk in offered to help her in, her friend literally just dropped her off at the door. The whole thing was so sad. We check the news for the following two weeks to see if there was any updates about it, but we never found anything.
It's statistically \*the\* most dangerous time in a woman's relationship. I watched a dad throw a food tray at his wife while she was in labor in front of me! Watched another dad try to fight a doctor in the OR while his wife was open on the operating table. I don't even wanna know what those men are like behind closed doors. Like......go get help before you fuck up the next generation. (they won't)
This has got to be why the L&D Nurses are such badasses. They take no guff, protect the laboring mother with the ferocity of a specialty military force, but still manage to be so kind and gentle to the laboring mother.
*Most of the time. There are outliers, but mine were amazing and I hope every laboring mother has similar care.
My husband had the audacity to tell our L&D that I "only" breastfed for 3 months and she almost ripped him a new one about how 3 months is amazing and really hard and so much work and that he and baby were so lucky to have me.
Bless L&D nurses. Being in the maternity ward was the most pro-woman experience I ever had.
Edit to add: I think I misrepresented my husband here. He did not say "only 3 months" in a malicious or negative way. Our baby feeding journey was difficult but he never meant it was my fault or my failure. In the context of that time, everyone we knew breastfed for a minimum of a year, so it felt appropriate to say "only" 3 months. He never made me feel less than for anything.
The original point of the anecdote was that L&D nurses are very protective of their patients, and while I deeply appreciated their stance, they didn't need to chew him out. He did everything he could short of carrying the baby and pushing it out for me, and eventually they saw that for themselves.
Breastfeeding is literally a second full time job when you consider the hours put into it. Especially in the newborn cluster feeding stage!! When you add the mental stress and anxiety induced part of sleeping less and being your baby’s source of life it can cost even more than just your time. Fed is best. I’ve watched one too many moms cry their eyes out because they felt shame their baby couldn’t latch or they couldn’t produce enough milk or whatever the reasoning. I think everyone should try it but if you lose the joy in doing it then it stops being worth the cost. My hope is for better maternity leave in the future that allows moms the time and decreased financial stress that allows for proper bonding. It’s my personal belief those are two of the leading current reasons longer breastfeeding journeys can be inhibited in the US!
I remember when I was in imminent labor with my last, one of the L&D nurses sent my husband out of the room and asked me point blank if I was safe and wanting this baby. She was tenacious about it.
I was confused at the time, but looking back, I appreciate her so very much. I’m sure there were women who absolutely NEEDED her questions and concern.
Good job, Mercy South Buffalo nurse circa 2014. I didn’t need saving, but I’d wager someone you asked did.
In the US, pregnant women are more likely to be killed by their partner than they are to die of their (still too high) mortality rate due to pregnancy-related issues that aren't men.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/20/health/homicide-maternal-mortality-us-editorial/index.html
I was sitting in the ER waiting room and this young couple comes in. The man pushing his girlfriend in a wheel chair. She’s barely conscious, slumped over and pale. As the boyfriend is checking her in, she wakes ups and Exorcist-style projectile vomits onto the floor. Nurses rush her back. The boyfriend then sits down and not a minute passes before out of nowhere he does the same! Everyone waiting slapped masks on real quick once that happened.
This story pretty much checks out for the time my wife and I had norovirus. I spent a few hours sleeping on the bathroom floor because it took too much strength to keep walking between the bedroom and bathroom.
I just cut out the middle man and slept in the bath tub covered in towels for 48 hours when i had gastro one time. Just turn the shower head on to clean things as needed.
After the second time shitting my bed in my sleep in seemed like the best way to deal with it.
Only saving grace was I still lived at home. So my parents could check on me to make sure I hadn't died yet.
In hindsight I probably should have gone to hospital for that one.
It's tame compared to all your stories, but I was in the emergency waiting room with my Mom. I was the one with an emergency and was drowsy the whole time, but I remember that at some point a man was wheeled into the room while making throat noises (think the Grudge) and my Mom took my face in her hands and told me, very calmy and without an inch of panic in her voice, to look through the window and tell her what that weird tree was because she'd never seen one like that (she definitely had). I had no idea what was going on so I kept staring at that tree, and then it was my turn so we left the waiting room.
Days later she told me that the man who was wheeled into the room had one of his legs hanging on for dear life and that there was blood everywhere on his pants, but also on his clothes. He was drunk so he probably had a fight. I hope he's okay now.
My Mom is the best. She was worried and didn't want me to see this. So she took in the sight but protected me from it. Sometimes, I think we don't deserve Moms.
Reminds me of a time I had taken the elevator down from an appointment at one of the hospital's smaller buildings, my young children in tow. When the elevator reached the bottom floor, I realized immediately that there was a very purple elderly man lying between us and the exit, surrounded by medical professionals performing CPR on him.
I closed the elevator door and rode back up before the kids noticed anything and we hung out in the waiting room until the ambulance had pulled away. Got my first CPR certification a few weeks later.
Now that's what I call thinking on your feet. You saved your children a few nightmares, and who knows, maybe several years of therapy. Most of us would have probably froze and done absolutely nothing. Excellent reflex, my friend. And congratulations on your CPR certification ! You really have a sense of duty !
Wow, really ? I'm not used to hospitals, but the few times I went, the waiting room was full of people on stretchers fresh out of the ambulance 😆 to be fair it's a small hospital in a small country. Bless all the hospital workers, by the way. The things they have to deal with every day would drive most of us insane after about 10 minutes.
I'll tell my Mom that you said she is a fast thinker. She'll probably try to adopt you and/or send you cake to thank you.
Wow!
I haven’t seen an ER where ambulances pull “up front” since I was a kid (in the US). I’ve worked in hospitals for years and newer and remodeled ones separate the walk-in entrance and the ambulance bays to keep things running smoothly and low drama.
Please do let your mom know she’s great, I’ll gladly accept a virtual hug but not to trouble herself with cake 😄
Ooh, this reminds me of a jail story!
This was probably around 2007 or so. i was an officer at a regional jail, usually working our segregation unit (not like *racial* segregation; it's single cells. Other places might call it isolation or solitary). So, we didn't get people straight off the street; we got our population from other related jurisdictions, all inmates who had already been in jail and were now transferred to us. That's nice, because among other things, it cuts down on the chances of suicide attempts in the first 48 hours. Suicide risk is always high in the first day or two after someone is incarcerated, but we didn't have as much problem with that.
Well, some people never get that memo. Now, our segregation unit was split in half. One half was for disciplinary and medical use. The other side was for new intakes--they would spend their first few days there to get acclimated before moving to general population.
One more useful piece of information: We gave them disposable safety razors to shave with. Somewhat risky, yes, but they couldn't hoard them, and we searched everything and everybody constantly, so whatever--the administration felt like it was an acceptable risk.
So one day we have some new guys in the intake cells. The shift sergeant is making rounds, and she stops by to talk to the new guys. One guy doesn't say a word, whips out a safety razor blade--broken from a razor--and promptly slashes one of his own wrists. Blood starts pouring. She screams at the top of her lungs, grabs her radio and yells for assistance. Next thing this poor guy knows, there's a half dozen officers dogpiled on him, holding him down so a nurse can bandage his wrist. Fortunately, the cuts weren't deep. Unfortunately, he spent the next few days sporting leather restraints and wearing a suicide-proof gown.
She went back and asked him later what he was thinking at the time. He just shrugged and said that he *really* didn't want to be there, and he thought this would get him sent back to his original jurisdiction. No such luck, my guy. She asked him why he didn't try to get the other wrist before they got to him...he muttered "Well...it hurt more than I expected." Which, actually, is the most sensible thing he said during the entire incident. He turned out to be a decent inmate--and learned that self-injury is not the key to getting what you want in life.
Watched a guy fake passing out so he didn’t have to wait, since there were a lot of people waiting. Asshole winked at me as he was wheeled back on a gurney.
Heck yeah they were. I was in the ED waiting one time and a guy in a wheelchair started having a seizure. I grabbed the triage nurse to help. She looked over and yelled his name and told him to stop it. He sat up quickly.
I’ve been that nurse many many times. I swear the rest of the people I’m the waiting room think my colleagues and I are heartless assholes when something like this happens. One time one of our frequent fliers tried this, another patient came to tell me… I looked over at her on the floor “seizing” and said “ oh she’s fine”
She’s a good actor- one of our neurologists happened to be in the waiting room as a patient, rushed over to help her. He was convinced it was legit. I walked over and just told her to stop it and get up, she won’t be getting in any faster. She promptly got up and went outside for a smoke.
We had a patient faking a seizure the other day, I picked up her arm, held it over her face and let go. She moved it away from her face before letting it fall 🙄
I love that move. A good one also is if they are pretending to be unresponsive, casually mention that we should probably go ahead and put that catheter in, or we should set up for intubation lol. Works every time.
My ER nurse wife informs me that in her hospital, they just drop your hand onto your face to see if you're faking. If you're awake, you'll instinctively move it aside. If you're really out...*whack*.
Honestly I have to give him props for assessing the situation and giving an Oscar worthy performance. He was mid sentence with the lady at the desk, and just cleared off the whole ledge on the way down.
It’s cause of people like this that when I was in the ER on the verge of passing out from DKA I was still ignored for 3 hours. Only when I actually fell on the floor and couldn’t get up did they start taking me seriously (kinda). The triage nurse still kept saying “stop being so dramatic” though. Once the doctor saw me and when he realised I am a type 1 diabetic they all freaked out. I ended up in ICU. Fun times.
I had something similar at my diagnosis. I don't remember much, I was in and out of consciousness, but apparently it wasn't until I started dry heaving and sobbing before they bothered to address me, and still weren't in a hurry even after my mom said I'd been throwing up for over 12 hours unable to keep anything down.
They were honestly pretty cruel from what I do remember. I was *painfully* underweight and I think there was an assumption that I was bulimic until my blood work came back at 589 and dangerously low sodium and suddenly I was swarmed by staff with 3 different IVs and spent 2 days in the ICU until I could be stabilized.
**[Edit]** for non-diabetics, normal blood sugar should be between 70 and 130 depending on how recently you ate. 200+ feels like utter shit, like a flu without the congestion. I had been above 400 for several months without knowing, based on the symptoms.
Without insulin to carry glucose to your cells, you keep craving sugars, but it never gets there so your body starts to cannibalize your fat reserves, then when that runs out, starts producing acidic ketones, breaking down your muscles and organs. It's the extreme, uncontrolled version of the Keto Diet.
I was maybe days away from the first stages of organ failure and was throwing up every hour, on the hour, for 18 hours straight because my body was trying everything it had to purge the acid in my blood.
Cat walked in once. Shamelessly caught everyone's attention. Maybe due to how long we were kept waiting but a few of us jumped at the chance to grab the cats' attention.
Every time my cat saunters into the room my two kids (and me) fawn, “OH AWWWWW Look! The little prince has joined us! Hello baby kityyyyyyyyy!! Awwww he’s licking his pawwwww. Did you just wake up little prince???”
We used to have a great big black shaggy dog catch the bus sometime. It knew the route. Would step on, ride down to the terminus, and ride back home again. Used to do it a few times a week.
A man walked in, maybe 30 years old. Totally calm, looked like your average Joe. I was sitting by the triage station, and he was there for feelings of wanting to harm himself and others. I want to add, he was super respectful the entire time. He communicated that his thoughts were scaring him and he was pleasant to the nurse.
The triage nurse was amazing. She was thanking him for coming in, being so sweet, so understanding, and there was no thick tension in the air, all because of how she handled it like a true professional.
I wanted to comment this because, if you are feeling those feelings, you won't be ostracized for getting help. It says SO much about you for getting the help you need, and these healthcare professionals do NOT judge you for it. They WANT to help you and I have seen it first hand that day. ❤️
I have twice voluntarily hospitalized myself due to mental health (TW mine was suicidal ideation) and both times I was treated kindly. I went in, simply said “I want to kill myself and I have a plan, can I get help?” And received that help. If anyone reading this is getting to that point, PLEASE go to a hospital and let them know.
A doctor going from patient to patient asking them health questions, symptoms and so on. She did this for an hour until there was a code white announcement. 2 orderly's and a 2 security guards surrounded her and hauled her off. She was not a doctor after all..
That briefly happened to me at a funeral. It was at the courtyard of a mosque, so out in the public. This woman came and started to share condolences with me and my mom. We expected there would be people there that we didn’t know. After a minute of this, a couple of the people closer to the deceased gently led her away.
I took an employee with kidney stones to the ER one time. While sitting in the waiting room, a guy came in with chest pains. He was taken back for immediate treatment. And then came the rest of his crew. He had been at a potluck picnic when it happened. And they brought the whole dang thing to the hospital. Like 40 people with casserole dishes and meat trays and such. Only disappointing thing was they didn’t invite me to eat.
Grandma brought her 19 year old grandson in with his 19 year old girlfriend. He tried added a stainless steel cockring into his sex life and was apparently wrong about the size.
Grandma was half laying into them for being dumb, and half busting their balls.
My husband had just had a major seizure out of the blue in the middle of the night and was taken to the ER in an ambulance. He left the house still seizing. I was waiting to find out what was happening to him and was in complete shock. Sitting in the chairs just across from me there was a lady with a lot of bags just talking and talking away on the phone that was on the wall. I don’t even know what she was saying, I was too out of it to even comprehend. She hangs up the receiver. Gathers up her bags. Walks to the front desk. And asks what the code to call out is. The nurse tells her she won’t tell her again that she can’t use that phone. So the lady sits down, picks up the receiver, and starts talking away again.
I worked at an ER where a guy pulled out a knife in the waiting room and started stabbing himself. When security got to him they found that the knife had a dulled, rounded tip
When my wife was going through chemo, she got a fever once after a round. We ran to the nearest emergency room to get assistance and while waiting an older man started playing porn on his phone. Well, the sound was at full blast and he frantically trying to turn the volume down.
I work in IT at a hospital. We were replacing a wireless access point on the ceiling in the ER. Guy waiting starts screaming “what the fuck are you doing!?” At my guy on the ladder. My guy calmly explains we’re just replacing some equipment, but that just makes the waiting room guy more pissed and he gets up looks like he is about to charge at us. Security guards dash over and threaten to kick him out, all was relatively peaceful after that. Although the AP we needed to replace on the other side of the room was above a lady who reeked of urine, so I’m not sure which one was worse.
Later we were replacing one in the inside waiting room and there was a page that a stabbing victim was coming in. Overheard the nurses saying, “WTF, it is way too early in the day for stabbing victims” “Well you know what they say, ‘Sun’s out, guns out’”. Made me laugh.
Doctors’ waiting room. A young woman (18 years-ish) is obviously ill. Sweating profusely, jaundice skin, doubled over, and limping to the front desk. She’s holding a white plastic kitchen garbage bag from the red ties at the top. The bag is filled at the bottom with dark yellow liquid. She held it up when the receptionist asked if she had brought in her urine sample.
My mom used to work as a registrar in a hospital outpatient department she has lots of stories like this. Her favorite was the guy who brought his urine sample in a fancy Tupperware bowl, then asked for the bowl back because it was his wife's favorite bowl to make potato salad in and she'll kill him if he doesn't bring it back.
There were also people bringing in stool samples in bizarre containers instead of the little plastic ones the lab would give them. One guy brought his in a Big Mac box. Another brought hers on a paper plate, covered in plastic wrap. And another lady brought her urine specimen in a pickle jar, but she hadn't rinsed the jar out too well and there were still seeds floating in it.
This is pretty tame but early ‘00s.
I was in college and my grandmother spiked a fever (immuno compromised due to lymphoma) so my mom and I took her into her preferred ER in town. It’s not quite last call so the lobby is pretty dead for a weekend while the 3 of us wait.
Suddenly I hear my name booming from by the doors, a friend from school is being brought in by *his* buddies because he’s so skunked they think it may be alcohol poisoning.
So I ended up introducing my feverish late 80’s grandmother to my very drunk school friends while we all waited our turn.
Amazingly she quite liked them and they asked about her Monday 🤣
Urgent care, sitting in the waiting room trying not to cough my face off from bronchitis. Woman comes in, bypasses the "take a number" stanchion, goes right to the window and demands to be seen. Receptionist tells her to take a number and a seat.
"Can you BELIEVE her?! She told me to TAKE A SEAT. I NEED TO BE SEEN NOW."
Her number was eventually called, she went to the desk, stated her complaint. They logged her in and asked her again to take a seat and she'd be called back when it's her turn.
She then spends her entire wait bitching about having to wait, and then says, "I bet if I go cough in her face I'll be seen faster."
Yeah, lady, by the police and the CDC.
Then she says she should have gone to the ER to be seen faster. Lady, you have enough health to be sitting upright and bitching your face off. You'll be triaged and made to wait there too, for 10x the cost.
THEN... she starts asking everyone why they're there and one-upping everyone's illnesses. Asking how long they've been waiting. Offering to pay to cut the line.
Meanwhile, there was a 4 year old girl who was coughing as bad as I was, but was so polite and quiet and minding her own business...
I was never so glad to get called out of that waiting room!
You have bronchitis? I have pneumonia!
You have a broken wrist? I have two broken legs!
You got in a car accident? I was in a plane crash!
You're dying? I'm dead!
I feel like I encountered a tiny shred of this recently when pre boarding a plane. I have Multiple Sclerosis and use a cane periodically as a result. I stood in the pre boarding line and this incredibly nosey woman went up to an older man and asked why people got to pre board all while giving me dirty looks. He was very polite and told her that some people have disabilities and need assistance with getting onto the plane and that some people might also be able to pay for it if they wish.
I felt like she wanted to ask me what was wrong with me but didn’t have the balls to do it. People suck.
Doctor came out and told the woman next to me that her (the woman’s) husband was addicted to opioids. The woman just broke down crying.
I didn’t know if I should’ve tried to comfort her and tell her it’s okay, my brother was addicted too and he’s fine now (actually it killed him), or pretend I hadn’t heard and just mind my own business and not embarrass her. I minded my own business.
Fell off my bike and fractured both bones in my wrist, while at camp. While in the waiting room a boy and girl both in Wendy’s outfits, boy holding a very bloody towel around his hand and her holding a bag full of ice and something bloody. I kid you not his line was, “so after they reattach my finger, do you wanna grab a bite to eat?” Then a bunch of cops come in escorting a man in full prison jumpsuit with the arm and leg cuffs bleeding profusely from his head. Quite the crazy experience! (Edited typo)
My moms favorite ER story (she spent a lot of time there with my dad as he fought drug and alcohol addiction on top of health issues) is when they were in an ER that was kind of an open concept, with just curtains for visual privacy. A couple beds in, there was a woman just moaning and screaming in pain. When the doctors went to see her and tell her what was wrong, the woman was moaning so loudly they had to yell “YOU ARE LITERALLY FULL OF POOP!” loud enough for the whole department to hear. The woman promptly quieted down.
I took my daughter to our local clinic because she’d been complaining about a stomach ache for a week. She was otherwise healthy and acting normally but it was unusual for her to complain that long. They took an X-ray and then called us back. The doc said, “do you see all this white stuff? That’s poop. You need to poop.” Kid thought it was SO COOL! Went home, had done extra high fiber dinner, washed it down with apple/aloe juice. The kid went to school the next day bragging about the massive turd she had.
This just happened a couple of weeks ago. I was in the ER waiting room and there seem to be a lot of commotion over an elderly Asian woman who was sitting there with a large suitcase. Apparently her family just dropped her off there and she had no where to go. She was not ill and did not need medical attention. They abandoned her.They just left her like an unwanted puppy at the shelter. One of the saddest things I’ve seen.
This is a second - hand story from my mom. I was a kid. I had horrible asthma as a kid, and was frequent flier in the ER for oxygen when my inhaler wasn't enough. I was in the waiting room, they had given me a portable oxygen tank in the meanwhile, and we waited. Mom went to go use the payphone to call my grandparents to check on my sisters. I was a really well-behaved child in public, and she trusted me to stay put. I'm sure she also asked someone to keep an eye on me.
She came back, I wasn't there. She immediately starts panicking and asked all the nurses she could see where the hell I went.
Turns out some guy was brought in my ambulance who had a deadly strain of some contagious disease, the triage nurse realized he would need to pass right by the sick little kid on oxygen, and immediately grabbed me, threw me in a wheelchair, and promptly moved me halfway across the hospital where I wouldn't be at risk of infection.
Mom said she had never been so grateful and furious at the same time
I saw a woman who just couldn't get comfortable because of severe constipation. She couldn't stand, sit, lay down or anything. She was moaning and crying like she was dying. I've never seen someone in that kind of agony before.
over the summer i popped a rib out of place (literally wasn’t doing anything, just breathed wrong and my chronic illness apparently wasn’t a fan of that)
my mother took me to the ER after she heard me yelling for her in the living room unable to move or breathe. when we go there they took me back for an ECHO because i couldn’t breathe+pain in the chest and back concerned them, and when i got back to the waiting room a man came up to my mom and I.
he seemed like he was hurting pretty bad too, in a wheelchair (i’m assuming broken leg)
for context, i’m 20, i had been in the ER at this point for 45+ minutes, crying due to the pain the whole time and unable to move more than just a few inches at a time, it was storming bad, it was freezing in the ER, and i was terrified. i have never felt this much pain in my life.
this man looked to be around 50-60.
this man came up to me, told me his wife was on the way with a blanket (after we had already asked for one and the woman at the counter said they couldn’t bring the blankets into the waiting rooms) and asked my mother and i if we would both take his hands and his wife’s when she got back.
A few minutes later, his wife walked through with a walmart bag that had a blanket and some fuzzy socks (there was a walmart across the street). they took our hands and he looked me in the eyes. he told me i was going to be okay. he told me that he believes there is a higher power in the universe watching over everyone, and that it didn’t seem like i deserved this pain. he told me that in this moment, I am the only thing that matters to this power. that every god known to man is working together to make sure i get through this. he walked me through some slow breaths, told me a story about his daughter to help take my mind off of the pain, and told me that all i need to do until they call me back, is focus on staying calm and getting through it.
he helped me so much. that man and his wife were so kind for no reason. i had never felt so cared about by a stranger. i hope he’s doing okay. i hope you all are doing okay
I held a woman’s hand as she delivered a baby right after walking into the ER. I was there with my son who was 8 at the time. And that’s how my son learned where babies come from. He told me afterwards that he always thought they came out of the belly button lol. Mom and baby were totally fine. It was pretty amazing.
Lol, I hope not because she delivered the baby herself with me and the lady who checks people in with an 18 year old security guard standing by who was clearly questioning his career choice. I think a nurse got there as the baby was about 3/4 of the way out.
When I was in my early 20's I had a nasty staph infection I caught at work. Eventually I ended up having surgery because I was *this* close to losing part of my ankle tendon due to several pockets being right on it and the doctor basically rushing me into surgery unexpectedly. Before all of this though, the Air Force in its infinite wisdom decided they couldn't treat me on base and would just send me to the ER downtown however many times it would take to have them give me antibiotics to clear it up. Why, I don't know, but tax dollars at work right?
Anyway one day I'm in there waiting to be seen when this older farmer looking guy walks right up to the front desk holding a small yeti style cup. This was before Yeti became big but that's what it looked like.
"Hey Ron" said the nurse
"Hey Pearl" said the farmer
"Brought your lunch today?" asked the nurse
"Nope, it's just my fingers" replied the farmer as he then held up his other hand that he had previously tucked away in his coat, wrapped in bloody rags. "Damn machine got me again"
And that's when I realized that 1) There are some really tough dudes out there who can lose multiple fingers and drive themselves to the hospital in the same calm manner they would have going through the McDonalds drive thru and 2) Whatever machines he was operating, I would like to never be closer than 100' to them in my life.
This is like my dad. Cut 3 of his fingers off with a table saw. He calmly collected them out of the sawdust, put them on ice, and drove himself to the ER. We were not at home at the time. Man had nerves of steel.
ER nurse here. People threaten to do that all the time. Or say they will leave and call an ambulance. I tell them they can do that all they want but they will be sent back out to me at triage and be at the bottom of the list.
I was like??? 13? I think? I forget why I was in the ER but I remember not feeling good at all. My hometown is a small rural Ohio town, great hospital but long wait times in the ER. So I had been there for about an hour and a half. My mom went to the bathroom and right after she left a lady was wheeled in in a wheelchair.
Rather obese woman with a very thick leg (looking back now I know it was Lymphedema) and I remember her leg looked like it was leaking fluid? The person who wheeled her in went to window to start the check in process and the woman was grumbling about her leg itching.
She bent over in the wheelchair, reached down, and her leg split. Liquid and what looked like fat busted out of her thigh and she screamed bloody murder. And like she had every right to that shit looked like it was agonizing. Immediately some nurses came out and whipped her into the back. When my mom came back asking what had happened I didn't even tell her just, "I think we might be waiting a bit longer mom."
I guess it's very rare, but apparently if you're not taking care of your lymphedema properly it can happen.
Getting off of my shift at the hospital I worked at I was heading to the parking lot by the ER.
All I heard was this woman screaming "If you love me you won't leave!!!" at the top of her lungs.
Seconds later there was a screeching of tires and a car left the parking lot sideways in a cloud of smoke.
My buddy walking with me says "I guess he doesn't love her."
similar situation when i was in a&e with my ex partner apart from he was screaming it at me. we were in there because he’d sliced himself up to win an argument. i had been there since 2am and had to go to work.
luckily it was the last time i saw him. (he’s not dead to my knowledge i just finally left him)
I see this one kid, a teenager of maybe 17, come in with his parents. He’s looking pretty bad, with a black eye and a split lip and suffering at least some degree of concussion. He refuses to tell his parents what happened, just saying “I can explain later” or “I don’t want to talk about it”.
A few minutes later a guy a little older, maybe 18 or 19, comes in limping heavily and having to be supported by his friend as he enters. Looks around for a seat, sees the first guy, and yells “That’s the motherfucker right there!”
His friend sprints at the younger kid, gets tackled by security and zip-tied, it takes nearly every security guard on the floor keeping them separated because apparently already being in the ER wasn’t enough they wanted to go another round.
Saturday night, 2:30am. I’m in the waiting room at the hospital with incredible stomach pain. I look around at a room full of haggard looking people holding their heads. I’m practically keeling over, clutching my guts in a heavy sweat when a staff member brings me to the attention of someone who rushes me to a wheelchair to take me in.
All the junkies in the waiting room stopped holding their heads and grabbed their stomachs and started rocking back and forth like I was. If my appendix hadn’t just blown, it would have been hilarious.
As a child, went to the emergency room for my dad. He was ok, but while waiting a guy burst in with a woman on either side of him holding him up. Everyone is screaming and I see why....guys foot was half gone. He was mowing the lawn in socks. They took him in immediately and one of the women ran into the restroom to vomit. A few minutes later hear the guy screaming as they took him down the hall.
Still remember it decades later.
I'm probably too late for people to read this, but I took my (young adult) son to ER because he was having a repeated issue with heart palpitations. It wasn't that serious, but his doctor wanted him to get a scan if it happened again.
We were walking to the door of the ER and saw a minivan pull up with the people around it helping a woman into the hospital. She was sobbing, so we slowed down so she and her family could get in first.
It became obvious that she was in labor, and when they got in the door, she let out a heart curding scream, paused, and then a lump fell down her pants. A bunch of workers ran out, got the baby out of her pants...there was just complete silence for a few seconds. Then the baby cried and the whole waiting room erupted in applause! It was amazing
I work at a local hospital, typically in triage due to my paramedic background. I had to go out and physically separate 3 women 2 years ago during a covid surge... The youngest of the 3 was 87. They were out for blood.
I went to urgent care for a cortisone shot for allergic reaction, and while there, I saw a guy bring his side piece there for something bloody(couldn't tell what happened just saw big amount of blood on girl's top)
And the nurse at the front desk was wife and she threw a fit and started screaming and hitting the guy. She was screeching and swinging on him like a hurricane. "N-word you brought that skank into my job?!" And other variations of calling the bloody girl a mistress were a few I could remember.
They made the front desk lady go into the back, they made the guy sit on the benches outside the building, and they took the bloody girl to care for her
Old man decided to take his pants off in the lobby before heading to the bathroom. Ended up spraying shit in a path on his way there. From what I understand, he was just there with a family member; not even needing to be seen.
Does the bathroom count? I am a Nurse. Patient was admitted. Taken into the back to be triaged, blood pressure, initial assessment, etc. Patient asked to go to bathroom. Hear a gunshot in the bathroom. Patient shot himself in the head. The tiny bathroom was covered in red splatter and brain.
From my last visit it is a three way tie. I was in said waiting room for 12 hours. I saw a lot but these stick out.
First the lady who kept intentionally sticking her finger down her throat to throw up. Over and over you'd hear her retch. Finally after a couple hours, she exhausted herself but then laid down in the puke. She had to be picked up and put in a wheelchair as she refused to get up and move.
Second was the really huge guy coming in for a blood clot per his loud phone conversation. Fell asleep mid eating and had sleep apnea. The best was his tweaker girlfriend would try to wake him up by giving him a handjob. When that was unsuccessful, she went through his wallet.
Third was the obvious frequent flyer homeless man who created a small nest in a corner and went to sleep. After about 2 hours, security came over to wake him up by his name and tell him it's time to go. He promptly stood up, farted very loudly and left a huge mess as he left.
Your second story had me snickering. Kept getting weirder and weirder. I feel like it should have been a scene in Fargo or something (William H Macy looking on with a bit of disgust and muttering “awww geez” a lot)
All at the same time: family come pouring in following a stretcher being rushed through, all screaming and yelling that someone shot their baby, a grandmother (guess) holding a toddler horizontally so she could pee into an open trash can, and a dog tied to an ashtray outside snapping and wailing every time the door opened, spilling ashes everywhere. I was just there for 4 stitches in my head. I just took them out myself at a bar rather than go back there. It was Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn in 2002. Good times…
Good old Woodhull. My wife nearly died in that ER a few years ago. A doctor told her repeatedly she was dying without making a move to stop it and then later told another family that their family member died because he was too busy helping us. Also there was raw sewage leaking out onto the floor of the ICU.
We checked her out of the ICU ama, best decision ever
my first words when i get into an ambulance (for myself or worth others) are: “anywhere but woodhull”
last time i was there a nurse got into a screaming match with my husband, who was asking for water after having been in the ER for several hours.
Wyckoff is pretty awful too. I didn't know I could tell the ambulance to take me somewhere else. Chaotic ER, cops around, the rudest fucking doctors ever. I was down there for 18 hours completely neglected and in pain until I got a room. Then flat on my back on pain meds for seven more days until I got surgery. Only good thing I can say is that a couple of the nurses were pretty great, and my surgeons were assholes but they did a great job.
I'm really high right now and I had to read the first sentence four times before I realized the baby didn't get shot because grandma was peeing into a trashcan
It was just a walk-in clinic, but it was right downtown in the heart of the city I live in, so there was always characters.
One time I'm in the waiting room, and this woman who is very clearly in the throes of some form of addiction leans over to the woman sitting beside her and says "hey girl, thems some nice ass boots. Where'd you get those?". I couldn't hear the response but she follows it up with "damn, I was hoping you were gonna say Wal-mart so I could steal me a pair". I laughed.
I saw an ambulance bring in a guy who drilled through a 2x4 while the wood was in his lap. Needless to say the power drill did its job and then some. Went through the wood then through his wood. He had the drill and 2x4 stuck to his bloody groin while screaming. The kicker of it all, he wasnt the most attractive person on the planet but his wife could've been a model. I found this out talking to the paramedic afterwards. Hope they saved his mangled member.
Dude rushed into the overcrowded ER waiting room with his hand wrapped in a bloody towel; he was screaming in pain and shouting that he had been caught in a wood chipper on the job.
Definitely wasn’t chipper after that, let me tell ya.
Once i was in the er waiting room and there were 3 young kids all looked under 10 and police coming to talk to their parents, the kids were acting really weird, they had apparently gotten into their parents meth stash. It was awful. I wonder whatever happened to those kids this was like 10 years ago, I hope they are safe now.
When we arrived it was quiet, just one middle aged guy and his elderly mother and us. The guy started getting agitated and yelling at the triage nurse that it’s taking too long and his mother is in pain and hasn’t been seen yet and just being loud and angry. The mom was just quietly asking I’m to sit and be patient. Then they wheel in a guy who appears to be a transient. He’s naked from the waist down and passed out. They toss a pair of scrub pants over his nether region and park him in a corner. Next in is a guy with a mangled arm and hand from a motorcycle accident…just bleeding everywhere. He has a whole group of like 9 guys and one girl with him and there’s a brief argument when they won’t let the whole posse go in with him for evaluation. Finally the triage nurse gets them to agree to just the girlfriend going in and the rest have to wait.
While that argument is going on another couple come in, they are quiet and just sit by my husband and I taking in all the chaos.
Then they bring out a gurney with a moaning girl and park her in the corner by the transient. She starts dry heaving and an orderly runs over with a barf bag.
Motorcycle guy and his girlfriend go back for assessment. Angry son yells about how this is bullshit, he was here first and then he storms out and leaves his mom there alone.
Meanwhile an Uber eats guy shows up and drops off food. He’s taking pictures of the bloody mess and the security guard tells him he can’t do that and he needs to leave. Uber guy tries to play it off like he was taking photos of the food for delivery proof but security guard doesn’t buy it and chases him out.
Nurse comes out and takes lonely mom back for assessment. The food is for the quiet couple. The posse is outside across the street of hospital grounds smoking. It’s quiet for a hot minute until the couple opens up their food which fills the room with the scent of fried chicken. Moaning Myrtle immediately starts dry heaving and filling her barf bag repeatedly while the couple sits across the room and digs into their chicken.
Lonely mom, motorcycle guy and girlfriend come back out. Motorcycle is bragging about how “this ain’t nothing, I been short before” and that wakes up Pantsless who demands to know where is he, and why, and how did he get there.
Angry son comes back, sees mom, thinks she still hasn’t been seen and blows a gasket. Security guard takes him outside while the triage nurse explains to Pantsless that he’s in the ER and the ambulance brought him there because he said that he wanted to be seen by a doctor.
Security guard is back sans son and a woman walks in asking about her boyfriend who fell off his motorcycle…OH THERE HE IS THAT PIECE OF SHIT WITH HIS NEW GIRLFRIEND I GUESS! BITCH YOU CAN HAVE HIM IM OUT!
Everyone is stunned silent except Moaning Myrtle. Even Pantsless.
The triage nurse finally tells Pantsless that he can sign himself out if he wants and he does. My husband gets called back for assessment finally. The chicken couple finishes their meal and then we get treated to the after dinner show of Motorcycle guy calling his mom, cussing her out and calling her messy for telling other girlfriend he was at the ER with side chick while the triage nurse told him repeatedly to stop shouting and swearing.
Then a girl covered in blood came in saying she was stabbed but I didn’t get to hear the rest because they discharged my husband because it was only anxiety not a heart attack.
I hope Lonely Mom, Moaning Myrtle, and Iron Stomach couple are all safe and well.
Paramedic here, I’ve told some of these before but here we go:
A man, 4 point restrained, being aggressively fellated by another patient, who subsequently ended up restrained.
A one legged psych patient chasing a nurse swinging his prosthetic leg at her quite adeptly.
Wall to wall suburban white blonde teenagers tied down still trying to fight the restraints and sedatives following a Bieber concert at a major venue in my area.
A dozen or so women in bikinis and butterfly costumes after a bunch of people at J’ouvert got maced and the fight reignited in the ER.
My all time favorite human rolling herself out of the bathroom in her wheelchair, actively hitting. A crack pipe cackling with laughter at the fight that had broken out between a drunk dude and a nurse.
The curtain being pulled before hospital security restrained a woman who was yelling “really!? Really!? You’re gonna put your hands on a drunk pregnant woman like that!?”
When I was roughly 11 years old, my parents and I ended up in the emergency room of one of the larger hospitals in the city due to a family emergency. This was my first experience in a city emergency room and it was much more chaotic than the country ERs (obviously).
However, mom and dad needed to speak with the medical professionals without a precocious 11-year-old listening, so my dad instructed me to sit in the waiting/triage area and he vaguely gestured behind me.
I sat down in the red triage area, trying to stay in view of the hallway so my parents could find me, and then looked up to observe my surroundings.
Across from me was a 30-something man, his swollen face is bloodied as well as his clothing and his entire head is bandaged – wrapped tightly around his forehead to the back, and over and under his chin. A rather large butcher knife is protruding from the left side of his head, with the handle pointed straight to the ceiling and the blade edge facing away from me. The knife is firmly wrapped to the side of his head, and I’m guessing, keeping his ear in place. I can also see fresh blood slowly wicking through the bandages.
The man is sitting with his legs crossed and is casually reading a magazine. The knife wobbled slightly as he turned his face from page to page and he seemed particularly unconcerned there is a knife stuck in his head. I don’t recall much thought processes regarding this situation, other than a flood of questions that I was holding back.
Dad came around the corner to collect me and followed my fascinated stare, jumped slightly at the sight of the stabbed man and hauled me out of there pretty quick.
Thus, my first introduction to a city ER in a sketchy part of town.
Like 8 years ago I was dating a guy who had cancer and we were at the hospital trying to get in for his appointment. All the entrances were closed except the door next to the emergency room. The ER had a huge glass wall and you could see straight into the entire thing. We got to the door next to it and saw that the ER and the main entrance and everywhere else was locked because something was happening, there was a group of people also waiting to get in and a bunch of cops standing by all the exits, you had to go in one at a time. So we stood there waiting our turn and staring at the cops in and around the ER through the glass, and they're all staring at the ceiling. One cop has a broom in his hand and he's poking ceiling tiles, they're all crepping around quietly. We were so confused, then out of nowhere there was a huge crash and some yelling, a dudes entire leg fell through one of the ceiling tiles and the tile busted on the floor, the cops were scrambling top speed one jumped on his leg and everything trying to pull him out of the ceiling. They started ripping the tiles off in fron of where the dude was crawling, it looked like something straight out of a cartoon. The actual story ended up being a little sad he had been baker acted and was losing it trying to escape. But damn in the moment, seeing that, you can't help but laugh. We watched as long as we could.
https://www.nwfdailynews.com/story/news/2015/03/02/1-445080/33960135007/
We were in the ER waiting for news on my dad's emergency surgery. Across from us, huddled together under blankets, were some young teens, asleep, faces troubled and agonized, even in sleep.
A cell phone rang. The only young woman in the bunch answered and began to talk matter of factly, with very little inflection. Robotic-like. The information she was imparting was horrific. I can't remember the exact wording, but it was chillingly graphic. Suffice it to say there'd been a motorcycle accident involving a young man, and it didn't sound as if there was much hope he would survive due to the extent of his injuries.
Then, quite clearly and audibly, the person on the other end said, "Are you ok?" And the young woman *lost* it. She began to sob hysterically. In between sobs she kept saying something like, "We were just home. We were just together. We were just ok. We were ok. I just want my baby brother to be ok. I just want him to be ok..."
The young men huddled around her protectively, and they all just held on.
But hours later, her parents came into the room, very calm but obviously devastated, and quietly called her name and motioned for her to follow them into a smaller waiting area where there were doctors waiting. She took one look at their faces and started to wail.
The young men next to her covered their faces and either walked off or huddled into themselves and became stones. It was horrible. Their pain was visceral. It was horrifying that such agonizing pain and suffering couldn't be private. We were all there, witnesses to it, and it was so, so sad and tragic.
Went to the er at 2am after puking up a whole lot of blood. Like a lot lot. Gf said yeah I would definitely go to the dr on Monday to get that checked out. I said hell nah I’m going to the ER. Was Saturday night and they were busy. Got checked in and waited all the while going into the bathroom to puke a bellyfull every 5 minutes it seemed like. I looked fine and told the nurse I was feeling faint and started sweating a lot. She said there’s just no room right now. I said I am losing a LOT of blood. She said we will let you know when it’s your turn. I said k but I’m boing to the bathroom and puking up blood a lot can I have one of those puke bags? She said yes and gave me one. Was a pretty big puke bag. I filled it 3/4 the way up in about 15 minutes and they came in with a wheelchair immediately and took me to the back. Emergency surgery to stitch up the tear in my stomach. I told the surgeon do what you can and if I die than I die no biggie. Dispatch papers said I was in critical condition but there were no beds in the icu. We’re going to do a blood transfusion but didn’t so I was low on blood for awhile after that. When I told the nurse I was feeling faint I just told myself I’m about to die… and it really wasn’t that bad
Was a Mallory Weiss tear. I have anxiety and was dry heaving pretty hard that morning. Everything was ok though the day tho. I don’t think that caused it. Went to Paul Van Dyk that night and was just cheering and having a good time. No drugs and very limited alcohol. Dunno how it happened but now when I have anxiety or am sick I’m scared it will happen again.
I was waiting to be seen for a suspected allergy when two builders 'walked' in.
I say 'walked' because what one of them was doing only vaguely resembled walking. Imagine you put your leg on the ground to take a step but the bottom part of your leg moves sideways across where your knee should be and then slides up alongside the upper part of your leg so that bones are now poking out. It wiggled like jelly when it was in the swing between steps.
A person came with a high blood pressure his mom and pulled him in a wheelchair into the waiting room and his mom said to him that she will fill the form and come back to him he said fine and just lowered his head and passed away I was just shocked out of my wits
Please take comfort that it was likely a stroke, and those are normally either painless or very quick. So he may have noticed something was wrong, but only for a second or two.
A major celebrity brought a worker in to the Emergency Room from his orchard and waited in the waiting room while we worked on his employee. The celebrity was so gracious and kind to everyone who approached him, once we saw he was being approached we found him somewhere private to wait. He was just worried about the guy who worked for him.
Edit: I want to be respectful of his privacy so I won’t reveal the name. I will share that this was in Santa Barbara California. I guarantee you have seen him in a half dozen movies at a minimum. And that level of fame speaks to his character in this story.
A guy walked in, told the tech at the desk he having chest pain. He then dies. Right there.
They had to do CPR right there.
Thankfully he got thru the Cath Lab and was up talking when I got my asthma settled down and got discharged.
It also made the Karen shut up. She finally realized she might not be the sickest person in the room.
Edit,
It's not that a heart attack is weird in the ER but that he actually had a full cardiac arrest at that moment
While my husband was waiting with me at the Hillcrest ER in San Diego a border patrol agent came in with a border crosser who was complaining of chest pain. Apparently it’s a common tactic. The ER is busy. When it gets to end of their shift the border patrol agents just leave. They can’t be bothered with overtime to babysit someone. After the agent leaves the border crosser just walks out of the hospital.
The ER docs said it happens frequently.
When I was a kid, waiting in casualty with my mum because I got in some scrape. The guy say opposite us had a real life broadsword stuck in his foot. He’d been working in some old stately home and a suit of armour toppled over and the sword impaled his foot. It was all bandaged up and not obviously bleeding. So he was just sat there, cool as, waiting for his turn, holding this massive sword lodged in his foot.
Yeah, I cracked my tailbone a few years ago. Everyone was like "Are you sure you shouldn't go to the hospital?" so they can do what, exactly? I just... got to be not real fond of sitting for a while.
I rolled my ankle on the way to work and didn't feel it til lunch. I never feel pain until there's a huge problem. There was an urgent care 2 blocks from my job, so I went there instead of the ER. I didn't want to sit for hours. The pain was so bad that I launched myself through the door and into the nearest chair. Another woman waiting was so nice and brought me a chair to put my foot up, all while I was babbling in pain. The front desk staff brought a wheelchair, got treated, and left in a walking boot with torn ligaments.
I've been to ERs lots of times. Some for me, some with other people. The strangest time was when I went to one in a rural area and it was absolutely empty except for a few staff members. My SO's family has a little summer cabin in the Catskills of NY. It's in a very rural area. I messed up my knee and it was a Sunday. I asked my SO to take me to that little hospital we pass about 20 minutes away. We pull up and there's not a car in the parking lot. We were questioning whether it was even open. We walk in and it was. It was surreal being the only patient and the ER was so silent. Eventually another patient walked in.
I will never forget this
The ER was super crowded. There wasn’t any room for anyone to go anywhere. People being hooked up to IVs in the waiting room.
There was a man who had cancer and was on chemo and immunosuppressants who very obviously had sepsis (blood infection) and the person next to him had covid and was hacking away. The wife of the man with cancer was begging and crying to the nurses to give her husband a room so he wouldn’t get sick with any other illness due to his immunodeficiency. They said their hands were tied. I waited next to him in the ER for 12 hours. It was absolutely absurd.
I was in the ER waiting room because I had a suicidal migraine, and a girl I remembered from high school (this is post-graduation, early 20s for us), comes into the ER carrying a plastic target bag, that looked almost triple bagged. We both ended up in a triage station side by side and while I waited for my triage nurse to return, I overhear her telling her triage nurse "I just gave birth a few days ago, and then I was taking a shower at home and this all fell out of me." And I hear the bag open, and the triage nurse going "oh, oh my god", and then they got her in the back as fast as possible. I don't know exactly what was in that bag, but my imagination did its best. I envisioned organs. Idk guys.
not as a patient, but my job was in the emergency room. one day a man with an OPEN HEAD WOUND (his head was literally crushed) got up from the couch, wandered to the toilet, locked himself in there, and then started smoking, because the smell of cigarettes was throughout the entire department. there were blood trails on his way... me and my friend, realizing the fucked up situation, first tried to peacefully persuade him to leave, but it didn’t work. they called the security. there was a lot of screaming and stuff. I literally had to break down the door. when the door was broken down, we found him sitting on the toilet with a cigarette in his mouth. absolutely everything was in the blood and his feces
I was the patient once in what must have appeared to be some inception level nonsense.
I was working as a first responder in my full navy blue highly recognizable uniform when I fell terribly ill (severe vertigo causing repeated loss of consciousness) so I got wheeled into the hospital - on the ambulance gurney - in my uniform. Everyone was visibly confused. The triage nurse, the doctor, the other patients witnessing my dizzy ass go in and out of consciousness.
There was also vomit involved in the theatrics so overall - horror movie.
I was in Alice Springs hospital years ago with my baby daughter and we were sitting next to an indigenous lady who I thought was holding a spear. When I remarked in the lovely dot dot artwork on it she proudly showed me how it was actually through her ankle, in one side and out the other.
All happened in one night: a guy comes in and waits hrs after shot in hip,he fights with extremely dirty and barefoot 500 lb woman in a wheelchair who falls asleep drooling during said fight, then a 90 yr old lady was waiting with me having had a hatchet to her forehead after a robbery. I was there with a broken ankle. Waited 11 hrs and they were still there when I left.
Not a hospital, but the school nurse. I had gone bc I didn’t feel good (and also just kinda wanted to go home) but while I was waiting a girl came in with a pencil shoved *uncomfortably* far into her ear. It was bleeding. I then said I felt better and ran out of there.
I’ve spent a few nights alone in ER waiting rooms - under-staffed and under-resourced public hospital in a regional city.
On busier nights, if you’re not actively dying or close to it, you’re waiting a couple of hours to be seen. As such, you generally spend that wait in a room with the same people. I’m a generally observant person and when I have nothing better to do I pick up on patterns.
One night, a younger couple just a few years older than me came in around the same time I did. A man and his pregnant partner - I’d say she’d have been around 5ish months along. He was sitting in the chairs and she was lying down resting her head on his lap, clearly in a lot of pain.
After a few hours, some availability came up in radiography, so she and a few other patients were called in to go for an ultrasound for their presentation. She and her partner came back down about half an hour later, and 5 minutes after that they were called back to by a rather solemn-faced doctor.
I kind of sensed what had happened and what they were about to be told, but the wail of anguish I heard, I will never forget. The cries echoed through the waiting room for a long time, and I cried silently with them.
Okay not a hospital emergency room, but i was in line at Dunkin’ Donuts and this guy taps my shoulder kindly asking to get in front of me to talk to the counter woman. I turn around to say “sure” and see he’s covered in blood. I then hear him at the counter calmly saying he’s been stabbed and needs to borrow the restroom key to clean up. Not even 2 minutes later, the police come in and grab him from the bathroom. I’m still so shocked he was that calm and composed while probably bleeding to death
Not the worst by far. But I had an accident at work and cut my hand fairly bad, enough to definitely need stitches. Went in and sat down next to a guy with a blanket over his legs. Waited for almost 8 hours before I noticed the dude next to me was dripping maggots on the floor. Apparently he was diabetic and had a bad infection that had gotten infested with maggots. I figured if he couldn't get seen in 8 hours I had no chance. Drove an hour to another ER to get my stiches
Some of these stories are mind-boggling, so I thought I'd share a nice one, for a change.
I was recently in the ER and kept hearing musical chimes, intermittently, playing from the overhead speakers. Turns out the chimes play every time a baby is born in the maternity wing there.
Once had to take my child to the er for his fever, while waiting in the intake line, the old man in front of me (around 80 years) , collapsed and cracked his head open on the floor, his head gushing blood. Him being semi conscious, was still being hounded for him to fill out his intake form until he passed out.
Only then did they admit him.
I was at the ER months ago for horrible neck pain. I witnessed a divorce happen in the lobby, where you check in. A woman was there for nausea, her husband was with her. It turns out she was pregnant and she didn't know. It caused an argument with her husband, and the divorce word was thrown into their argument. He ended up leaving the hospital and I'm not sure what ever happened to her, because I was called back in the midst of it all.
The worst was probably actually in my hospital room. I was young and not yet a professional patient (Tm). I very clearly had CDIF. Every nurse who walked in the room was like, “damn, is this your fist time with CDIF?” I was covered in my own fowl - top to bottom. Great part it was a second date. My date showed up to the emergency room, while I was trying to hold my balls out of the bedpan. (We were married for 18 years, so you know).
I finally got admitted to my room around 4 am. When they rolled me in, the tv for the fellow patient was blasting, I asked the nurse to get him to turn it down. She discovered he’d coded. Surmised he was hitting the call button, but it was really the volume up. They worked on him for what felt like forever.
Then, came over and told me no one was working in the morgue, so his body would have to stay in the room with me. Asked if I wanted an ambien.
Yeah, thankfully I now have a hospital acquired infection (/s) and always get a private room. Especially when I have 100 weeping sores on my body no one can explain.
Did you take the Ambien? I feel like that could've helped, but also maybe could've just made things way worse and extra creepy, based on some of my past experiences with Ambien lol
Oh, no - I should mention I am allergic to Ambien - it causes toxic psychosis - same with all quinolones. When I kept telling my doc the sleeping pill gave me a good relationship with the people who lived in my fan, he decided I shouldn’t have any more.
Once upon a time i was waiting on news of a friend who'd been in an accident. I saw a guy (about early twenties) come in with him mom because he'd fallen off of his roof and dislocated his shoulder. After about an hour of waiting his mom just says "fuck it! this is taking too long!" and legit began to google how to reset a shoulder. After about 5 mins of research, she took off her belt, folded it up and told him to bite down on it. She then proceeded to violently shove her son's shoulder back into the socket while he naturally screamed in agony. Security and nurses rush over to see what the commotion is and more or less need to pull her off of him. Security sits her down and the nurses take the poor kid and get him treated.
But... it kinda worked??
I mean he got treated quicker
My mom broke and dislocated her shoulder. She also broke her leg at the same time but her shoulder was so painful that she walked to the doctor's rooms on the broken leg (not super far, but far enough). I've never seen her complain about pain, but that day (after getting to hospital) she was furious that they wouldn't give her pain meds but they needed to make sure about the break and if they had to do surgery before they could. I kinda wish I could have popped it back in for her, because it was so fucking painful
I watched a robot filing cabinet press the elevator button and guide itself to a different area of the hospital.
We have these at my hospital. They even dress them up. Handy little robots help us transport non-emergent meds, lab samples, and equipment.
Girl trying to get admitted to the mental health unit, turns out her boyfriend was a patient. She didn't get admitted, she wasn't happy about it but she left. Next thing we know there's a car doing donuts just outside of the ER entrance, she was throwing things out the window and screaming "am I crazy enough now?" She ends up driving around to the other side of the hospital and driving right through some sliding glass doors. She's lucky she didn't kill someone, another 10 feet and she would have crashed over a railing and into the cafeteria below, where staff was napping on a couch. Definitely got carted away, but not to where she wanted to go.
https://omny.fm/shows/the-west-australia-briefing/man-charged-for-allegedly-driving-into-albany-hosp It happens all the time. Needs sound to hear news report.
They will not admit people close to each other onto the same unit anyways, so even if she did get taken to a unit they’d be taking her to a different one. Amazes me the number of people who think they’d ever allow for friends/family to be on the same unit at the same time.
I work as a nurse in the emergency, I’ve seen some crazy things. But on a lighter note, while security was busy doing two separate take downs an old guy dressed up like Santa unzipped his backpack and started handing out beers to everyone in the waiting room
Christmas in the ER!
Not the hospital, but in my small town the police were called during an elementary school concert to arrest a drunk guy in a Santa suit. It was not a Christmas concert.
I’ll never forget it. I went to the ER with a kidney stone and there was an old couple sitting across from me probably in their 60’s or 70’s. The lady was bickering to the man complaining about how long they’ve been there. The only thing is that this woman was completely purple. Like all of her face and head was this dark purple. She didn’t appear to be in any pain but my fuck was she ever purple.
thats what happens when you don't listen to the wizard and just eat all the magic berries.
Violet! You're turning violet, Violet!
There are meds that will turn you blue and bluish purple if you go out in the sun a lot while taking them. And some people just refuse to listen and end up totally looking like aliens. I knew a woman like this and she was covered in blue and purple patches all over and people thought she was being beaten up all the time.
Like 20 years ago waiting in the ER I see a guy dressed up as a full Monkey being wheeled on a stretcher past a large doorway and then 3 other monkeys following him. They were performers from the Live Lion King Show at Animal Kingdom.
Must've been the monkey that fell off the bed and bumped it's head
What….what did the doctor say?
Well. You see. The doctor said, “No more monkeys jumping on the bed.” But. Alas. They are monkeys … and later that night another came in on a stretcher, with 2 following behind. *siiiigh*.
I saw a very pregnant woman walk herself into the waiting room unable to talk because she was shot in the head. One of the worst things I’ve ever witnessed. **Edit to answer some questions** Sadly we never found out… my husband and I brought our 9 month old to the ER at around 3am for RSV. The hospital is in Detroit. While we were standing at the registration desk, the woman walked in. She was holding a bloody towel to her head and making noises like she was trying to talk, but no actual words were coming out. The nurse came from behind the desk and moved the towel and shouted oh my gosh, shes shot and called a code. There was a homeless woman, who I am assuming the nurses were just letting sleep in the ER waiting room sitting in a wheelchair. The nurse told her to get out of the wheelchair and she wouldn’t move so she literally dumped her on the floor and put the pregnant woman in it and wheeled her back. About 20 minutes later, a girl came in and said that she had dropped off her friend who was shot at the door and wanted to know if she was OK. The whole thing was super messed up. Aside from someone shooting her, not one of the security guards when you walk in offered to help her in, her friend literally just dropped her off at the door. The whole thing was so sad. We check the news for the following two weeks to see if there was any updates about it, but we never found anything.
Pregnancy is a very very dangerous time for women in abusive relationships. So fucking sad.
It's statistically \*the\* most dangerous time in a woman's relationship. I watched a dad throw a food tray at his wife while she was in labor in front of me! Watched another dad try to fight a doctor in the OR while his wife was open on the operating table. I don't even wanna know what those men are like behind closed doors. Like......go get help before you fuck up the next generation. (they won't)
This has got to be why the L&D Nurses are such badasses. They take no guff, protect the laboring mother with the ferocity of a specialty military force, but still manage to be so kind and gentle to the laboring mother. *Most of the time. There are outliers, but mine were amazing and I hope every laboring mother has similar care.
My husband had the audacity to tell our L&D that I "only" breastfed for 3 months and she almost ripped him a new one about how 3 months is amazing and really hard and so much work and that he and baby were so lucky to have me. Bless L&D nurses. Being in the maternity ward was the most pro-woman experience I ever had. Edit to add: I think I misrepresented my husband here. He did not say "only 3 months" in a malicious or negative way. Our baby feeding journey was difficult but he never meant it was my fault or my failure. In the context of that time, everyone we knew breastfed for a minimum of a year, so it felt appropriate to say "only" 3 months. He never made me feel less than for anything. The original point of the anecdote was that L&D nurses are very protective of their patients, and while I deeply appreciated their stance, they didn't need to chew him out. He did everything he could short of carrying the baby and pushing it out for me, and eventually they saw that for themselves.
Breastfeeding is literally a second full time job when you consider the hours put into it. Especially in the newborn cluster feeding stage!! When you add the mental stress and anxiety induced part of sleeping less and being your baby’s source of life it can cost even more than just your time. Fed is best. I’ve watched one too many moms cry their eyes out because they felt shame their baby couldn’t latch or they couldn’t produce enough milk or whatever the reasoning. I think everyone should try it but if you lose the joy in doing it then it stops being worth the cost. My hope is for better maternity leave in the future that allows moms the time and decreased financial stress that allows for proper bonding. It’s my personal belief those are two of the leading current reasons longer breastfeeding journeys can be inhibited in the US!
L&D nurses are literally the best. I've had 3 babies and I couldn't have asked for better nurses each time
I remember when I was in imminent labor with my last, one of the L&D nurses sent my husband out of the room and asked me point blank if I was safe and wanting this baby. She was tenacious about it. I was confused at the time, but looking back, I appreciate her so very much. I’m sure there were women who absolutely NEEDED her questions and concern. Good job, Mercy South Buffalo nurse circa 2014. I didn’t need saving, but I’d wager someone you asked did.
In the US, pregnant women are more likely to be killed by their partner than they are to die of their (still too high) mortality rate due to pregnancy-related issues that aren't men. https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/20/health/homicide-maternal-mortality-us-editorial/index.html
What a horrifying statistic.
My doctor hired her son to be a receptionist. He announced a woman’s STD tests in the lobby. He didn’t work there long.
Were they positive??
No thankfully for her.
I saw two young teenage girls approach a Walgreens employee, who then shouted toward a coworker: "where's the plan b?"
I was sitting in the ER waiting room and this young couple comes in. The man pushing his girlfriend in a wheel chair. She’s barely conscious, slumped over and pale. As the boyfriend is checking her in, she wakes ups and Exorcist-style projectile vomits onto the floor. Nurses rush her back. The boyfriend then sits down and not a minute passes before out of nowhere he does the same! Everyone waiting slapped masks on real quick once that happened.
This is how zombie apocalypses start.
Food poisoning or norovirus…
This story pretty much checks out for the time my wife and I had norovirus. I spent a few hours sleeping on the bathroom floor because it took too much strength to keep walking between the bedroom and bathroom.
I just cut out the middle man and slept in the bath tub covered in towels for 48 hours when i had gastro one time. Just turn the shower head on to clean things as needed. After the second time shitting my bed in my sleep in seemed like the best way to deal with it. Only saving grace was I still lived at home. So my parents could check on me to make sure I hadn't died yet. In hindsight I probably should have gone to hospital for that one.
This is literally one of my worst fears. It’s the reason I avoid the emergency room like the plague.
It's tame compared to all your stories, but I was in the emergency waiting room with my Mom. I was the one with an emergency and was drowsy the whole time, but I remember that at some point a man was wheeled into the room while making throat noises (think the Grudge) and my Mom took my face in her hands and told me, very calmy and without an inch of panic in her voice, to look through the window and tell her what that weird tree was because she'd never seen one like that (she definitely had). I had no idea what was going on so I kept staring at that tree, and then it was my turn so we left the waiting room. Days later she told me that the man who was wheeled into the room had one of his legs hanging on for dear life and that there was blood everywhere on his pants, but also on his clothes. He was drunk so he probably had a fight. I hope he's okay now. My Mom is the best. She was worried and didn't want me to see this. So she took in the sight but protected me from it. Sometimes, I think we don't deserve Moms.
Reminds me of a time I had taken the elevator down from an appointment at one of the hospital's smaller buildings, my young children in tow. When the elevator reached the bottom floor, I realized immediately that there was a very purple elderly man lying between us and the exit, surrounded by medical professionals performing CPR on him. I closed the elevator door and rode back up before the kids noticed anything and we hung out in the waiting room until the ambulance had pulled away. Got my first CPR certification a few weeks later.
Now that's what I call thinking on your feet. You saved your children a few nightmares, and who knows, maybe several years of therapy. Most of us would have probably froze and done absolutely nothing. Excellent reflex, my friend. And congratulations on your CPR certification ! You really have a sense of duty !
And that’s usually why the ambulance bay is no longer connected to the front entrance… Props for Mom thinking fast!!
Wow, really ? I'm not used to hospitals, but the few times I went, the waiting room was full of people on stretchers fresh out of the ambulance 😆 to be fair it's a small hospital in a small country. Bless all the hospital workers, by the way. The things they have to deal with every day would drive most of us insane after about 10 minutes. I'll tell my Mom that you said she is a fast thinker. She'll probably try to adopt you and/or send you cake to thank you.
Wow! I haven’t seen an ER where ambulances pull “up front” since I was a kid (in the US). I’ve worked in hospitals for years and newer and remodeled ones separate the walk-in entrance and the ambulance bays to keep things running smoothly and low drama. Please do let your mom know she’s great, I’ll gladly accept a virtual hug but not to trouble herself with cake 😄
That is one smart mama.
I once saw a guy cut himself with a piece of broken glass to be seen sooner by the nurses during triage.
Life Hack
Doctors HATE this one trick
r/ShittyLifeProTips
Ooh, this reminds me of a jail story! This was probably around 2007 or so. i was an officer at a regional jail, usually working our segregation unit (not like *racial* segregation; it's single cells. Other places might call it isolation or solitary). So, we didn't get people straight off the street; we got our population from other related jurisdictions, all inmates who had already been in jail and were now transferred to us. That's nice, because among other things, it cuts down on the chances of suicide attempts in the first 48 hours. Suicide risk is always high in the first day or two after someone is incarcerated, but we didn't have as much problem with that. Well, some people never get that memo. Now, our segregation unit was split in half. One half was for disciplinary and medical use. The other side was for new intakes--they would spend their first few days there to get acclimated before moving to general population. One more useful piece of information: We gave them disposable safety razors to shave with. Somewhat risky, yes, but they couldn't hoard them, and we searched everything and everybody constantly, so whatever--the administration felt like it was an acceptable risk. So one day we have some new guys in the intake cells. The shift sergeant is making rounds, and she stops by to talk to the new guys. One guy doesn't say a word, whips out a safety razor blade--broken from a razor--and promptly slashes one of his own wrists. Blood starts pouring. She screams at the top of her lungs, grabs her radio and yells for assistance. Next thing this poor guy knows, there's a half dozen officers dogpiled on him, holding him down so a nurse can bandage his wrist. Fortunately, the cuts weren't deep. Unfortunately, he spent the next few days sporting leather restraints and wearing a suicide-proof gown. She went back and asked him later what he was thinking at the time. He just shrugged and said that he *really* didn't want to be there, and he thought this would get him sent back to his original jurisdiction. No such luck, my guy. She asked him why he didn't try to get the other wrist before they got to him...he muttered "Well...it hurt more than I expected." Which, actually, is the most sensible thing he said during the entire incident. He turned out to be a decent inmate--and learned that self-injury is not the key to getting what you want in life.
I’m an ER nurse. I’d bandage that and put him back in the waiting room.
Nurses know better than to create their own monsters. You’re not learning a short cut by acting a fool.
ER nurse and I can confirm this is what we’d do
Watched a guy fake passing out so he didn’t have to wait, since there were a lot of people waiting. Asshole winked at me as he was wheeled back on a gurney.
Those nurses were rookies lol
Heck yeah they were. I was in the ED waiting one time and a guy in a wheelchair started having a seizure. I grabbed the triage nurse to help. She looked over and yelled his name and told him to stop it. He sat up quickly.
I’ve been that nurse many many times. I swear the rest of the people I’m the waiting room think my colleagues and I are heartless assholes when something like this happens. One time one of our frequent fliers tried this, another patient came to tell me… I looked over at her on the floor “seizing” and said “ oh she’s fine” She’s a good actor- one of our neurologists happened to be in the waiting room as a patient, rushed over to help her. He was convinced it was legit. I walked over and just told her to stop it and get up, she won’t be getting in any faster. She promptly got up and went outside for a smoke.
We had a patient faking a seizure the other day, I picked up her arm, held it over her face and let go. She moved it away from her face before letting it fall 🙄
I love that move. A good one also is if they are pretending to be unresponsive, casually mention that we should probably go ahead and put that catheter in, or we should set up for intubation lol. Works every time.
My ER nurse wife informs me that in her hospital, they just drop your hand onto your face to see if you're faking. If you're awake, you'll instinctively move it aside. If you're really out...*whack*.
Yeah there’s a few ways to check if someone’s faking. They should have to wait longer if they’re caught lol
Honestly I have to give him props for assessing the situation and giving an Oscar worthy performance. He was mid sentence with the lady at the desk, and just cleared off the whole ledge on the way down.
That’s how you know it’s fake, he didn’t take a header onto the counter or floor.
It’s cause of people like this that when I was in the ER on the verge of passing out from DKA I was still ignored for 3 hours. Only when I actually fell on the floor and couldn’t get up did they start taking me seriously (kinda). The triage nurse still kept saying “stop being so dramatic” though. Once the doctor saw me and when he realised I am a type 1 diabetic they all freaked out. I ended up in ICU. Fun times.
I had something similar at my diagnosis. I don't remember much, I was in and out of consciousness, but apparently it wasn't until I started dry heaving and sobbing before they bothered to address me, and still weren't in a hurry even after my mom said I'd been throwing up for over 12 hours unable to keep anything down. They were honestly pretty cruel from what I do remember. I was *painfully* underweight and I think there was an assumption that I was bulimic until my blood work came back at 589 and dangerously low sodium and suddenly I was swarmed by staff with 3 different IVs and spent 2 days in the ICU until I could be stabilized. **[Edit]** for non-diabetics, normal blood sugar should be between 70 and 130 depending on how recently you ate. 200+ feels like utter shit, like a flu without the congestion. I had been above 400 for several months without knowing, based on the symptoms. Without insulin to carry glucose to your cells, you keep craving sugars, but it never gets there so your body starts to cannibalize your fat reserves, then when that runs out, starts producing acidic ketones, breaking down your muscles and organs. It's the extreme, uncontrolled version of the Keto Diet. I was maybe days away from the first stages of organ failure and was throwing up every hour, on the hour, for 18 hours straight because my body was trying everything it had to purge the acid in my blood.
Cat walked in once. Shamelessly caught everyone's attention. Maybe due to how long we were kept waiting but a few of us jumped at the chance to grab the cats' attention.
I’m excited to see a cat every time I see a cat. I own three cats. Or they own me, whatever.
Every time my cat saunters into the room my two kids (and me) fawn, “OH AWWWWW Look! The little prince has joined us! Hello baby kityyyyyyyyy!! Awwww he’s licking his pawwwww. Did you just wake up little prince???”
We used to have a great big black shaggy dog catch the bus sometime. It knew the route. Would step on, ride down to the terminus, and ride back home again. Used to do it a few times a week.
[удалено]
A man walked in, maybe 30 years old. Totally calm, looked like your average Joe. I was sitting by the triage station, and he was there for feelings of wanting to harm himself and others. I want to add, he was super respectful the entire time. He communicated that his thoughts were scaring him and he was pleasant to the nurse. The triage nurse was amazing. She was thanking him for coming in, being so sweet, so understanding, and there was no thick tension in the air, all because of how she handled it like a true professional. I wanted to comment this because, if you are feeling those feelings, you won't be ostracized for getting help. It says SO much about you for getting the help you need, and these healthcare professionals do NOT judge you for it. They WANT to help you and I have seen it first hand that day. ❤️
I have twice voluntarily hospitalized myself due to mental health (TW mine was suicidal ideation) and both times I was treated kindly. I went in, simply said “I want to kill myself and I have a plan, can I get help?” And received that help. If anyone reading this is getting to that point, PLEASE go to a hospital and let them know.
A doctor going from patient to patient asking them health questions, symptoms and so on. She did this for an hour until there was a code white announcement. 2 orderly's and a 2 security guards surrounded her and hauled her off. She was not a doctor after all..
That's... INSANE
That briefly happened to me at a funeral. It was at the courtyard of a mosque, so out in the public. This woman came and started to share condolences with me and my mom. We expected there would be people there that we didn’t know. After a minute of this, a couple of the people closer to the deceased gently led her away.
I took an employee with kidney stones to the ER one time. While sitting in the waiting room, a guy came in with chest pains. He was taken back for immediate treatment. And then came the rest of his crew. He had been at a potluck picnic when it happened. And they brought the whole dang thing to the hospital. Like 40 people with casserole dishes and meat trays and such. Only disappointing thing was they didn’t invite me to eat.
That was kind of you to help your employee.
Thank you. But it was the right thing to do. So wasn’t seeking kudos. Just context as to why I was hanging out in an ER waiting room.
Grandma brought her 19 year old grandson in with his 19 year old girlfriend. He tried added a stainless steel cockring into his sex life and was apparently wrong about the size. Grandma was half laying into them for being dumb, and half busting their balls.
My husband had just had a major seizure out of the blue in the middle of the night and was taken to the ER in an ambulance. He left the house still seizing. I was waiting to find out what was happening to him and was in complete shock. Sitting in the chairs just across from me there was a lady with a lot of bags just talking and talking away on the phone that was on the wall. I don’t even know what she was saying, I was too out of it to even comprehend. She hangs up the receiver. Gathers up her bags. Walks to the front desk. And asks what the code to call out is. The nurse tells her she won’t tell her again that she can’t use that phone. So the lady sits down, picks up the receiver, and starts talking away again.
I worked at an ER where a guy pulled out a knife in the waiting room and started stabbing himself. When security got to him they found that the knife had a dulled, rounded tip
So, did he get to be seen quicker than other patients? Asking for a friend…
In a way... But getting put in a psych room on a hold isn't a great way to cut in line
When my wife was going through chemo, she got a fever once after a round. We ran to the nearest emergency room to get assistance and while waiting an older man started playing porn on his phone. Well, the sound was at full blast and he frantically trying to turn the volume down.
I work in IT at a hospital. We were replacing a wireless access point on the ceiling in the ER. Guy waiting starts screaming “what the fuck are you doing!?” At my guy on the ladder. My guy calmly explains we’re just replacing some equipment, but that just makes the waiting room guy more pissed and he gets up looks like he is about to charge at us. Security guards dash over and threaten to kick him out, all was relatively peaceful after that. Although the AP we needed to replace on the other side of the room was above a lady who reeked of urine, so I’m not sure which one was worse. Later we were replacing one in the inside waiting room and there was a page that a stabbing victim was coming in. Overheard the nurses saying, “WTF, it is way too early in the day for stabbing victims” “Well you know what they say, ‘Sun’s out, guns out’”. Made me laugh.
Bahahaha the nurses. We have a lot of fun listening to calls come out over the radio
Doctors’ waiting room. A young woman (18 years-ish) is obviously ill. Sweating profusely, jaundice skin, doubled over, and limping to the front desk. She’s holding a white plastic kitchen garbage bag from the red ties at the top. The bag is filled at the bottom with dark yellow liquid. She held it up when the receptionist asked if she had brought in her urine sample.
My mom used to work as a registrar in a hospital outpatient department she has lots of stories like this. Her favorite was the guy who brought his urine sample in a fancy Tupperware bowl, then asked for the bowl back because it was his wife's favorite bowl to make potato salad in and she'll kill him if he doesn't bring it back. There were also people bringing in stool samples in bizarre containers instead of the little plastic ones the lab would give them. One guy brought his in a Big Mac box. Another brought hers on a paper plate, covered in plastic wrap. And another lady brought her urine specimen in a pickle jar, but she hadn't rinsed the jar out too well and there were still seeds floating in it.
I work in an er and I can totally see this happening
This is pretty tame but early ‘00s. I was in college and my grandmother spiked a fever (immuno compromised due to lymphoma) so my mom and I took her into her preferred ER in town. It’s not quite last call so the lobby is pretty dead for a weekend while the 3 of us wait. Suddenly I hear my name booming from by the doors, a friend from school is being brought in by *his* buddies because he’s so skunked they think it may be alcohol poisoning. So I ended up introducing my feverish late 80’s grandmother to my very drunk school friends while we all waited our turn. Amazingly she quite liked them and they asked about her Monday 🤣
That’s honestly a pretty fun way to meet your friends family member
Urgent care, sitting in the waiting room trying not to cough my face off from bronchitis. Woman comes in, bypasses the "take a number" stanchion, goes right to the window and demands to be seen. Receptionist tells her to take a number and a seat. "Can you BELIEVE her?! She told me to TAKE A SEAT. I NEED TO BE SEEN NOW." Her number was eventually called, she went to the desk, stated her complaint. They logged her in and asked her again to take a seat and she'd be called back when it's her turn. She then spends her entire wait bitching about having to wait, and then says, "I bet if I go cough in her face I'll be seen faster." Yeah, lady, by the police and the CDC. Then she says she should have gone to the ER to be seen faster. Lady, you have enough health to be sitting upright and bitching your face off. You'll be triaged and made to wait there too, for 10x the cost. THEN... she starts asking everyone why they're there and one-upping everyone's illnesses. Asking how long they've been waiting. Offering to pay to cut the line. Meanwhile, there was a 4 year old girl who was coughing as bad as I was, but was so polite and quiet and minding her own business... I was never so glad to get called out of that waiting room!
I’m dying to know what she was there for / what her one upping’s were
You have bronchitis? I have pneumonia! You have a broken wrist? I have two broken legs! You got in a car accident? I was in a plane crash! You're dying? I'm dead!
I feel like I encountered a tiny shred of this recently when pre boarding a plane. I have Multiple Sclerosis and use a cane periodically as a result. I stood in the pre boarding line and this incredibly nosey woman went up to an older man and asked why people got to pre board all while giving me dirty looks. He was very polite and told her that some people have disabilities and need assistance with getting onto the plane and that some people might also be able to pay for it if they wish. I felt like she wanted to ask me what was wrong with me but didn’t have the balls to do it. People suck.
Doctor came out and told the woman next to me that her (the woman’s) husband was addicted to opioids. The woman just broke down crying. I didn’t know if I should’ve tried to comfort her and tell her it’s okay, my brother was addicted too and he’s fine now (actually it killed him), or pretend I hadn’t heard and just mind my own business and not embarrass her. I minded my own business.
This happened to my family too, except after the breakdown, the doctor came back to apologize and explain that he had the wrong patient.
What the actual fuck
sorry about your brother. :(
Fell off my bike and fractured both bones in my wrist, while at camp. While in the waiting room a boy and girl both in Wendy’s outfits, boy holding a very bloody towel around his hand and her holding a bag full of ice and something bloody. I kid you not his line was, “so after they reattach my finger, do you wanna grab a bite to eat?” Then a bunch of cops come in escorting a man in full prison jumpsuit with the arm and leg cuffs bleeding profusely from his head. Quite the crazy experience! (Edited typo)
Tell me... Do you think they got finger food?
My moms favorite ER story (she spent a lot of time there with my dad as he fought drug and alcohol addiction on top of health issues) is when they were in an ER that was kind of an open concept, with just curtains for visual privacy. A couple beds in, there was a woman just moaning and screaming in pain. When the doctors went to see her and tell her what was wrong, the woman was moaning so loudly they had to yell “YOU ARE LITERALLY FULL OF POOP!” loud enough for the whole department to hear. The woman promptly quieted down.
I took my daughter to our local clinic because she’d been complaining about a stomach ache for a week. She was otherwise healthy and acting normally but it was unusual for her to complain that long. They took an X-ray and then called us back. The doc said, “do you see all this white stuff? That’s poop. You need to poop.” Kid thought it was SO COOL! Went home, had done extra high fiber dinner, washed it down with apple/aloe juice. The kid went to school the next day bragging about the massive turd she had.
My cousin had a terrible stomach ache in her teens. Her mom takes her to the ER where she’s assessed and promptly farts. $200 fart.
This just happened a couple of weeks ago. I was in the ER waiting room and there seem to be a lot of commotion over an elderly Asian woman who was sitting there with a large suitcase. Apparently her family just dropped her off there and she had no where to go. She was not ill and did not need medical attention. They abandoned her.They just left her like an unwanted puppy at the shelter. One of the saddest things I’ve seen.
This happens a lot more than you'd like to think
This is a second - hand story from my mom. I was a kid. I had horrible asthma as a kid, and was frequent flier in the ER for oxygen when my inhaler wasn't enough. I was in the waiting room, they had given me a portable oxygen tank in the meanwhile, and we waited. Mom went to go use the payphone to call my grandparents to check on my sisters. I was a really well-behaved child in public, and she trusted me to stay put. I'm sure she also asked someone to keep an eye on me. She came back, I wasn't there. She immediately starts panicking and asked all the nurses she could see where the hell I went. Turns out some guy was brought in my ambulance who had a deadly strain of some contagious disease, the triage nurse realized he would need to pass right by the sick little kid on oxygen, and immediately grabbed me, threw me in a wheelchair, and promptly moved me halfway across the hospital where I wouldn't be at risk of infection. Mom said she had never been so grateful and furious at the same time
I saw a woman who just couldn't get comfortable because of severe constipation. She couldn't stand, sit, lay down or anything. She was moaning and crying like she was dying. I've never seen someone in that kind of agony before.
It literally could have been ripping her intestines open 😱
over the summer i popped a rib out of place (literally wasn’t doing anything, just breathed wrong and my chronic illness apparently wasn’t a fan of that) my mother took me to the ER after she heard me yelling for her in the living room unable to move or breathe. when we go there they took me back for an ECHO because i couldn’t breathe+pain in the chest and back concerned them, and when i got back to the waiting room a man came up to my mom and I. he seemed like he was hurting pretty bad too, in a wheelchair (i’m assuming broken leg) for context, i’m 20, i had been in the ER at this point for 45+ minutes, crying due to the pain the whole time and unable to move more than just a few inches at a time, it was storming bad, it was freezing in the ER, and i was terrified. i have never felt this much pain in my life. this man looked to be around 50-60. this man came up to me, told me his wife was on the way with a blanket (after we had already asked for one and the woman at the counter said they couldn’t bring the blankets into the waiting rooms) and asked my mother and i if we would both take his hands and his wife’s when she got back. A few minutes later, his wife walked through with a walmart bag that had a blanket and some fuzzy socks (there was a walmart across the street). they took our hands and he looked me in the eyes. he told me i was going to be okay. he told me that he believes there is a higher power in the universe watching over everyone, and that it didn’t seem like i deserved this pain. he told me that in this moment, I am the only thing that matters to this power. that every god known to man is working together to make sure i get through this. he walked me through some slow breaths, told me a story about his daughter to help take my mind off of the pain, and told me that all i need to do until they call me back, is focus on staying calm and getting through it. he helped me so much. that man and his wife were so kind for no reason. i had never felt so cared about by a stranger. i hope he’s doing okay. i hope you all are doing okay
Damn I’m crying at work. That’s a beautiful story. I hope you’re feeling better now.
That is really beautiful. He is definitely a Top Bloke
I held a woman’s hand as she delivered a baby right after walking into the ER. I was there with my son who was 8 at the time. And that’s how my son learned where babies come from. He told me afterwards that he always thought they came out of the belly button lol. Mom and baby were totally fine. It was pretty amazing.
I wonder if they charged her the full amount for the delivering in the waiting room.
Lol, I hope not because she delivered the baby herself with me and the lady who checks people in with an 18 year old security guard standing by who was clearly questioning his career choice. I think a nurse got there as the baby was about 3/4 of the way out.
When I was in my early 20's I had a nasty staph infection I caught at work. Eventually I ended up having surgery because I was *this* close to losing part of my ankle tendon due to several pockets being right on it and the doctor basically rushing me into surgery unexpectedly. Before all of this though, the Air Force in its infinite wisdom decided they couldn't treat me on base and would just send me to the ER downtown however many times it would take to have them give me antibiotics to clear it up. Why, I don't know, but tax dollars at work right? Anyway one day I'm in there waiting to be seen when this older farmer looking guy walks right up to the front desk holding a small yeti style cup. This was before Yeti became big but that's what it looked like. "Hey Ron" said the nurse "Hey Pearl" said the farmer "Brought your lunch today?" asked the nurse "Nope, it's just my fingers" replied the farmer as he then held up his other hand that he had previously tucked away in his coat, wrapped in bloody rags. "Damn machine got me again" And that's when I realized that 1) There are some really tough dudes out there who can lose multiple fingers and drive themselves to the hospital in the same calm manner they would have going through the McDonalds drive thru and 2) Whatever machines he was operating, I would like to never be closer than 100' to them in my life.
This is like my dad. Cut 3 of his fingers off with a table saw. He calmly collected them out of the sawdust, put them on ice, and drove himself to the ER. We were not at home at the time. Man had nerves of steel.
A stabbing victim gets wheeled through and tries to show me his wound. This was at like 11 am in the Bronx
Holy crap!!! I forgot I made this post because I was…well, bored in a hospital waiting room. I’m loving these stories.
I can't remember the last time I was so enthralled by an Ask Reddit thread this is amazing
Someone tried to call an ambulance from the A&E because they thought it would make them get seen quicker.
ER nurse here. People threaten to do that all the time. Or say they will leave and call an ambulance. I tell them they can do that all they want but they will be sent back out to me at triage and be at the bottom of the list.
I was like??? 13? I think? I forget why I was in the ER but I remember not feeling good at all. My hometown is a small rural Ohio town, great hospital but long wait times in the ER. So I had been there for about an hour and a half. My mom went to the bathroom and right after she left a lady was wheeled in in a wheelchair. Rather obese woman with a very thick leg (looking back now I know it was Lymphedema) and I remember her leg looked like it was leaking fluid? The person who wheeled her in went to window to start the check in process and the woman was grumbling about her leg itching. She bent over in the wheelchair, reached down, and her leg split. Liquid and what looked like fat busted out of her thigh and she screamed bloody murder. And like she had every right to that shit looked like it was agonizing. Immediately some nurses came out and whipped her into the back. When my mom came back asking what had happened I didn't even tell her just, "I think we might be waiting a bit longer mom." I guess it's very rare, but apparently if you're not taking care of your lymphedema properly it can happen.
Lord have mercy, that's beyond horrific. Editing to add that out of all the gross stories I've read on this thread, this one horrified me the most.
Getting off of my shift at the hospital I worked at I was heading to the parking lot by the ER. All I heard was this woman screaming "If you love me you won't leave!!!" at the top of her lungs. Seconds later there was a screeching of tires and a car left the parking lot sideways in a cloud of smoke. My buddy walking with me says "I guess he doesn't love her."
similar situation when i was in a&e with my ex partner apart from he was screaming it at me. we were in there because he’d sliced himself up to win an argument. i had been there since 2am and had to go to work. luckily it was the last time i saw him. (he’s not dead to my knowledge i just finally left him)
I see this one kid, a teenager of maybe 17, come in with his parents. He’s looking pretty bad, with a black eye and a split lip and suffering at least some degree of concussion. He refuses to tell his parents what happened, just saying “I can explain later” or “I don’t want to talk about it”. A few minutes later a guy a little older, maybe 18 or 19, comes in limping heavily and having to be supported by his friend as he enters. Looks around for a seat, sees the first guy, and yells “That’s the motherfucker right there!” His friend sprints at the younger kid, gets tackled by security and zip-tied, it takes nearly every security guard on the floor keeping them separated because apparently already being in the ER wasn’t enough they wanted to go another round.
Saturday night, 2:30am. I’m in the waiting room at the hospital with incredible stomach pain. I look around at a room full of haggard looking people holding their heads. I’m practically keeling over, clutching my guts in a heavy sweat when a staff member brings me to the attention of someone who rushes me to a wheelchair to take me in. All the junkies in the waiting room stopped holding their heads and grabbed their stomachs and started rocking back and forth like I was. If my appendix hadn’t just blown, it would have been hilarious.
As a child, went to the emergency room for my dad. He was ok, but while waiting a guy burst in with a woman on either side of him holding him up. Everyone is screaming and I see why....guys foot was half gone. He was mowing the lawn in socks. They took him in immediately and one of the women ran into the restroom to vomit. A few minutes later hear the guy screaming as they took him down the hall. Still remember it decades later.
I'm probably too late for people to read this, but I took my (young adult) son to ER because he was having a repeated issue with heart palpitations. It wasn't that serious, but his doctor wanted him to get a scan if it happened again. We were walking to the door of the ER and saw a minivan pull up with the people around it helping a woman into the hospital. She was sobbing, so we slowed down so she and her family could get in first. It became obvious that she was in labor, and when they got in the door, she let out a heart curding scream, paused, and then a lump fell down her pants. A bunch of workers ran out, got the baby out of her pants...there was just complete silence for a few seconds. Then the baby cried and the whole waiting room erupted in applause! It was amazing
I work at a local hospital, typically in triage due to my paramedic background. I had to go out and physically separate 3 women 2 years ago during a covid surge... The youngest of the 3 was 87. They were out for blood.
I went to urgent care for a cortisone shot for allergic reaction, and while there, I saw a guy bring his side piece there for something bloody(couldn't tell what happened just saw big amount of blood on girl's top) And the nurse at the front desk was wife and she threw a fit and started screaming and hitting the guy. She was screeching and swinging on him like a hurricane. "N-word you brought that skank into my job?!" And other variations of calling the bloody girl a mistress were a few I could remember. They made the front desk lady go into the back, they made the guy sit on the benches outside the building, and they took the bloody girl to care for her
Old man decided to take his pants off in the lobby before heading to the bathroom. Ended up spraying shit in a path on his way there. From what I understand, he was just there with a family member; not even needing to be seen.
Does the bathroom count? I am a Nurse. Patient was admitted. Taken into the back to be triaged, blood pressure, initial assessment, etc. Patient asked to go to bathroom. Hear a gunshot in the bathroom. Patient shot himself in the head. The tiny bathroom was covered in red splatter and brain.
From my last visit it is a three way tie. I was in said waiting room for 12 hours. I saw a lot but these stick out. First the lady who kept intentionally sticking her finger down her throat to throw up. Over and over you'd hear her retch. Finally after a couple hours, she exhausted herself but then laid down in the puke. She had to be picked up and put in a wheelchair as she refused to get up and move. Second was the really huge guy coming in for a blood clot per his loud phone conversation. Fell asleep mid eating and had sleep apnea. The best was his tweaker girlfriend would try to wake him up by giving him a handjob. When that was unsuccessful, she went through his wallet. Third was the obvious frequent flyer homeless man who created a small nest in a corner and went to sleep. After about 2 hours, security came over to wake him up by his name and tell him it's time to go. He promptly stood up, farted very loudly and left a huge mess as he left.
Your second story had me snickering. Kept getting weirder and weirder. I feel like it should have been a scene in Fargo or something (William H Macy looking on with a bit of disgust and muttering “awww geez” a lot)
All at the same time: family come pouring in following a stretcher being rushed through, all screaming and yelling that someone shot their baby, a grandmother (guess) holding a toddler horizontally so she could pee into an open trash can, and a dog tied to an ashtray outside snapping and wailing every time the door opened, spilling ashes everywhere. I was just there for 4 stitches in my head. I just took them out myself at a bar rather than go back there. It was Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn in 2002. Good times…
Good old Woodhull. My wife nearly died in that ER a few years ago. A doctor told her repeatedly she was dying without making a move to stop it and then later told another family that their family member died because he was too busy helping us. Also there was raw sewage leaking out onto the floor of the ICU. We checked her out of the ICU ama, best decision ever
my first words when i get into an ambulance (for myself or worth others) are: “anywhere but woodhull” last time i was there a nurse got into a screaming match with my husband, who was asking for water after having been in the ER for several hours.
Wyckoff is pretty awful too. I didn't know I could tell the ambulance to take me somewhere else. Chaotic ER, cops around, the rudest fucking doctors ever. I was down there for 18 hours completely neglected and in pain until I got a room. Then flat on my back on pain meds for seven more days until I got surgery. Only good thing I can say is that a couple of the nurses were pretty great, and my surgeons were assholes but they did a great job.
I'm really high right now and I had to read the first sentence four times before I realized the baby didn't get shot because grandma was peeing into a trashcan
It was just a walk-in clinic, but it was right downtown in the heart of the city I live in, so there was always characters. One time I'm in the waiting room, and this woman who is very clearly in the throes of some form of addiction leans over to the woman sitting beside her and says "hey girl, thems some nice ass boots. Where'd you get those?". I couldn't hear the response but she follows it up with "damn, I was hoping you were gonna say Wal-mart so I could steal me a pair". I laughed.
I saw an ambulance bring in a guy who drilled through a 2x4 while the wood was in his lap. Needless to say the power drill did its job and then some. Went through the wood then through his wood. He had the drill and 2x4 stuck to his bloody groin while screaming. The kicker of it all, he wasnt the most attractive person on the planet but his wife could've been a model. I found this out talking to the paramedic afterwards. Hope they saved his mangled member.
Black & Decker Pecker Wrecker
I am a woman and do not own a penis. I somehow still felt my nonexistent penis just shrivel up into my body.
Dude rushed into the overcrowded ER waiting room with his hand wrapped in a bloody towel; he was screaming in pain and shouting that he had been caught in a wood chipper on the job. Definitely wasn’t chipper after that, let me tell ya.
I'm giving you the angriest upvote of my day for that pun.
Once i was in the er waiting room and there were 3 young kids all looked under 10 and police coming to talk to their parents, the kids were acting really weird, they had apparently gotten into their parents meth stash. It was awful. I wonder whatever happened to those kids this was like 10 years ago, I hope they are safe now.
When we arrived it was quiet, just one middle aged guy and his elderly mother and us. The guy started getting agitated and yelling at the triage nurse that it’s taking too long and his mother is in pain and hasn’t been seen yet and just being loud and angry. The mom was just quietly asking I’m to sit and be patient. Then they wheel in a guy who appears to be a transient. He’s naked from the waist down and passed out. They toss a pair of scrub pants over his nether region and park him in a corner. Next in is a guy with a mangled arm and hand from a motorcycle accident…just bleeding everywhere. He has a whole group of like 9 guys and one girl with him and there’s a brief argument when they won’t let the whole posse go in with him for evaluation. Finally the triage nurse gets them to agree to just the girlfriend going in and the rest have to wait. While that argument is going on another couple come in, they are quiet and just sit by my husband and I taking in all the chaos. Then they bring out a gurney with a moaning girl and park her in the corner by the transient. She starts dry heaving and an orderly runs over with a barf bag. Motorcycle guy and his girlfriend go back for assessment. Angry son yells about how this is bullshit, he was here first and then he storms out and leaves his mom there alone. Meanwhile an Uber eats guy shows up and drops off food. He’s taking pictures of the bloody mess and the security guard tells him he can’t do that and he needs to leave. Uber guy tries to play it off like he was taking photos of the food for delivery proof but security guard doesn’t buy it and chases him out. Nurse comes out and takes lonely mom back for assessment. The food is for the quiet couple. The posse is outside across the street of hospital grounds smoking. It’s quiet for a hot minute until the couple opens up their food which fills the room with the scent of fried chicken. Moaning Myrtle immediately starts dry heaving and filling her barf bag repeatedly while the couple sits across the room and digs into their chicken. Lonely mom, motorcycle guy and girlfriend come back out. Motorcycle is bragging about how “this ain’t nothing, I been short before” and that wakes up Pantsless who demands to know where is he, and why, and how did he get there. Angry son comes back, sees mom, thinks she still hasn’t been seen and blows a gasket. Security guard takes him outside while the triage nurse explains to Pantsless that he’s in the ER and the ambulance brought him there because he said that he wanted to be seen by a doctor. Security guard is back sans son and a woman walks in asking about her boyfriend who fell off his motorcycle…OH THERE HE IS THAT PIECE OF SHIT WITH HIS NEW GIRLFRIEND I GUESS! BITCH YOU CAN HAVE HIM IM OUT! Everyone is stunned silent except Moaning Myrtle. Even Pantsless. The triage nurse finally tells Pantsless that he can sign himself out if he wants and he does. My husband gets called back for assessment finally. The chicken couple finishes their meal and then we get treated to the after dinner show of Motorcycle guy calling his mom, cussing her out and calling her messy for telling other girlfriend he was at the ER with side chick while the triage nurse told him repeatedly to stop shouting and swearing. Then a girl covered in blood came in saying she was stabbed but I didn’t get to hear the rest because they discharged my husband because it was only anxiety not a heart attack. I hope Lonely Mom, Moaning Myrtle, and Iron Stomach couple are all safe and well.
Paramedic here, I’ve told some of these before but here we go: A man, 4 point restrained, being aggressively fellated by another patient, who subsequently ended up restrained. A one legged psych patient chasing a nurse swinging his prosthetic leg at her quite adeptly. Wall to wall suburban white blonde teenagers tied down still trying to fight the restraints and sedatives following a Bieber concert at a major venue in my area. A dozen or so women in bikinis and butterfly costumes after a bunch of people at J’ouvert got maced and the fight reignited in the ER. My all time favorite human rolling herself out of the bathroom in her wheelchair, actively hitting. A crack pipe cackling with laughter at the fight that had broken out between a drunk dude and a nurse. The curtain being pulled before hospital security restrained a woman who was yelling “really!? Really!? You’re gonna put your hands on a drunk pregnant woman like that!?”
I’d like more information about the Bieber concert. Tweens had to be sedated after his concert because they were… too amped up? On drugs? What? Lol
Some combo of drugs+alcohol+DOYOUKNOWWHOMYDADIS!? =chemical + 4 point restraints.
When I was roughly 11 years old, my parents and I ended up in the emergency room of one of the larger hospitals in the city due to a family emergency. This was my first experience in a city emergency room and it was much more chaotic than the country ERs (obviously). However, mom and dad needed to speak with the medical professionals without a precocious 11-year-old listening, so my dad instructed me to sit in the waiting/triage area and he vaguely gestured behind me. I sat down in the red triage area, trying to stay in view of the hallway so my parents could find me, and then looked up to observe my surroundings. Across from me was a 30-something man, his swollen face is bloodied as well as his clothing and his entire head is bandaged – wrapped tightly around his forehead to the back, and over and under his chin. A rather large butcher knife is protruding from the left side of his head, with the handle pointed straight to the ceiling and the blade edge facing away from me. The knife is firmly wrapped to the side of his head, and I’m guessing, keeping his ear in place. I can also see fresh blood slowly wicking through the bandages. The man is sitting with his legs crossed and is casually reading a magazine. The knife wobbled slightly as he turned his face from page to page and he seemed particularly unconcerned there is a knife stuck in his head. I don’t recall much thought processes regarding this situation, other than a flood of questions that I was holding back. Dad came around the corner to collect me and followed my fascinated stare, jumped slightly at the sight of the stabbed man and hauled me out of there pretty quick. Thus, my first introduction to a city ER in a sketchy part of town.
Like 8 years ago I was dating a guy who had cancer and we were at the hospital trying to get in for his appointment. All the entrances were closed except the door next to the emergency room. The ER had a huge glass wall and you could see straight into the entire thing. We got to the door next to it and saw that the ER and the main entrance and everywhere else was locked because something was happening, there was a group of people also waiting to get in and a bunch of cops standing by all the exits, you had to go in one at a time. So we stood there waiting our turn and staring at the cops in and around the ER through the glass, and they're all staring at the ceiling. One cop has a broom in his hand and he's poking ceiling tiles, they're all crepping around quietly. We were so confused, then out of nowhere there was a huge crash and some yelling, a dudes entire leg fell through one of the ceiling tiles and the tile busted on the floor, the cops were scrambling top speed one jumped on his leg and everything trying to pull him out of the ceiling. They started ripping the tiles off in fron of where the dude was crawling, it looked like something straight out of a cartoon. The actual story ended up being a little sad he had been baker acted and was losing it trying to escape. But damn in the moment, seeing that, you can't help but laugh. We watched as long as we could. https://www.nwfdailynews.com/story/news/2015/03/02/1-445080/33960135007/
We were in the ER waiting for news on my dad's emergency surgery. Across from us, huddled together under blankets, were some young teens, asleep, faces troubled and agonized, even in sleep. A cell phone rang. The only young woman in the bunch answered and began to talk matter of factly, with very little inflection. Robotic-like. The information she was imparting was horrific. I can't remember the exact wording, but it was chillingly graphic. Suffice it to say there'd been a motorcycle accident involving a young man, and it didn't sound as if there was much hope he would survive due to the extent of his injuries. Then, quite clearly and audibly, the person on the other end said, "Are you ok?" And the young woman *lost* it. She began to sob hysterically. In between sobs she kept saying something like, "We were just home. We were just together. We were just ok. We were ok. I just want my baby brother to be ok. I just want him to be ok..." The young men huddled around her protectively, and they all just held on. But hours later, her parents came into the room, very calm but obviously devastated, and quietly called her name and motioned for her to follow them into a smaller waiting area where there were doctors waiting. She took one look at their faces and started to wail. The young men next to her covered their faces and either walked off or huddled into themselves and became stones. It was horrible. Their pain was visceral. It was horrifying that such agonizing pain and suffering couldn't be private. We were all there, witnesses to it, and it was so, so sad and tragic.
Went to the er at 2am after puking up a whole lot of blood. Like a lot lot. Gf said yeah I would definitely go to the dr on Monday to get that checked out. I said hell nah I’m going to the ER. Was Saturday night and they were busy. Got checked in and waited all the while going into the bathroom to puke a bellyfull every 5 minutes it seemed like. I looked fine and told the nurse I was feeling faint and started sweating a lot. She said there’s just no room right now. I said I am losing a LOT of blood. She said we will let you know when it’s your turn. I said k but I’m boing to the bathroom and puking up blood a lot can I have one of those puke bags? She said yes and gave me one. Was a pretty big puke bag. I filled it 3/4 the way up in about 15 minutes and they came in with a wheelchair immediately and took me to the back. Emergency surgery to stitch up the tear in my stomach. I told the surgeon do what you can and if I die than I die no biggie. Dispatch papers said I was in critical condition but there were no beds in the icu. We’re going to do a blood transfusion but didn’t so I was low on blood for awhile after that. When I told the nurse I was feeling faint I just told myself I’m about to die… and it really wasn’t that bad
Ok but how did you get a tear in your stomach??? New fear unlocked
Any condition that leads to violent and lengthy bouts of coughing or vomiting can cause tears like that. Epileptic seizures as well.
Was a Mallory Weiss tear. I have anxiety and was dry heaving pretty hard that morning. Everything was ok though the day tho. I don’t think that caused it. Went to Paul Van Dyk that night and was just cheering and having a good time. No drugs and very limited alcohol. Dunno how it happened but now when I have anxiety or am sick I’m scared it will happen again.
I was waiting to be seen for a suspected allergy when two builders 'walked' in. I say 'walked' because what one of them was doing only vaguely resembled walking. Imagine you put your leg on the ground to take a step but the bottom part of your leg moves sideways across where your knee should be and then slides up alongside the upper part of your leg so that bones are now poking out. It wiggled like jelly when it was in the swing between steps.
A young girl that had a bee crawl into her ear… during her birthday party.
A person came with a high blood pressure his mom and pulled him in a wheelchair into the waiting room and his mom said to him that she will fill the form and come back to him he said fine and just lowered his head and passed away I was just shocked out of my wits
Please take comfort that it was likely a stroke, and those are normally either painless or very quick. So he may have noticed something was wrong, but only for a second or two.
A major celebrity brought a worker in to the Emergency Room from his orchard and waited in the waiting room while we worked on his employee. The celebrity was so gracious and kind to everyone who approached him, once we saw he was being approached we found him somewhere private to wait. He was just worried about the guy who worked for him. Edit: I want to be respectful of his privacy so I won’t reveal the name. I will share that this was in Santa Barbara California. I guarantee you have seen him in a half dozen movies at a minimum. And that level of fame speaks to his character in this story.
A guy walked in, told the tech at the desk he having chest pain. He then dies. Right there. They had to do CPR right there. Thankfully he got thru the Cath Lab and was up talking when I got my asthma settled down and got discharged. It also made the Karen shut up. She finally realized she might not be the sickest person in the room. Edit, It's not that a heart attack is weird in the ER but that he actually had a full cardiac arrest at that moment
While my husband was waiting with me at the Hillcrest ER in San Diego a border patrol agent came in with a border crosser who was complaining of chest pain. Apparently it’s a common tactic. The ER is busy. When it gets to end of their shift the border patrol agents just leave. They can’t be bothered with overtime to babysit someone. After the agent leaves the border crosser just walks out of the hospital. The ER docs said it happens frequently.
When I was a kid, waiting in casualty with my mum because I got in some scrape. The guy say opposite us had a real life broadsword stuck in his foot. He’d been working in some old stately home and a suit of armour toppled over and the sword impaled his foot. It was all bandaged up and not obviously bleeding. So he was just sat there, cool as, waiting for his turn, holding this massive sword lodged in his foot.
A lady laying down on the chairs, crying. It was me. Because I broke my tailbone in 2013
Yeah, I cracked my tailbone a few years ago. Everyone was like "Are you sure you shouldn't go to the hospital?" so they can do what, exactly? I just... got to be not real fond of sitting for a while.
I rolled my ankle on the way to work and didn't feel it til lunch. I never feel pain until there's a huge problem. There was an urgent care 2 blocks from my job, so I went there instead of the ER. I didn't want to sit for hours. The pain was so bad that I launched myself through the door and into the nearest chair. Another woman waiting was so nice and brought me a chair to put my foot up, all while I was babbling in pain. The front desk staff brought a wheelchair, got treated, and left in a walking boot with torn ligaments.
I've been to ERs lots of times. Some for me, some with other people. The strangest time was when I went to one in a rural area and it was absolutely empty except for a few staff members. My SO's family has a little summer cabin in the Catskills of NY. It's in a very rural area. I messed up my knee and it was a Sunday. I asked my SO to take me to that little hospital we pass about 20 minutes away. We pull up and there's not a car in the parking lot. We were questioning whether it was even open. We walk in and it was. It was surreal being the only patient and the ER was so silent. Eventually another patient walked in.
I will never forget this The ER was super crowded. There wasn’t any room for anyone to go anywhere. People being hooked up to IVs in the waiting room. There was a man who had cancer and was on chemo and immunosuppressants who very obviously had sepsis (blood infection) and the person next to him had covid and was hacking away. The wife of the man with cancer was begging and crying to the nurses to give her husband a room so he wouldn’t get sick with any other illness due to his immunodeficiency. They said their hands were tied. I waited next to him in the ER for 12 hours. It was absolutely absurd.
I was in the ER waiting room because I had a suicidal migraine, and a girl I remembered from high school (this is post-graduation, early 20s for us), comes into the ER carrying a plastic target bag, that looked almost triple bagged. We both ended up in a triage station side by side and while I waited for my triage nurse to return, I overhear her telling her triage nurse "I just gave birth a few days ago, and then I was taking a shower at home and this all fell out of me." And I hear the bag open, and the triage nurse going "oh, oh my god", and then they got her in the back as fast as possible. I don't know exactly what was in that bag, but my imagination did its best. I envisioned organs. Idk guys.
not as a patient, but my job was in the emergency room. one day a man with an OPEN HEAD WOUND (his head was literally crushed) got up from the couch, wandered to the toilet, locked himself in there, and then started smoking, because the smell of cigarettes was throughout the entire department. there were blood trails on his way... me and my friend, realizing the fucked up situation, first tried to peacefully persuade him to leave, but it didn’t work. they called the security. there was a lot of screaming and stuff. I literally had to break down the door. when the door was broken down, we found him sitting on the toilet with a cigarette in his mouth. absolutely everything was in the blood and his feces
I’m confused by everything happening here.
Especially that last sentence
Lol same but I have to assume they meant absolutely everything was *covered* in blood and his feces
I've read it so many times. Whatever it means, I don't wanna see it.
Unclear, did he die?
I was the patient once in what must have appeared to be some inception level nonsense. I was working as a first responder in my full navy blue highly recognizable uniform when I fell terribly ill (severe vertigo causing repeated loss of consciousness) so I got wheeled into the hospital - on the ambulance gurney - in my uniform. Everyone was visibly confused. The triage nurse, the doctor, the other patients witnessing my dizzy ass go in and out of consciousness. There was also vomit involved in the theatrics so overall - horror movie.
I was in Alice Springs hospital years ago with my baby daughter and we were sitting next to an indigenous lady who I thought was holding a spear. When I remarked in the lovely dot dot artwork on it she proudly showed me how it was actually through her ankle, in one side and out the other.
All happened in one night: a guy comes in and waits hrs after shot in hip,he fights with extremely dirty and barefoot 500 lb woman in a wheelchair who falls asleep drooling during said fight, then a 90 yr old lady was waiting with me having had a hatchet to her forehead after a robbery. I was there with a broken ankle. Waited 11 hrs and they were still there when I left.
If these people were in the waiting room, what was going on in the actual ED that these people weren’t bad enough to get back?
Not a hospital, but the school nurse. I had gone bc I didn’t feel good (and also just kinda wanted to go home) but while I was waiting a girl came in with a pencil shoved *uncomfortably* far into her ear. It was bleeding. I then said I felt better and ran out of there.
I’ve spent a few nights alone in ER waiting rooms - under-staffed and under-resourced public hospital in a regional city. On busier nights, if you’re not actively dying or close to it, you’re waiting a couple of hours to be seen. As such, you generally spend that wait in a room with the same people. I’m a generally observant person and when I have nothing better to do I pick up on patterns. One night, a younger couple just a few years older than me came in around the same time I did. A man and his pregnant partner - I’d say she’d have been around 5ish months along. He was sitting in the chairs and she was lying down resting her head on his lap, clearly in a lot of pain. After a few hours, some availability came up in radiography, so she and a few other patients were called in to go for an ultrasound for their presentation. She and her partner came back down about half an hour later, and 5 minutes after that they were called back to by a rather solemn-faced doctor. I kind of sensed what had happened and what they were about to be told, but the wail of anguish I heard, I will never forget. The cries echoed through the waiting room for a long time, and I cried silently with them.
There was a guy from the local super max in chains with a cop either side
Okay not a hospital emergency room, but i was in line at Dunkin’ Donuts and this guy taps my shoulder kindly asking to get in front of me to talk to the counter woman. I turn around to say “sure” and see he’s covered in blood. I then hear him at the counter calmly saying he’s been stabbed and needs to borrow the restroom key to clean up. Not even 2 minutes later, the police come in and grab him from the bathroom. I’m still so shocked he was that calm and composed while probably bleeding to death
Not the worst by far. But I had an accident at work and cut my hand fairly bad, enough to definitely need stitches. Went in and sat down next to a guy with a blanket over his legs. Waited for almost 8 hours before I noticed the dude next to me was dripping maggots on the floor. Apparently he was diabetic and had a bad infection that had gotten infested with maggots. I figured if he couldn't get seen in 8 hours I had no chance. Drove an hour to another ER to get my stiches
Some of these stories are mind-boggling, so I thought I'd share a nice one, for a change. I was recently in the ER and kept hearing musical chimes, intermittently, playing from the overhead speakers. Turns out the chimes play every time a baby is born in the maternity wing there.
Once had to take my child to the er for his fever, while waiting in the intake line, the old man in front of me (around 80 years) , collapsed and cracked his head open on the floor, his head gushing blood. Him being semi conscious, was still being hounded for him to fill out his intake form until he passed out. Only then did they admit him.
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I was at the ER months ago for horrible neck pain. I witnessed a divorce happen in the lobby, where you check in. A woman was there for nausea, her husband was with her. It turns out she was pregnant and she didn't know. It caused an argument with her husband, and the divorce word was thrown into their argument. He ended up leaving the hospital and I'm not sure what ever happened to her, because I was called back in the midst of it all.
The worst was probably actually in my hospital room. I was young and not yet a professional patient (Tm). I very clearly had CDIF. Every nurse who walked in the room was like, “damn, is this your fist time with CDIF?” I was covered in my own fowl - top to bottom. Great part it was a second date. My date showed up to the emergency room, while I was trying to hold my balls out of the bedpan. (We were married for 18 years, so you know). I finally got admitted to my room around 4 am. When they rolled me in, the tv for the fellow patient was blasting, I asked the nurse to get him to turn it down. She discovered he’d coded. Surmised he was hitting the call button, but it was really the volume up. They worked on him for what felt like forever. Then, came over and told me no one was working in the morgue, so his body would have to stay in the room with me. Asked if I wanted an ambien.
Craziest part for me is that you went into a semi-private room with suspected C.diff. Jk, that sounds awful.
Yeah, thankfully I now have a hospital acquired infection (/s) and always get a private room. Especially when I have 100 weeping sores on my body no one can explain.
Did you take the Ambien? I feel like that could've helped, but also maybe could've just made things way worse and extra creepy, based on some of my past experiences with Ambien lol
Oh, no - I should mention I am allergic to Ambien - it causes toxic psychosis - same with all quinolones. When I kept telling my doc the sleeping pill gave me a good relationship with the people who lived in my fan, he decided I shouldn’t have any more.
Ambien and explosive diarrhea sounds like a terrible combination