We asked the doctors and nurses of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us the wildest things they've ever witnessed in the ER. Here are the jaw-dropping results.
Note: Some submissions are also from this Reddit thread.
1. This bet gone wrong:
One guy came in with a mayonnaise jar stuck up his rectum, with the mouth of the jar facing in. He had to go to the operating room where the surgeon had to glue a rod to the base of the jar and wait for it to set before pulling it out. The guy said he "did it on a bet."
2. This alarming anecdote:
One night my friend was in the ER, and a lady came in complaining about leg pains. The woman had a cast on the leg because it had been broken, so they decided to cut the cast off to get a closer look. Apparently the woman's leg had been in the cast for over a year, and for some reason she kept it on. When they took the cast off, they saw maggots eating away at her exposed bone.
3. This distressing occurance:
I'm a dentist, but sometimes I have to go downstairs to the ER if someone gets an extreme injury with their mouth and really messes up their teeth. Well, one guy got chainsawed through his face, and they wanted me to make sure the broken teeth wouldn't be a problem and prevent him from going to the operating room. Apparently the man was cutting through a log, and it kicked back right at him. It tore up the skin really badly but just bounced off the bone, which was so lucky. It could have done MUCH worse damage than it did.
4. This haunting story:
I worked in a hospital for a very long time, and one of the nurses told me about the time when she had a patient come in complaining of vaginal pain. When they did a pelvic exam, there were roaches in her vagina. It's the worst thing I've ever heard in my life, and if I had seen it I would have been scarred for life.
5. This last resort:
I have a friend who's a radiologist, and she had an elderly gentleman come in with a screwdriver stuck in his urethra (pee hole) because he couldn't relieve himself and was trying to get it out.
6. This harrowing incident:
My mom was working in the ER. A guy who’d been in a motorcycle accident was brought in, unconscious, with his legs detached and laying across his chest.
7. This lesson learned:
My friend is an EMT and she got called to a house where the woman was home alone and decided to masturbate with an empty wine bottle. When she tried to pull it out, it created a vacuum and was hopelessly stuck. She couldn't drive herself, so she had to call 911.
8. This spine-tingling tale:
I was a volunteer at a hospital when a guy who was impaled to his scooter chair came in. A drunk driver hit him while he was crossing the street, and he hit a pipe. You could see right through the pipe to the floor. Luckily he survived.
9. This unfortunate circumstance:
A nurse friend of mine just dodged two rocks thrown at her last weekend from a patient who pulled them out of her vagina. When asked why she had rocks in her vagina, the patient said "it's my purse."
10. This perfect game:
This man came into the ER and had an entire baseball bat shoved up his butt. He looked familiar, and then I remembered that he was the same man who came in a few months earlier claiming he slipped while coming out of the shower and somehow got a juice glass up his ass. Like, come on, man... there are objects meant for this sort of thing. And don't even get me started on the light bulb...
11. This troubling nightmare:
We had a gentleman pull into our ED lot and tourniquet his penis. He cut it off in the parking lot and put it into a blender that he plugged into the cigarette lighter area. Came in like it was nothing, got treated, and when his family was informed, they nonchalantly said, "Oh, he finally did it, huh?"
12. This frightening narrative:
My worst one was a 6-year-old girl who was sleeping in her mom's bed. Her mom had a hook on the wall that kept her phone charger up off the ground. The little girl rolled over and fell off the bed. Her cheek caught the hook, and it ripped her cheek all the way up to her ear, kinda like the Joker. It was totally open and flappy. The girl wasn't crying too much and looked like she was in pretty bad shock. They eventually called in a plastic surgeon and stitched it up pretty good. The wound was horrifying though.
13. This disturbing matter:
My brother-in-law stuck a shot glass up his butt and had to have it surgically removed. Amazingly, it was up there for three days before he called for his MOTHER to come take him to the hospital. Not so bright, that one.
14. This jaw-dropping event:
The worst thing I witnessed in the ER took place 20 years ago. I'll never forget it. An older man somehow drove himself to the hospital and was rushed in, covered in blood. I grabbed towels and blankets and packing gauze, and when I got back we noticed that his chest was wide open. He recently had heart bypass surgery and had a coughing fit, which accidentally opened up his sternal incision, exposing his beating heart.
15. And this wild night:
I'm not a nurse, but I was at a kink party and talked to this one women who told me about the time she had to go to the ER to have her foot removed from a guy's ass.
