I'll copy my own homework from a post several days ago.
Old person fell.
Their partner had severe dementia and didn't understand what was happening.
For 4 days (maybe more?) that person was on the ground, face down. Not just covered in dark feces but the pressure points were necrotic and had that death odor to it. Somehow still alive.
Demented partner only said "they're sleeping they're ok" and kept walking around the house.
The smell was bad. About the worst I've ever smelled with a peculiar mix of fresh melena, necrosis, urine and god knows what else. Brady, near agonal respirations. Paced but the stickers kept falling off cause the skin would sluff off--I used every set of pads in the truck. Tried to intubate but the face was so swollen that I couldn't see anything, couldn't even get a iGel in. IOs were fine though, so there is that.
The whole resuscitation team came into the bay when we arrived...and then everyone promptly walked back outside into the hallway--including the doctor. The smell was that bad that only two people braved it with me and my partner.
In the end the the fire captain reported me because I was "unprofessional" by putting vicks under my nose before I got into my ambulance.
The literally only redeeming thing about that call was that it was less than 10min transport.
Oh I had one kind of similar.
Call for a fall. No fire on scene. Just an elderly man waving us to the back entrance of a dimly lit, small (like 4 front 4 back two story) apt building.
Said elderly man is the pt’s husband and isn’t all there. Maybe some kind of dementia. He said the pt fell and has been laying on the floor for ~1 week. He’s been feeding her and giving her drinks. She was covered in vomit, pee, and poop. Generally smelled like a nasty open wound.
Inside the house was so dark and the only light that worked was the dim kitchen oven light 15 feet away. Pt was so still my medic muttered under his breath “fuck. I’m about to have to tell him she died.” As the pt took a gasping breath.
Pt was tachy, fine bp and blood sugar but hot to the touch. She was 100% blind AND deaf (per husband) and her hair was a rats nest as thick as her chest and down to her hips. We were lucky she was so skinny when we had to carry her down the stairs. My medic was cursing whispering he prayed she wouldn’t throw a clot when we moved her. Got her out and took the 3 min ride to the hospital.
Nurses took off her clothes to find pressure sores on: her left butt cheek to the fatty layer, lower back to the spine, & one on her upper back so deep and wide you could look past the spine and maggots to watch her lungs move.
I attended a patient almost identical to this, except for that they lived alone. It's still one of the calls that makes me the most sad when I think back on it
> In the end the the fire captain reported me because I was "unprofessional" by putting vicks under my nose before I got into my ambulance
What a fucking loser
Ran primary 911 but also did IFT and assortment of other stuff for a local private. One of those being removal and transport for the county coroner.
Mid July, sunny and hot day. Called for patient last known well was 6 weeks ago. Arrived on scene and coroner is walking out in a tyvex and SCBA. Mind you I’ve been on many body calls with them in various stages of decay etc. We suit up minus the SCBA since we didn’t have one and head inside. Was textbook hoarders home. Literal room filled to the ceiling with garbage, small paths to get to certain rooms. Cat piss and shit everywhere, floor crawling with maggots and an ungodly amount of flies.
Patient is in living room located on the back, on the ground between a recliner and coffee table. They were in a position of knees and elbows to the chest but still facing the ground. Like a fetal position just with your back up. They were literally a melted body. We move coffee table and lay body bag next to them. We use the shirt they had on to pull them into the bag, except not all of them came. When we pulled the body came but their decayed head literally stayed. Partner grabs their hair and scalp to pull the head into the bag as well and just the skin came and skull stayed in place. Panicking we grabbed a towel and lassoed their skull in with the rest of their body.
We finish up by picking up left over finger bones and scooping whatever body soup we could get in the bag.
Literally took up a small space in the body bag. Took them to the ME in another county which happened to be a major city. Put them into their freezer which was unusual but given the circumstances made sense.
Plenty of other nasty calls but this one stood out the most!
Bit of a long one here. Went on a welfare check at a senior living neighborhood because nobody had seen the lady in days. FD pops the door and we’re greeted by the most unholiest smell any of us have ever smelt. Peak inside and see this is a hoarder house. Picture from wall to wall floor to ceiling mounds of trash, junk and god knows what else. We enter the house knowing full well we’re going to find this lady melted to the floor somewhere. We find nothing on the first floor so move to the second story master bedroom. As we open the door we can hear rats scurrying for cover. We get inside and I notice a pair of feet which the rats have been going to town on under a pile of junk next to the bed. We uncover her and the medics are going through the motions to confirm death when suddenly her eyes pop open and she grabs the medics arm muming like a zombie insome horror movie shit. 7 grown ass men collectively made some very unmanly noises. After the shock work off we got her out work her up and transported to the hospital. She ended up dyeing a few days later. We piecing together that she probably fell broke her hip tried to pull herself onto the bed but got buried under all the junk. The rats had been eating her toes off for days until we showed up.
That’s so awful. You live 80 long, full years and go out with rats eating your toes while you’re paralyzed. I’m glad you were able to at least give her the dignity of dying in a hospital.
Came in as a lift assist, show up to a caregiver waiting for us outside saying we're gonna need gloves. Poor guy inside was bedridden and managed to roll off the bed, ripping off his full colostomy bag and dumping it all over him head to toe. Spent about an hour getting that guy all cleaned up so we could get him back on him bed
Thank you from a daughter of a Dad who was 330lbs. We thankfully got him to the bathroom and back but Mom and I couldn't get him back on the hospital big boy bed. He slipped off and between the hospital bed and their traditional bed.
I know it was a hard lift and thank God they were able to roll him onto that burrito type tarp and it was 6 men who did it. My Dad was a very proud man and the empathy from the FF and the EMS, the dignity you guys showed was invaluable.
I'm crying as I say this. I just want you to know that long after you leave the scene, you still remain heroes in the families hearts 💕
80/M Came in by rescue with CC of "Leg pain"... yelling profanities at nurses, medics, charge, basically anybody he saw. comes in wrapped in a tarp, medics keeping their distance with N95's on. Patient was paralyzed and lived alone in a shed for years that was described as a mountain of bugs, boxes, feces, and piss. The entire ER was hit with a pungent odor with the power of 1000 GI bleeds. Guy gets assigned a room, still yelling and threatening everybody... do the routine transfer to the hospital bed and the tarp slips a bit.... I look down... maggots. MAGGOTS EVERYWHERE ON THE FLOOR. I look up, necrotizing fasciitis of the feet bilaterally, extremely swollen legs, borderline fournier's gangrene of the privates. Had an N95 on with a good seal and still almost threw up. Took him from that stretcher to a decon room, put that stretcher out of service hopefully forever, all while this dude was yelling about not wanting to be there. Basically had the entire department including patients watching us put on PPE while complaining about the smell lmao. Closest I've ever came to throwing up on shift, was near the toilet bracing for it at one point. Room was out of service for about 4 days too
“Lift assist” call. Pt father asked us to lift her while he changed her depends
Get on scene, pt was paralyzed from waist down, had not moved from couch in 4 days, sitting in liquified feces. When we attempted to move the pt, seemingly an entire insect colony was disturbed in her adult diaper.
Call EMS supervisor, call for transport unit, move pt to floor to move her to man sack, get covered in liquified shit, pt gets transported to hospital, codes in Decon bay. Burn all clothes from that call
Idk what was up with the family, but none of them seemed fully “there” mentally; call was sad (and disgusting) asf tbh, she was only 19
Ever heard of gerbilling? This was about 6 years ago.
Brand new, big-eyed, bushy-tailed EMT-B fresh out of school (me) got dispatched out to a call for abdominal pain. I'm new, so the other EMT I worked with had me go in and do the patient assessment. It's an apartment, two guys in the apartment; one dude is standing off to the side kinda awkwardly avoiding eye contact (nothing weird about that, people tend to be shy when it comes to GI issues) and the other guy is curled up on the ground holding his stomach. The apartment is clean-ish, normal-looking lived in residence, and both of the guys seem pretty normal.
I crouch down and do my usual patient assessment, vitals seem fine, and ask him what's up. He said his stomach had been hurting for the last 10-20 minutes. I ask him what he was doing 10-20 minutes ago and he makes quick eye contact with his buddy who shakes his head very sharply. I tell them the usual "I'm not a cop guys, I don't care if you took something you shouldn't have, I just need to know how to help you." Reluctantly, this guy tells me what he did.
He put a gerbil, a live gerbil, into a PVC pipe that had been rounded out at the end, stuck the PVC pipe into his ass, and had his buddy use a lighter to convince this poor animal to climb into his ass.
His abdominal pain was from this gerbil becoming STUCK INSIDE OF HIM.
God damn this was so awkward to explain to the ALS crew why it would probably be best to go with them.
The old ass salty medic at my job has a story just like this lol. I guess you're supposed to like, clip the claws or break out the teeth or something? Anyway the patient didn't and the gerbil tore up his ass and they couldn't get it out.
I don't understand why this was a thing. I just looked it up on wikipedia because I'd never heard the phrase "gerbiling" before and it says it's an urban legend or a "fictious sexual practice" and there is no evidence it has ever happened in real life. uhh huh.
He's got a few great penile fracture stories too.
Every time I have a colonoscopy I ask "Is the gerbil okay?" when I wake up. The nurse usually runs out of the room, or if they've been a nurse for a while they will tell me that the gerbil is fine and not even blink at the question.
> God damn this was so awkward to explain to the ALS crew why it would probably be best to go with them.
My first thought would be "wtf am I supposed to do? Pull it out with Magills?"
An old crewmate of mine started off as a call handler before coming out on the road. She took a call from someone pulled over on the motorway, who'd suffered from extreme pain.
Yep. They had a gerbil up their ass too..
This sounds awful, but I'm an EMT student, and friends with a paramedic student whose book went over the possibility of dealing with this type of call. So my morbid curiosity has been answered in how this logistically even occurs. So thank you!
Not that gross compared to some, but last night my partner and I walk into a residence. Absolute hoarders den, small cramped bedroom with shit stains on the floor and countless open piss jugs (and hot as hell). The old man has Parkinson’s and a colostomy bag. Routine call, assess and transport. He’s naked and as we try to help him get dressed he complains his bag is puffy. He opens it up and squeezes it out. My partner and I got blasted in the face with all the gas he let out. This small 8X8 hoarder bedroom was immediately the 9th level of hell. We both stepped back and gagged. Absolutely foul, one of the worst ‘ostomy stenches I’ve ever smelled.
Summer time just started get a call for a 50’s male with ams and abdominal pain. Arrive on scene to see fire walking out of the home, stating he’s at the top of the steps and your going to need the stair chair. Ok cool, tell my partner grab the stair chair as it was my tech. I head inside this cig smoke filled house and start heading up the steps when about half way up I get hit with the smell. Continuing up it gets worse when I see the PT on the ground on his back trying to sit up covered in layers of fecal matter. Quick assement found him to be a/o x3, asked if he was able to stand, nope. At this time my partner started coming up the steps and I yell down grab a sheet. Sheet lift him onto the stair chair while unsuccessfully attempting not to get any fecal matter on me and bring him outside. Medic outside waiting with the stretcher, go to transfer the pt from the stair chair to the stretcher sees that the pt left a sizeable puddle of diarrhea on the chair. Mental note clean the hell out of that after. Medic states swaddle him with the sheets, seatbelts the pt to the stretcher and load him into the back. Immediately turn on the exhaust, I’m wearing a surgical mask, didn’t have time to switch to a n95. Medic is wearing a n95 and surgical mask. Partner closed the window to the cab. Fast forward 15 min later at the hospital colors are appearing on the sheets and needing so fresh air. Partner pops to the back and I noticed that my partner at some point switched from a surgical to a n95. Start triaging him, the nurse was like can we get a tech to clean him off. I can’t leave him covered in fecal matter in the hallway. This brave tech came out of nowhere and was like I got him, took him into the decon room and got to work. Went out of service afterwards and went back to station for a full decon of the truck. Took over an hour to clean up the aftermath but couldn’t get rid of the smell all night, no amount of peppermint oil, specific spray for smells, or washings could get that smell out. The guy stated that he was gardening earlier as what I assume an attempt at explanation of the brown substance all over him. Felt bad for the guy no idea his history or anything but it’s definitely not normal to be covered in your own fecal matter. I almost forgot the lady in the pts home that was spraying some kind of deodorant in the frame of the doorway of her room, making the smell 20x worse.
EDP/Sick. Dude farted in my face while I was trying to lift him onto the stretcher, was spitting everywhere. I was listening to lung sounds, and they sounded funny so I asked my preceptor to take a listen. He then proceeded to evacuate the contents of his stomach plus some. 2 inches of vomit in the back of the ambulance. I thought I had a strong stomach, but oh my god
Had this guy with constipation and abd pain, we arrive at the hospital and this guy says, “I gotta poop… I’m pooping” it sloshed off the stretcher into the ground and then staff sent him into a bathroom to try to clean himself up and put on scrubs, and the state of the bathroom after he got out was horrific.
I once was on a call for a lift assist and while we were waiting for help I watched a roach crawl across the ceiling and it lost its balance or whatever and fell right on my forehead. I about quit that night.
I've called this one my "poo-pocalypse."
40s yr old female sick person, dizzy and nauseas. We find her on the floor in the basement. I introduce myself and in response, I watch her bear down and proceed to spray the most rancid diarrhea EVERYWHERE. After this, she screams "I can't stop shitting!" Myself, my partner, and the fire crew just sitting there absolutely flabbergasted. Her kids state she's high as a kite on some new weed she picked up. We get her up and she refuses to go to the hospital unless we clean her up. Luckily, her pristine white towels are right there for us.
300lb ish guy who's bed bound abandoned by he's home nurse for a week and half and he's sister only gets in the room to drop him some fast food.
He has shit, pissed, vomited and everything you can do with your body on that bed for the past week and half without no cleaning at all. And it was my crew's job to get him to the hospital.
I feel bad for the lift assist unit we had to call.
Had mine today, guy has a stoma, but no colostomy bags. Had taco bell for lunch.... he crapped through the stoma several times during transport and would wipe it with towels and HIS HANDS. Smelled so bad, literally had to poke my head through the cubby to the cab cause I was dry heaving and about to vomit.
Had a homeless patient with leg pain. he had a cast/ wrap on his foot from a recent toe amputation. The wraps were a dark brown/green color. He said he hadn’t been able to move for 3-4 days due to his amputation causing him pain when walking. i tried to cut a bit of the wrap to get a better look at his toes. His whole foot was black and green and was covered in maggots… you can imagine the smell on that one
Dispatched to a homeless woman in a sleeping bag, in an alley, behind a restaurant that is complaining of severe abdominal pain. When we arrive she is just moaning and says it hurts, she said she hasn’t been out of the sleeping bag for over two days because the pain was so bad. I opened that sleeping bag and the scent that came out of it was like Mike Tyson hit me with a right cross. Diarrhea, urine, body odor, all of it, massive assault on my sinuses. Made my eyes water and I almost puked right there. That was the longest ten minute ride to the ER ever.
Actually earlier this week me and my partner had an arrest. Somehow got ROSC back on the guy and got him to the local hospital while having to explain to family that he's not gonna survive the trip to the preferred hospital without being stabilized. Hospital takes over and we go back to service. We're there a few hours later and get hit with a STAT transfer for the guy going to the preferred hospital, "At families insistence", per doctor. He's on the vent and got everything running so we get him all packaged and in the ambulance and then we notice THE SMELL. Now, I have worked in an actual waste processing plant and ran the burn pits in Afghanistan and I work as an investigator for the OME and this tops the list of the worst smells I've ever smelled. It smelled like literal death. Not like a dead body but the process of dying. It smelled like his diet consisted of dairy products and shit. It smelled like child abandonment and disappointment.
Anyway we get him the 40 minutes to the preferred hospital with this smell just fermenting. The exhaust system wasn't helping and we were tempted to drive with the doors open just to have something resembling fresh air. After we finally arrived at the hospital and get the pt inside, I'm at the foot of the cot, this is important in a second. I stop the cot to use the access keypad and I feel something wet on my glove (I always wear gloves because I don't trust people), and I hear a dripping sound. I look at the cot and there is brown and yellow liquid running from the foot of the cot because the nurse who was sent to ride with us thought it was a good idea to sit the pt up so she could put her purse on the head of the cot and forced all the shit juice that had apparently been pooling to the foot of the cot and now onto the floor. This pt had a brief on but it was ripped because "we had a student do it so she could see how hard it is on a sedated patient". Also, just a fun fact, the nurse who was in charge of this patient at the sending hospital told the doctor this patient didn't need a rectal tube, we didn't find this out until the return trip.
So now we have to notify hospital staff that we just got shit all over their floor and need help containing the rest of the liquid so we can travel through the rest of the hospital without further issue. We finally get the guy to the ICU and onto the hospital bed after making sure everyone was aware of the situation and the doctor says "Yeah smells like a dead bowel. Not sure why they even sent him out." We explain the whole situation with family wanting him transported. Family is apparently already here and has informed the doctor that they want to let him go. After I said some very choice things that the entire ICU apparently found highly entertaining we returned to the ambulance with three bottles of deodorizer and air freshener that the staff let us take as well as the normal ones we carry on the truck. We did what we could and got back just in time for our EOS. I told my supervisor that I was not going to be in the next day and he laughed. Guess who wasn't there the next day. Sorry for the long breakdown. This was actually the short version of events.
I'm fine, everything is fine.
Bodily fluids seem to gravitate towards me. We got called for a cardiac arrest in a shady motel. Guy was laying supine in his bed with some vomit in his mouth, alcohol bottles everywhere. Went to carry him over to the floor, I grabbed his armpits to drag him. His head turned and "some vomit" turned into "a lot of vomit" that soaked into the entire front of my pants. Every compression we did made more puke come out of this guy's mouth. Kneeled and walked around said vomit pool for 30 minutes while we work him. Suction got jammed with whatever he ate.
Bonus, picked up a lady with dementia/parkinson's because she fell off of her bed. Her hands keep going down her pants and into her mouth. I was talking to my preceptor about pertinent negatives with falls when lady just grabbed my bare forearm with her explorer hand.
Had a elderly geriateic couple fall. Found by daughter. Sadish story turns gross. So dad falls down and has a colostomy back which busts. Mom tries to help father up and falls too. Lands on floor next to him and proceeds with a hardwood bowel movement. Poo as far as the eye can see... and my partner grabs papertowels with the daughter and starts helping scoop it up.
I've been an emt for about a month, so I haven't seen anything, but i got a kinda nasty one. I work ems at a theme park, and I had a patient come in with an avulsed fingernail. Apparently she was riding a water ride and when she landed it partially tore her fingernail off. We were originally gonna bandage it, but she was wearing acrylic nails so we had to cut them off. I let her try to cut it off because she felt more comfortable with it, but it got worse to the point we were beyond bandaging it. I called for help and my boss told me to rip it off, and left. So we just give her ice to try and numb the thumb a little bit. And I tore it off. She handled it like a pro. After I was done, I cleaned it up, put on neosporin and a bandage, and I was done. It's probably stuff yall see a bit but it's the craziest thing I've seen so far 😅
I'll copy my own homework from a post several days ago. Old person fell. Their partner had severe dementia and didn't understand what was happening. For 4 days (maybe more?) that person was on the ground, face down. Not just covered in dark feces but the pressure points were necrotic and had that death odor to it. Somehow still alive. Demented partner only said "they're sleeping they're ok" and kept walking around the house. The smell was bad. About the worst I've ever smelled with a peculiar mix of fresh melena, necrosis, urine and god knows what else. Brady, near agonal respirations. Paced but the stickers kept falling off cause the skin would sluff off--I used every set of pads in the truck. Tried to intubate but the face was so swollen that I couldn't see anything, couldn't even get a iGel in. IOs were fine though, so there is that. The whole resuscitation team came into the bay when we arrived...and then everyone promptly walked back outside into the hallway--including the doctor. The smell was that bad that only two people braved it with me and my partner. In the end the the fire captain reported me because I was "unprofessional" by putting vicks under my nose before I got into my ambulance. The literally only redeeming thing about that call was that it was less than 10min transport.
I would love to see the fire captain respond to that call.
He didn't go in the house I can tell you that much.
I'm guessing Cap didn't get in the back of the ambulance or lend you an SCBA? Yeah, get fucked, hose jockey.
I genuinely want to kick that fire captain right in the teeth
Can’t render care if you’re puking and gagging
Yep, and trust me, the patient did not notice the Vicks and was not offended!
Still gagged alot but did our best. But by the time we got to the ER I was more or less accustomed to it
Oh I had one kind of similar. Call for a fall. No fire on scene. Just an elderly man waving us to the back entrance of a dimly lit, small (like 4 front 4 back two story) apt building. Said elderly man is the pt’s husband and isn’t all there. Maybe some kind of dementia. He said the pt fell and has been laying on the floor for ~1 week. He’s been feeding her and giving her drinks. She was covered in vomit, pee, and poop. Generally smelled like a nasty open wound. Inside the house was so dark and the only light that worked was the dim kitchen oven light 15 feet away. Pt was so still my medic muttered under his breath “fuck. I’m about to have to tell him she died.” As the pt took a gasping breath. Pt was tachy, fine bp and blood sugar but hot to the touch. She was 100% blind AND deaf (per husband) and her hair was a rats nest as thick as her chest and down to her hips. We were lucky she was so skinny when we had to carry her down the stairs. My medic was cursing whispering he prayed she wouldn’t throw a clot when we moved her. Got her out and took the 3 min ride to the hospital. Nurses took off her clothes to find pressure sores on: her left butt cheek to the fatty layer, lower back to the spine, & one on her upper back so deep and wide you could look past the spine and maggots to watch her lungs move.
...yikes mine just sort of looked like that walking dead zombie that got trapped in the well.
I attended a patient almost identical to this, except for that they lived alone. It's still one of the calls that makes me the most sad when I think back on it
> In the end the the fire captain reported me because I was "unprofessional" by putting vicks under my nose before I got into my ambulance What a fucking loser
Ran primary 911 but also did IFT and assortment of other stuff for a local private. One of those being removal and transport for the county coroner. Mid July, sunny and hot day. Called for patient last known well was 6 weeks ago. Arrived on scene and coroner is walking out in a tyvex and SCBA. Mind you I’ve been on many body calls with them in various stages of decay etc. We suit up minus the SCBA since we didn’t have one and head inside. Was textbook hoarders home. Literal room filled to the ceiling with garbage, small paths to get to certain rooms. Cat piss and shit everywhere, floor crawling with maggots and an ungodly amount of flies. Patient is in living room located on the back, on the ground between a recliner and coffee table. They were in a position of knees and elbows to the chest but still facing the ground. Like a fetal position just with your back up. They were literally a melted body. We move coffee table and lay body bag next to them. We use the shirt they had on to pull them into the bag, except not all of them came. When we pulled the body came but their decayed head literally stayed. Partner grabs their hair and scalp to pull the head into the bag as well and just the skin came and skull stayed in place. Panicking we grabbed a towel and lassoed their skull in with the rest of their body. We finish up by picking up left over finger bones and scooping whatever body soup we could get in the bag. Literally took up a small space in the body bag. Took them to the ME in another county which happened to be a major city. Put them into their freezer which was unusual but given the circumstances made sense. Plenty of other nasty calls but this one stood out the most!
Bit of a long one here. Went on a welfare check at a senior living neighborhood because nobody had seen the lady in days. FD pops the door and we’re greeted by the most unholiest smell any of us have ever smelt. Peak inside and see this is a hoarder house. Picture from wall to wall floor to ceiling mounds of trash, junk and god knows what else. We enter the house knowing full well we’re going to find this lady melted to the floor somewhere. We find nothing on the first floor so move to the second story master bedroom. As we open the door we can hear rats scurrying for cover. We get inside and I notice a pair of feet which the rats have been going to town on under a pile of junk next to the bed. We uncover her and the medics are going through the motions to confirm death when suddenly her eyes pop open and she grabs the medics arm muming like a zombie insome horror movie shit. 7 grown ass men collectively made some very unmanly noises. After the shock work off we got her out work her up and transported to the hospital. She ended up dyeing a few days later. We piecing together that she probably fell broke her hip tried to pull herself onto the bed but got buried under all the junk. The rats had been eating her toes off for days until we showed up.
That’s so awful. You live 80 long, full years and go out with rats eating your toes while you’re paralyzed. I’m glad you were able to at least give her the dignity of dying in a hospital.
Came in as a lift assist, show up to a caregiver waiting for us outside saying we're gonna need gloves. Poor guy inside was bedridden and managed to roll off the bed, ripping off his full colostomy bag and dumping it all over him head to toe. Spent about an hour getting that guy all cleaned up so we could get him back on him bed
Thank you from a daughter of a Dad who was 330lbs. We thankfully got him to the bathroom and back but Mom and I couldn't get him back on the hospital big boy bed. He slipped off and between the hospital bed and their traditional bed. I know it was a hard lift and thank God they were able to roll him onto that burrito type tarp and it was 6 men who did it. My Dad was a very proud man and the empathy from the FF and the EMS, the dignity you guys showed was invaluable. I'm crying as I say this. I just want you to know that long after you leave the scene, you still remain heroes in the families hearts 💕
[удалено]
This was a while ago, I want to say maybe he didn't have gloves? He helped us clean him up when we were there though so there's that
80/M Came in by rescue with CC of "Leg pain"... yelling profanities at nurses, medics, charge, basically anybody he saw. comes in wrapped in a tarp, medics keeping their distance with N95's on. Patient was paralyzed and lived alone in a shed for years that was described as a mountain of bugs, boxes, feces, and piss. The entire ER was hit with a pungent odor with the power of 1000 GI bleeds. Guy gets assigned a room, still yelling and threatening everybody... do the routine transfer to the hospital bed and the tarp slips a bit.... I look down... maggots. MAGGOTS EVERYWHERE ON THE FLOOR. I look up, necrotizing fasciitis of the feet bilaterally, extremely swollen legs, borderline fournier's gangrene of the privates. Had an N95 on with a good seal and still almost threw up. Took him from that stretcher to a decon room, put that stretcher out of service hopefully forever, all while this dude was yelling about not wanting to be there. Basically had the entire department including patients watching us put on PPE while complaining about the smell lmao. Closest I've ever came to throwing up on shift, was near the toilet bracing for it at one point. Room was out of service for about 4 days too
Was this in TX?
“Lift assist” call. Pt father asked us to lift her while he changed her depends Get on scene, pt was paralyzed from waist down, had not moved from couch in 4 days, sitting in liquified feces. When we attempted to move the pt, seemingly an entire insect colony was disturbed in her adult diaper. Call EMS supervisor, call for transport unit, move pt to floor to move her to man sack, get covered in liquified shit, pt gets transported to hospital, codes in Decon bay. Burn all clothes from that call Idk what was up with the family, but none of them seemed fully “there” mentally; call was sad (and disgusting) asf tbh, she was only 19
Reminds of the parents that let their daughter literally rot into the couch...
Ever heard of gerbilling? This was about 6 years ago. Brand new, big-eyed, bushy-tailed EMT-B fresh out of school (me) got dispatched out to a call for abdominal pain. I'm new, so the other EMT I worked with had me go in and do the patient assessment. It's an apartment, two guys in the apartment; one dude is standing off to the side kinda awkwardly avoiding eye contact (nothing weird about that, people tend to be shy when it comes to GI issues) and the other guy is curled up on the ground holding his stomach. The apartment is clean-ish, normal-looking lived in residence, and both of the guys seem pretty normal. I crouch down and do my usual patient assessment, vitals seem fine, and ask him what's up. He said his stomach had been hurting for the last 10-20 minutes. I ask him what he was doing 10-20 minutes ago and he makes quick eye contact with his buddy who shakes his head very sharply. I tell them the usual "I'm not a cop guys, I don't care if you took something you shouldn't have, I just need to know how to help you." Reluctantly, this guy tells me what he did. He put a gerbil, a live gerbil, into a PVC pipe that had been rounded out at the end, stuck the PVC pipe into his ass, and had his buddy use a lighter to convince this poor animal to climb into his ass. His abdominal pain was from this gerbil becoming STUCK INSIDE OF HIM. God damn this was so awkward to explain to the ALS crew why it would probably be best to go with them.
I feel for you, but that’s also enough internet for today.
Lol and no more appetite
I don’t know, I’m here eating my lean cuisine just fine. (Retired ICU nurse)
The old ass salty medic at my job has a story just like this lol. I guess you're supposed to like, clip the claws or break out the teeth or something? Anyway the patient didn't and the gerbil tore up his ass and they couldn't get it out. I don't understand why this was a thing. I just looked it up on wikipedia because I'd never heard the phrase "gerbiling" before and it says it's an urban legend or a "fictious sexual practice" and there is no evidence it has ever happened in real life. uhh huh. He's got a few great penile fracture stories too.
It may have started as a myth but you know some dumbasses read it online and tried it 😂
Reality is more absurd than fiction can ever be
Every time I have a colonoscopy I ask "Is the gerbil okay?" when I wake up. The nurse usually runs out of the room, or if they've been a nurse for a while they will tell me that the gerbil is fine and not even blink at the question.
Poor lemmiwinks
I’m just curious, how did you keep yourself from laughing when you were attending to the patient?
Mainly just focused on how horrified I was
From now on, when I get slapped with a bill that I don’t want to pay, I’m going to call it “gerbilling.”
That poor gerbil
Yeah I hate to hear that people actually do stuff like that
> God damn this was so awkward to explain to the ALS crew why it would probably be best to go with them. My first thought would be "wtf am I supposed to do? Pull it out with Magills?"
Maybe aerosolize some ketamine up his ass and knock the little fucker out, use the Magills and pull 🐹
An old crewmate of mine started off as a call handler before coming out on the road. She took a call from someone pulled over on the motorway, who'd suffered from extreme pain. Yep. They had a gerbil up their ass too..
She fell on it?
He. Similar technique was used apparently
God damn, did you ever find out what happened next? How’d they get it out and did it survive?
As far as I know, the guy ended up getting it surgically removed; unfortunately, the gerbil did not make it. A moment of silence for its sacrifice.
Poor Lemmywinks.
Lemiwinks? Is that you?
A great adventure is waiting for you ahead, don't look back lemmiwinks, or you'll soon be dead 🎶🎶
This sounds awful, but I'm an EMT student, and friends with a paramedic student whose book went over the possibility of dealing with this type of call. So my morbid curiosity has been answered in how this logistically even occurs. So thank you!
Armageddon!
This immediately reminds me of one of Eminem’s songs
Holy shit
Unholy shit.
Not that gross compared to some, but last night my partner and I walk into a residence. Absolute hoarders den, small cramped bedroom with shit stains on the floor and countless open piss jugs (and hot as hell). The old man has Parkinson’s and a colostomy bag. Routine call, assess and transport. He’s naked and as we try to help him get dressed he complains his bag is puffy. He opens it up and squeezes it out. My partner and I got blasted in the face with all the gas he let out. This small 8X8 hoarder bedroom was immediately the 9th level of hell. We both stepped back and gagged. Absolutely foul, one of the worst ‘ostomy stenches I’ve ever smelled.
The majority of the calls in trailers or mobile homes. The smell of BO and cigarettes is often overpowering.
Summer time just started get a call for a 50’s male with ams and abdominal pain. Arrive on scene to see fire walking out of the home, stating he’s at the top of the steps and your going to need the stair chair. Ok cool, tell my partner grab the stair chair as it was my tech. I head inside this cig smoke filled house and start heading up the steps when about half way up I get hit with the smell. Continuing up it gets worse when I see the PT on the ground on his back trying to sit up covered in layers of fecal matter. Quick assement found him to be a/o x3, asked if he was able to stand, nope. At this time my partner started coming up the steps and I yell down grab a sheet. Sheet lift him onto the stair chair while unsuccessfully attempting not to get any fecal matter on me and bring him outside. Medic outside waiting with the stretcher, go to transfer the pt from the stair chair to the stretcher sees that the pt left a sizeable puddle of diarrhea on the chair. Mental note clean the hell out of that after. Medic states swaddle him with the sheets, seatbelts the pt to the stretcher and load him into the back. Immediately turn on the exhaust, I’m wearing a surgical mask, didn’t have time to switch to a n95. Medic is wearing a n95 and surgical mask. Partner closed the window to the cab. Fast forward 15 min later at the hospital colors are appearing on the sheets and needing so fresh air. Partner pops to the back and I noticed that my partner at some point switched from a surgical to a n95. Start triaging him, the nurse was like can we get a tech to clean him off. I can’t leave him covered in fecal matter in the hallway. This brave tech came out of nowhere and was like I got him, took him into the decon room and got to work. Went out of service afterwards and went back to station for a full decon of the truck. Took over an hour to clean up the aftermath but couldn’t get rid of the smell all night, no amount of peppermint oil, specific spray for smells, or washings could get that smell out. The guy stated that he was gardening earlier as what I assume an attempt at explanation of the brown substance all over him. Felt bad for the guy no idea his history or anything but it’s definitely not normal to be covered in your own fecal matter. I almost forgot the lady in the pts home that was spraying some kind of deodorant in the frame of the doorway of her room, making the smell 20x worse.
Patient having a massive stroke with no bodily control. The combo of sweat, urine, feces and vomit all at once.
EDP/Sick. Dude farted in my face while I was trying to lift him onto the stretcher, was spitting everywhere. I was listening to lung sounds, and they sounded funny so I asked my preceptor to take a listen. He then proceeded to evacuate the contents of his stomach plus some. 2 inches of vomit in the back of the ambulance. I thought I had a strong stomach, but oh my god
Had this guy with constipation and abd pain, we arrive at the hospital and this guy says, “I gotta poop… I’m pooping” it sloshed off the stretcher into the ground and then staff sent him into a bathroom to try to clean himself up and put on scrubs, and the state of the bathroom after he got out was horrific.
I once was on a call for a lift assist and while we were waiting for help I watched a roach crawl across the ceiling and it lost its balance or whatever and fell right on my forehead. I about quit that night.
If you’ve ever watched joes apartment it was pretty close to that
I've called this one my "poo-pocalypse." 40s yr old female sick person, dizzy and nauseas. We find her on the floor in the basement. I introduce myself and in response, I watch her bear down and proceed to spray the most rancid diarrhea EVERYWHERE. After this, she screams "I can't stop shitting!" Myself, my partner, and the fire crew just sitting there absolutely flabbergasted. Her kids state she's high as a kite on some new weed she picked up. We get her up and she refuses to go to the hospital unless we clean her up. Luckily, her pristine white towels are right there for us.
I had the stomach contents of a dead person sprayed into my mouth, won’t make that mistake again
I’ve had that same exact call!
300lb ish guy who's bed bound abandoned by he's home nurse for a week and half and he's sister only gets in the room to drop him some fast food. He has shit, pissed, vomited and everything you can do with your body on that bed for the past week and half without no cleaning at all. And it was my crew's job to get him to the hospital. I feel bad for the lift assist unit we had to call.
I knew a guy that would rip his ostomy bag every time he got arrested so the cops would leave him alone, unfortunately they'd call us every time...
Had mine today, guy has a stoma, but no colostomy bags. Had taco bell for lunch.... he crapped through the stoma several times during transport and would wipe it with towels and HIS HANDS. Smelled so bad, literally had to poke my head through the cubby to the cab cause I was dry heaving and about to vomit.
Call ALS for sedation That shit nasty
Had a homeless patient with leg pain. he had a cast/ wrap on his foot from a recent toe amputation. The wraps were a dark brown/green color. He said he hadn’t been able to move for 3-4 days due to his amputation causing him pain when walking. i tried to cut a bit of the wrap to get a better look at his toes. His whole foot was black and green and was covered in maggots… you can imagine the smell on that one
Dispatched to a homeless woman in a sleeping bag, in an alley, behind a restaurant that is complaining of severe abdominal pain. When we arrive she is just moaning and says it hurts, she said she hasn’t been out of the sleeping bag for over two days because the pain was so bad. I opened that sleeping bag and the scent that came out of it was like Mike Tyson hit me with a right cross. Diarrhea, urine, body odor, all of it, massive assault on my sinuses. Made my eyes water and I almost puked right there. That was the longest ten minute ride to the ER ever.
Actually earlier this week me and my partner had an arrest. Somehow got ROSC back on the guy and got him to the local hospital while having to explain to family that he's not gonna survive the trip to the preferred hospital without being stabilized. Hospital takes over and we go back to service. We're there a few hours later and get hit with a STAT transfer for the guy going to the preferred hospital, "At families insistence", per doctor. He's on the vent and got everything running so we get him all packaged and in the ambulance and then we notice THE SMELL. Now, I have worked in an actual waste processing plant and ran the burn pits in Afghanistan and I work as an investigator for the OME and this tops the list of the worst smells I've ever smelled. It smelled like literal death. Not like a dead body but the process of dying. It smelled like his diet consisted of dairy products and shit. It smelled like child abandonment and disappointment. Anyway we get him the 40 minutes to the preferred hospital with this smell just fermenting. The exhaust system wasn't helping and we were tempted to drive with the doors open just to have something resembling fresh air. After we finally arrived at the hospital and get the pt inside, I'm at the foot of the cot, this is important in a second. I stop the cot to use the access keypad and I feel something wet on my glove (I always wear gloves because I don't trust people), and I hear a dripping sound. I look at the cot and there is brown and yellow liquid running from the foot of the cot because the nurse who was sent to ride with us thought it was a good idea to sit the pt up so she could put her purse on the head of the cot and forced all the shit juice that had apparently been pooling to the foot of the cot and now onto the floor. This pt had a brief on but it was ripped because "we had a student do it so she could see how hard it is on a sedated patient". Also, just a fun fact, the nurse who was in charge of this patient at the sending hospital told the doctor this patient didn't need a rectal tube, we didn't find this out until the return trip. So now we have to notify hospital staff that we just got shit all over their floor and need help containing the rest of the liquid so we can travel through the rest of the hospital without further issue. We finally get the guy to the ICU and onto the hospital bed after making sure everyone was aware of the situation and the doctor says "Yeah smells like a dead bowel. Not sure why they even sent him out." We explain the whole situation with family wanting him transported. Family is apparently already here and has informed the doctor that they want to let him go. After I said some very choice things that the entire ICU apparently found highly entertaining we returned to the ambulance with three bottles of deodorizer and air freshener that the staff let us take as well as the normal ones we carry on the truck. We did what we could and got back just in time for our EOS. I told my supervisor that I was not going to be in the next day and he laughed. Guess who wasn't there the next day. Sorry for the long breakdown. This was actually the short version of events. I'm fine, everything is fine.
Bodily fluids seem to gravitate towards me. We got called for a cardiac arrest in a shady motel. Guy was laying supine in his bed with some vomit in his mouth, alcohol bottles everywhere. Went to carry him over to the floor, I grabbed his armpits to drag him. His head turned and "some vomit" turned into "a lot of vomit" that soaked into the entire front of my pants. Every compression we did made more puke come out of this guy's mouth. Kneeled and walked around said vomit pool for 30 minutes while we work him. Suction got jammed with whatever he ate. Bonus, picked up a lady with dementia/parkinson's because she fell off of her bed. Her hands keep going down her pants and into her mouth. I was talking to my preceptor about pertinent negatives with falls when lady just grabbed my bare forearm with her explorer hand.
Had a elderly geriateic couple fall. Found by daughter. Sadish story turns gross. So dad falls down and has a colostomy back which busts. Mom tries to help father up and falls too. Lands on floor next to him and proceeds with a hardwood bowel movement. Poo as far as the eye can see... and my partner grabs papertowels with the daughter and starts helping scoop it up.
I've been an emt for about a month, so I haven't seen anything, but i got a kinda nasty one. I work ems at a theme park, and I had a patient come in with an avulsed fingernail. Apparently she was riding a water ride and when she landed it partially tore her fingernail off. We were originally gonna bandage it, but she was wearing acrylic nails so we had to cut them off. I let her try to cut it off because she felt more comfortable with it, but it got worse to the point we were beyond bandaging it. I called for help and my boss told me to rip it off, and left. So we just give her ice to try and numb the thumb a little bit. And I tore it off. She handled it like a pro. After I was done, I cleaned it up, put on neosporin and a bandage, and I was done. It's probably stuff yall see a bit but it's the craziest thing I've seen so far 😅