Not a doctor but used to work in the OR. Had a guy come in with stomach/bowel issues. He was pretty young so it was concerning. Opened him up and found a toothpick sideways in his bowel causing blockage. He had no idea when he ate something with a toothpick

Before we were married, me and my husband lived with his sister who's an ODP. She enjoyed telling us gross stories while we were eating dinner, which was fine for my nurse husband who also has gross things happen every day, but less so for me the one that stuck with me was the woman who had to have a bra surgically removed from her intestines because she'd eaten it, underwiring and all. I don't think I'll ever be free from the knowledge that there is someone, somewhere, who has eaten a bra.

I was working on a ER when a young guy came screaming for help, he was carrying a black trash bag full of something, we asked what was going on and he proceeded to open the bag and showing a fully developed fetus, must have been like 30 weeks. I was wondering what was I supposed to do with an dead fetus on my ER when all of the sudden it started crying, so we hurried our asses up and saved that baby's life. Last I knew it was a healthy girl.

Mexican doctor here. Got a call from a patient who wanted me to check on his wife since she had been laying in bed all morning. When I arrived I could smell rotten eggs and humidity in the room. Open the door and a body lays there, decomposed (probably 2-3 weeks), and the stench was strong because the mattress was all soggy due to the body liquids draining all over flesh. I took the poor old man outside and perform quick exploration, finding his left eye is moving uncontrollably and non-respondent to light. We call his family and I give them the news. Turns out he had been an epileptic his whole life but rarely took his treatment accordingly. Most probably he suffered a seizure that made him motor functional, but mentally challenged. One of the saddest cases I’ve encountered. That night I took a long shower, called my parents to tell them I love them. Had to take the dog in bed just for comfort. 3 months past before I decided to do house visits again. Now I carry a hazmat mask in the car at any moment.

Not a doc but was a medical researcher for a stretch. A homeless guy came in complaining of foot pain. He hadn’t taken his boots off for 18 months. Dr took one off, turned it upside down and a toe fell out.

Not me, but a doctor friend. Woman came into the ER with a blanket over her, everyone assumed she was breastfeeding a baby. ….. turned out everyone was right except it was a RACCOON.

Patient came in with worsening lower limb ulcers and had been dressing them himself. Very poor social circumstances, poor self care. The stench was bad enough before the homemade dressings even came off, the kind of smell that sticks to everything. Once the dressings were taken down and the worst of the fumes were released, we hoped it was uphill from there. We were wrong. On closer inspection of the wounds, it somehow seemed it was moving. Tiny yellow maggots. Hundreds of them, dipping in and out of the flesh. Sterile maggots can be used therapeutically in certain cases to debride dead tissue but there was absolutely nothing sterile about this. One of the nurses took it upon herself to go at the legs with a tweezers and seemed to enjoy the never ending game of reverse-whac-a-mole. I left her to it. He got better.

Anesthesiologist here. Part of me thinks I went into medicine because I'm inherently nosy. Anyway, in my last year of residency, we had this young patient and her husband. She thought she was pregnant, as her periods had stopped and her belly was getting bigger. I don't know why she didn't go and see an OB but....anyway. She was at home at a point where she thought she was "8 or 9 months pregnant", felt "something pop" and a sharp pain and thought she was going into labor. Then, her legs went numb and she could no longer walk -she and her husband didn't think that was normal so they checked into our ED. She had a huge yolk sac tumor with mets to the spine, liver, and other places and had to go for an emergent spinal decompression given her neurological symptoms. I wasn't the anesthesia resident for that case, but I was the one for her 2nd surgery when they wanted to remove the primary tumor, and resect some of the liver mets. Primary tumor was about the size of a basketball. I felt so bad for that young couple, but I still wonder to this day why they didn't get some sort of ultrasound or see an OB.

When at high school a mates mum was a nurse and told us about an old lady that came in complaining about sprouts growing down below, on examination there was in fact sprouts growing out of her. Turns out her memory wasn't the greatest and had used a potato to aid with a prolapsed uterus and forgotten about it.

Baby was born in a small village with all her bowels and stomach outside of her body(gastroschisis) Mum wrapped the baby up in a swaddle and mum dad and baby walked 8hours to the nearest hospital Caused quite a ruckus in the emergency department triage counter as they couldn't speak the local language and had to open the swaddle to show the triage nurse what they meant But all was well, Baby survived and went home well

During my internship, a person casually shared that he had been drinking sanitizer for past 3 months.

Surgery rotation in third year med school: stat call from ER about a guy who had lost a vibrator in his rectum. Physical exam: NAD; palpable vibration noted LLQ abdomen. The vibrator was still on. Patient stated the vibrator had been fully charged prior to “use” and would last for hours. Ultimately the attending surgeon wanted to avoid surgery due to the still-on vibrator leading to potential complications. The residents made the surgical intern manually pull it out to avoid surgery. Intern ended up getting it out along with a couple of hotel-sized shampoo bottles. Patient discharged home from ER in stable and improved condition.

This is a story from my mom who was an RN for decades as a hospice nurse but worked in a small country hospital for several years when she was just starting out. While this story has a little gore in it, the weird thing is at the end: One day a farmer came in from the field. He was working on a disc tiller and one of the large metal discs fell off onto his head and sliced it open so the grey matter was visible. After he arrived at the ER, they got the guy onto a bed and he was fully conscious and talking. They were waiting for the helicopter to come take him to the "big" hospital that was probably an hour away by ambulance. When the chopper arrived, the farmer sat up in bed so they could transfer him to the stretcher and a small piece of brain tissue fell onto the pillow. My mom pointed it out and the doc just picked it up and threw it in the trash can. Because it was a small hospital and was rural, the same doctor did all the follow-up for the guy after he got home. For the rest of his life he could remember up to New Year's eve 1961 and then New Years day in 1963. All of 1962 was completely erased from his mind as though it had never happened. My mom always wondered if 1962 was in that small piece of brain the doctor threw in the can.

Obligatory not a doctor but a paramedic - Was taking an old lady home from the hospital in the middle of the night. Super sweet, seemed well put together. After getting off the freeway, we had to go through about 8 miles of underbrush on a dirt road that google maps didn't even recognize. When we finally got close, we realized we were in a swamp due to the 7 foot tall reeds surrounding the ambulance. We finally found her driveway and unloaded her. Her place was this huge, plantation style house practically spilling out books. Completely isolated from society. Literally just mounds of books as well as antique statues, vases, paintings, taxidermized animals, even an old musket. We had to clear a path in her living room to let her off the stretcher. Apparently one of her dogs slipped past us as we were making our way in, so we had to spend 20 minutes trying to get the thing back inside. As we were leaving and putting the stretcher back together, we see a pair of glowing yellow eyes blinking at us from the brush behind the ambulance. We throw the stretcher in, book it, and don't talk about it again. The entire experience still feels like a fever dream and I'm pretty sure we almost got murdered by a mountain lion

Not a doctor. Was a paramedic student in an ER. Oncoming crew came to get me so I could see the patient. If that happened you knew it was a good one. On top of that the crew themselves kept talking about how f****d it was, which could only mean it was pretty bad. Guy working at a dye factory got his hand caught in a mechanical dye press. It was exerting over 1000 lbs of force for over 5 minutes on his hand. By the time they got it out it was partially amputated and I cannot stress this enough, flat as a piece of paper. The 3 middle fingers were just cartoonish looking in how flat they were. The guy could still semi wiggle what was there and could still definitely move his index and thumb. The surgeons were discussing wtf they were going to do when I was in there. And the general consensus I was getting was nobody knew wtf to do. I saw one of them prepping the guys wife to see him. And they were just like idk how to say this other than be prepared it's not good. And be aware this may have changed his life forever. To this day I cannot get over how unreal it looked. Like I legitimately thought it was fake or I wasn't seeing it right.

- Patient capsicum sprayed by the cops, given a jug of water for her eyes, she throws it over the cop and starts masturbating with the jug. - Patient brought in by ambulance with the presenting complaint of hair loss - Comatose dog given a shot of calcium (no vet in town) and immediately starts running around the ward. - deodorant can up the a**e - CPR that was so effective that the guy woke up while his chest is being compressed and tells his wife he isn't ready to die Just off the top of my head...

A very obese woman not realizing she was pregnant. That's not unusual or weird really. The part that's weird was that she put it together that she must have gotten pregnant from her husband's birthday where she surprised him with sex. She had her neighbors prop her legs open with a board and she waited in bed like that for him to come home.

Had a guy come in after missing hemodialysis for a month and was eating a plate of imaginary food. He at least offered some.

Honestly so many things that I wouldn't even bat an eye at anymore, but people in the general public always get a kick out of things like: - Shaving cream can up a*s - mechanical pencil up penis - A metal ring stuck around penis, and the emergency department didn't actually have the equipment to cut it off, so a jeweler was called - plastic baggy of drugs up a*s - someone who had a fetish for self amputating their penis - someone was stabbed with their guts hanging out by a friend, but the friend was there?? And they were cool with each other?? Said they just got into a heated argument. Dudes were from a rougher town. Actually I think I was exposed to quite a bit in my medical training now that I think about it..

Nurse here: a guy who let his dog lick his diabetic ulcer on his foot because “the dog liked it”. He got a nasty infection, led to sepsis.

450lbs woman bleeding from the belly button, which was obviously a very deep innie. I resorted to a large speculum to visualize then cauterized the bleeding vessel.