Note: Some stories were pulled from this Reddit thread.

Note: Some submissions contain graphic medical imagery. Please proceed with caution.

"13 bags of plasma, three codes, and just over an hour later, he was finally stable enough to go into surgery, for which we had one surgeon on call who was not in the mood to be called that early. While stitching the guy up, he literally overlooked the exit wound, killing him. That was my fourth or fifth shift, and I hadn't really met most of the other staff by that point. But standing in the corner watching everything and doing my documentation while multiple nurses and residents physically clung onto me, crying their eyes out in between working on him, made me feel something intense."

"I drove while my partner kept an eye on him in the back. About 15 minutes into the drive, I started to notice a smell. It smelled like fresh fried pork, something like Tonkatsu. Mind you, I hadn’t eaten all day, and the smell actually had my mouth watering. My mouth was watering at the smell of this poor man’s deep-fried arm.

I brought it up to my partner afterward, and he looked at me strangely, and rightly so. But afterward he assured me that I was probably just smelling leftover oil on the patient’s clothes. It was a nice thought, but I kind of doubt it..."

"He spent a day or two in our observation unit and would frequently go on walks around the unit until we had to ask him to stay in his room because other patients were complaining about the trail of smell he would leave when walking by their rooms."

He died at a neighboring facility when he went for a scan. When he went to lie down on the table, the tumor ripped off, and he bled out very quickly. My skin still crawls picturing those maggots feasting off a man who was still very much alive."

"I found out later that they’d intubated her and not given her any pain meds until the baby had been out for 15 minutes, and a labor nurse assisting the doctor realized tears were streaming down her face, but she couldn’t move due to the paralytics for sedation. 

So she felt everything and heard everything, and her head was turned towards us as she cared for her baby. It was the most horrific thing I will likely ever see, and it was only my first week orienting for our NICU."

"He stood there in front of me with very shiny, rather purple, and distinctly swollen testicles. We had to call the fire brigade with bolt cutters to free them, and the guy was out of casualty like a shot."

"So, the nine-year-old daughter had a burst appendix and needed emergency surgery, the 12-year-old had a visibly-displaced broken collarbone and dislocated shoulder, as well as a minor concussion, and the mom had to get 18 stitches total on her lip and forehead. Everyone's covered in diarrhea, the younger girl is groaning, the older one is oddly quiet due to the concussion, and the mom is a mess. 

When we got to the hospital, the dad was already waiting at the ER, and this man was recovering from ACL surgery."

"So I talk to the woman, and she's sticking to her story. At that point, it felt obvious that she was at risk for self-harm, and we needed to get her to a psychiatric hospital as soon as possible. It's also fairly obvious that she won't go willingly, so, as per the law, we have to involve the police.

While I'm on the phone, a nurse is supposed to stay with her, but another emergency comes in, leaving her alone. The police arrive, and we go to her room to see her off. The nurse opens the door to a disaster zone. The woman is naked and covered in ultrasound gel. She had also emptied all the drawers on the floor and smeared the walls with poop.

As soon as the door opened, she ran out with arms flailing. The police officers were trying to catch her, but she's naked and slippery (ultrasound gel), and she slips past, runs out of the ER, through the entrance hall, and into the chapel. Security, a brave nurse, and the two police officers run after her. It takes several minutes for them to catch and subdue her. They finally managed to hold her down, put her in handcuffs, and take her to the psychiatric hospital."

"My resident doctor intubated her (breathing tube), and the ET tube just filled up with vomit. We did everything, and her heart just never moved. I will never forget the look on the resident’s face when he asked me if there was anything else we could do. There wasn’t. She died. A completely healthy teenager with zero medical issues kissed her family goodbye one morning, and they next saw her dead on an ED stretcher."

"So there’s this kid, intubated, aware, and his eyes communicated how terrified he was. This is MY biggest fear, to be paralyzed and intubated and 100% aware of everything but unable to move or communicate in any way. He had to blink once for no, twice for yes, but that doesn’t come close to conveying everything he wanted to say, ask, or do."

"We keep trying to scan, but even my coworker who'd been doing this for 15 years can't get images. Everything is still so foggy. She sees the bubbles but can't explain what they are either. Finally, we are asked to leave the room because they're going to rush the patient to emergency surgery. 

From what I heard, they opened up the leg, the infection spread instantly, and the patient died on the table. It was a form of aggressive gas gangrene. In 24 hours, someone went from a fine, minor injury to writhing in pain to dead. It still blows my mind to this day."

"The guy’s explanation? 'I didn’t think it was that serious. I was hoping it would heal on its own.' He was also worried about looking 'silly' in front of his buddies for getting a rat bite. Anyway, we had to clean it up, drain the infection, and get him on a solid regimen of antibiotics. The poor guy had no idea how much damage he'd done by not taking care of it sooner."

Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.