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Medical Folks Shared 68 Times People Learned The Hard Way That Tiny Causes Can Have Huge Consequences
We all make some decisions without giving them much thought. Most of the time, they are harmless. But now and then, one seemingly minor choice can send things seriously off course.
Medical workers have seen plenty of these cases up close, and some of the stories are hard to forget. We found a Reddit thread where medical professionals shared shocking cases of small choices with surprisingly serious consequences, and we’ve rounded up some of the wildest ones. Scroll through for some jaw-dropping stories you probably won’t see coming.
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#1
My husband fell while fishing in our local river. Took a large gash to the shin.
We had to pass a hospital and 2 urgent care facilities to get home. I encouraged him each time to stop in and get it professionally cleaned and bandaged. But noOoOOooOo. He flat refused.
Went home, said he washed it with soap and water when he was in the shower.
The result was cellulitis so severe it took 3 rounds of antibiotics, 2 urgent care visits, 1 hospital visit for surgical debridement, and multiple gp follow ups. He could have lost his leg.
It finally did heal but it took a very long time. And now, 3 years later, the skin is so delicate that a casual bump against it opens the skin right back up.
So next time your wife says “hey, you should get that looked at” save yourself a little agony and take the suggestion.
Upstaged75 1 day ago
Men can be so frustrating about stuff like that! They think they're d.ying when they have a cold but refuse to go to the doctor when something's seriously wrong. 😂 (And before you get your panties in a twist, I'm aware that all men are not like that. Which is why I used the word CAN.)
RELATED:
#2
Mortician here: refusal to wear a seatbelt has sent more people into my care than I ever expected.
Upstaged75 1 day ago
There's really no excuse. I can't even do it - it makes me feel like I forgot to wear pants or something.
#3
I work in a specialist musculoskeletal hospital. I've met three patients who suffered various levels of paralysis, including quadriplegia, from sneezing. You can also rupture your larynx. Do NOT hold in a sneeze!
Kirsten Kerkhof 1 day ago
I sneeze for no reason at all and all the time. I cannot hold in a sneeze for the life of me. And it isn't a dainty sneeze either ...
It is funny how the things we barely think about can end up mattering the most. You buckle your seatbelt, take a sip of water, pop a pill, step into the pool, and carry on with your day. Most of those moments are so ordinary that you would never expect them to become part of a medical emergency.
Then you hear a story from someone who works in healthcare and think, “Wait, that’s how it happened?” Now you are reconsidering a few of the things you do on autopilot every day.
#4
Had a dialysis patient with consistently high potassium levels and large fluid gains between dialysis treatments.
Wouldn't give up orange juice.
Passed away one weekend from sudden cardiac arrest (heart stopped beating) due to high potassium.
#5
Young dude wakes up, cracks his neck, then all of a sudden he's got a cut in his visual field and his face is numb. He ended up having a stroke from a vertebral dissection.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 1 day ago
I personally cannot stand the sound of cracking joints (knuckles, neck, back, anything) so I never purposefully crack any of my bony bits. Next time my mom insists that going to the chiropractor will "cure" my migraines, I'll tell her I'm afraid of a vertebral dissection XD
#6
Cat bites. Those little fangs can pierce deep and cat mouths are full of nasty bacteria. People think "oh it's just a little bite" and ignore it, by the time you realize something's wrong it might be too late. Sepsis doesn't care if it was "just a little bite.".
Upstaged75 1 day ago
I had to go to the ER one time after my cat bit me on the wrist and punctured a vein. (She didn't bite me on purpose - I was breaking up a fight) The cats were fine but I ended up pumping blood all over the place. 😁 They take cat bites very seriously. And then they inform Animal Control. Which ended up with me trying to convince Animal Control that my cat was not vicious nor did she have rabies.
A short drive can make people feel like safety rules are optional, especially when the destination is just around the corner. World Health Organization says wearing a seatbelt can reduce the risk of fatal injury among vehicle occupants by up to 50%.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also estimates that seatbelts saved nearly 15,000 lives in the U.S. in 2017 alone. Putting on your seatbelt before you pull out of the driveway really can make a huge difference when a routine drive takes an unexpected turn.
#7
I had a guy this week with very poorly controlled diabetes. Apparently his phone screen was cracked and wasn’t working well so he was aggressively smashing the screen with his finger trying to get it to register. Well that broke the skin and created a little wound which never really healed because of his diabetes.
The cut got infected and started slowly eating away his finger. By the time he finally came to the hospital (he lives in the middle of nowhere) the bone was poking out and the surgeons had to take off most of the finger to make sure it didn’t progress. So now he’s down a right index finger because he tapped his phone screen too hard.
#8
Had a rather young patient who ignored a small brown spot until it became a bigger black spot that turned into an even bigger black lump, that then started causing their leg to swell. They finally went to the doctor when they couldn’t get it to stop bleeding. By then it was too late. They passed away from metastatic melanoma less than 2 months later.
Don’t ignore changing skin spots.
Shelli Aderman 1 day ago
Especially for us Gen Xers and older who basically sunbathed with tinfoil and baby oil! 🤦🏻♀️
#9
I'm an RN that worked on a cardiac floor. Multiple times per month we get patients who had debilitating strokes due to being unable to take their blood pressure medications. The reason why was because they were homeless and had nowhere to keep their meds.
Medication is another everyday thing that can go wrong in ways you might never see coming. You take the wrong dose, grab the wrong bottle, or misread an instruction, and a routine part of your day can turn into a medical problem.
The World Health Organization estimates that medication-related harm accounts for nearly half of preventable incidents in medical care. And it does not always come down to someone being careless. Being tired, distracted, in a hurry, or confused by similar-looking medicines can be enough to cause a mix-up.
#10
Choked on a cough drop after falling asleep with it in their mouth. Sustained an anoxic brain injury. And a stroke during recovery (causing more brain damage) resulting in the person living in a nursing home in their 20s.
#11
Me personally. I needed 5 surgeries (2 overnight) and about $100,000 worth of medical care because I changed my toilet seat.
ETA Details: I needed to replace my toilet seat. On a whim, got a padded one. Terrible mistake. Because I always flush with the lid down, and the padding provided a moisture-resistant seal, I ended up with a bunch of bacteria growing on the underside of the lid. This led to me getting a persistent UTI that I couldn't shake. By the time I considered the toilet seat as the cause and started wiping it each day with antibacterial wipes, it was too late.
I went to a urologist, who tested for cancer, said I didn't have it, and didn't seem concerned, so I just lived with it. I ate crasins and cranberry juice to reduce symptoms and dealt with the pain.
After at least a year a routine urine test from my regular doctor showed I had blood in my urine. She was worried I might have kidney stones, and ordered an ultrasound and CAT scan. Boy was she right. My kidney was at least 1/4 stones. They weren't passing, just hiding out quietly in my kidneys, growing.
Staghorn kidney stones will hold bacteria safely tucked away from antibiotics, so no matter what I took to clear up the infection they came back. And the bacteria made the kidney stones grow.
It took 2 surgeries where they cut into my back and inserted a laser to blast away the stones. Then 2 more using sound waves to clean up the residuals. One more to take out the stent because it had gotten cemented to the walls of my bladder by flakes of kidney stone.
Because one of the surgeries went through my diaphragm, it hurt to breath for 6 weeks, and to take a deep breath like a yawn or sneeze for 6 months.
All because I wanted a comphy toilet seat.
#12
New parents struggling financially diluted their baby formula to make it last longer. The excess water messed with baby’s kidneys and electrolyte levels, mainly sodium. Baby’s brain swelled and she seized repeatedly, stopped breathing, and eventually passed away. We did everything we could for her but it was pretty much all a moot point by the time parents called 911 :(.
Feeling hot is such a normal part of a warm day that most of us barely give it a second thought. You sweat, feel a little tired, grab some water, and carry on with whatever you were doing. But prolonged heat can put real stress on the body.
According to Dr. Raukar, heat exhaustion happens when the body struggles to cool itself properly. And if it progresses to heatstroke, it can potentially cause damage to the brain and other organs.
#13
These are all pretty gnarly compared to this, but I’m a dentist and I have seen multiple young people lose their lower front teeth and a big chunk of bone because they had a metal tongue stud that they would play with by flicking it against their gums for years. Sometimes with no other problems going on.
sturmwesen 1 day ago
I got rid of lip and tongue piercing after my dentist mentioned how they already have altered teeths and gum. 10 years and I still miss them.😐
#14
Positive cologuard ignored and patient declined colonoscopy for years.
Now has end stage metastatic cancer that likely could have been completely prevented with a simple outpatient procedure.
StrangeOne 1 day ago
I know it's easy to think people who refuse certain health care are idiots who shouldn't get any sympathy when something bad happens to them as a result. But please keep in mind there is a mentality side to some procedures that some patience just cannot bring themselves to go through without having a major anxiety attack just thinking about it. Some people decide for themselves that if they get ill they will accept it as it is. Especially those who are late in their years and feel they've gone through enough.
#15
A while ago we had a guy come in, he was helping a friend move and felt a pop in his torso. He thought it was just his spine or something, but a couple days later his feet started getting numb and was having abdominal pain. Came to the emergency department and was diagnosed with an aortic dissection that had traveled down his femoral arteries. He was paralyzed from the waist down. Passed away 3 days later.
Grm Moore 16 hours ago
Friend had aortic dissection. Taken to hospital, half hour ambulance drive away. First doc diagnosed correctly, over ruled by senior. Left in a bed for 5 days! No pain relief, dragged from bed told to walk by nurses. day 5 new doc noticed no scans done, did one and found 6 rips! No apology. She lived another 12 years though.
An ordinary meal can become a medical emergency for someone with a severe food allergy. Expert guidelines on anaphylaxis warn that allergic reactions can become fatal, which is why epinephrine is recommended as the first-line treatment to help control the reaction.
Sadly, many people have lost their lives because the right treatment was not available when they needed it.
#16
Haemolytic strep A due to a small graze from a rose thorn. Husband had brought her flowers from the garden, she held them to her chest while getting scissors out in the kitchen, got a small cut from a thorn which then got infected, passed away in ICU less than 72h later.
#17
Diabetic woman stepped on a tack. Didnt take her antibiotics because the pills made her nauseous. She just stopped taking them, never asked for alternative options, then went a cruise. Ended up having to get a BKA.
#18
Guy came to A&E with sore throat diagnosed with suspected tonsillitis and send home with antibiotics.
He came back a few days later with really bad pain in his foot, and was booked for a diagnostic arthroscopy and washout of the foot.
Long story short turned out this patient had Strep A in their throat. (When it is confined to the places it is usually found for the most part you'll have a sore throat possible swelling etc. but nothing too serious 9/10)
The strep A has tracked down his body into his foot causing sepsis and then began to track back up his leg, while they were completing the arthroscopy they noticed necrotising fascitis had begun to take hold of the tissues (flesh eating bacteria)
He ended up with a below knee amputation and the rest of his leg up to his hind quarter being degloved to save his life. Spent atleast 3weeks intubated on ITU.
Poor guy was supposed to be getting married 3weeks later. Went to sleep thinking he was just having a washout of hit foot to wake up without one.
TLDR: guy came in with sore throat, ended up loosing his lower leg and all the skin up to his buttocks.
Some things can have serious consequences without looking or even smelling unusual. For example, carbon monoxide has no color or smell, so you can be breathing it in without even realizing it. It can come from something as ordinary as generator fumes or a running car in an enclosed space.
Experts explain that carbon monoxide poisoning can cause lasting brain damage, with children and older adults being particularly vulnerable. In some cases, it can also be fatal.
#20
The number of people my husband sees every holiday season with life changing injuries from falling off 6’ ladders while putting up Christmas lights is incredible.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 1 day ago
Pandas, this is exactly what happened to my dad. You know the accident I'm always talking about, the one that happened when I was 18? It was Thanksgiving Day and my dad went up a ladder to the garage roof to put up Christmas lights. He'd had a few beers with lunch and was wearing flip-flops, not proper shoes. He slipped and fell onto our concrete driveway. Catastrophic brain injury. He was 58 years old. He never recovered. He was near-vegetative for 21 years, bedridden, in diapers (he was incontinent), had to have a trach and feeding tube put in. I lost my father that day in November 2000, even though he did not actually díe until 21 years later. I loved my father dearly, but his choices affected not only his life, but the lives of his children as well (my sister and I both stayed living at home to help take care of him. Neither of us have accomplished jack shít in our lives.) If you have to go up a ladder, be careful, be aware, take precautions, and have someone "spot" you.
#21
A healthy woman in her early 30s ended up with locked-in syndrome (everything paralyzed but eyes) after a serious of complications which started with a slipped epidural during childbirth.
A quick swim or a casual boat trip feels like a completely harmless way to spend the day. You are having fun, everyone is relaxed, and nobody is expecting anything to go wrong.
But the WHO warns that drowning can happen within seconds, which is why things like supervision, swimming skills, and lifejackets matter so much.
#22
I'm a patient, I recently walked into a pole and got a brain bleed. Wasn't even walking that fast.
#23
Spent only a year out of 13 as an ICU nurse. Had an absolute train wreck of a patient in his 40s who had a bad stroke. Totally unstable for a week, stable but still super critical for a while after that. Sometimes his nurse was 1:1 that shift. Money was tight, and he thought he could get away with skipping his warfarin for a few months, maybe save him $30 at most. That’s still a lot money for some people in some circumstances. I still think about him more a decade later and hope his wife is okay
#24
Not a medical person. But I was the dumb person.
I almost lost my finger and hand because I left a cat bite fester too long. If I ignored it for maybe..2 more days it would of been bad.
They had to slice a hole from my finger to my palm to flush out the infection.
Debby Keir 15 hours ago
Saw an infant teacher who'd been bitten by a child. Wound became infected, and eventually black. Seen in A+E, gangrene (luckily 'dry' version) Resulted in amputation of finger... Human bites can be much more dangerous than most animal bites.
We are all guilty of ignoring a small symptom now and then. Maybe you hit your head, feel like something is off, or notice a change in your body, but instead of getting it checked out, you carry on and hope it goes away. Sometimes that works out just fine. Other times, waiting can turn something that could have been treated early into a much bigger problem.
That's what makes these cases so interesting. Some outcomes could have been avoided by making a safer choice or getting medical help sooner rather than later.
#25
Patient had folliculitis (infected hair follicle) from shaving his beard. Bacteria spread and got into his bloodstream. Bacteria set up shop on his aortic valve and destroyed it. Bacteria grew and he developed an aortic root abscess. We operated, surgeon did his best to decontaminate everything. An aortic valve replacement and root reconstruction for endocarditis is a big big operation. He did great postop, went home in a few days.
6 weeks later he had fevers and chills. Root was destroyed by bacteria. Patient ended up passing away at the local university hospital. All from an infected hair follicle.
Upstaged75 1 day ago
My brother got endocarditis at age 18 after a dentist visit. He had a heart murmur (from a faulty valve) and the bacteria from his mouth was able to get into his blood stream/heart that way. Which ended up causing heart failure. He's had 2 open heart surgeries to replace the faulty valve - once back in the 90's and again about 3 years ago. (If you're curious the original operation is called a Ross Procedure) He has an artificial valve now, as well as a defibrillator/pacemaker. And thankfully he's in excellent health. If you've ever heard of someone who has to take antibiotics before a dental appointment this is why and what can happen if things go wrong.
#26
Drinking at the golf course, fell off the cart. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but had a TBI resulting in not being able to do anything, barely able to talk at all either. Was in his 30s and likely to be in a nursing home for the rest of his life.
#27
I'll share some we see in vet med a lot: people think preventative care like vaccines & spay are too expensive, so they skip it. Then they are shocked when their dog suddenly needs treatment for parvovirus, or pyometra (uterus infection), that's going to cost 4x as much as the preventative treatments they didn't get.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 1 day ago
I had two separate friends who didn't get their cats spayed or vaccinated because "they'll never get outside!" Spoilers: over the course of a year, both friends' cats got out (one because her brother left a window open and the cats shredded the screen, the other because their apartment got broken into and the door was left open.) The friends found their cats, fortunately, but one friend's cat was ill with feline panleukopenia and díed (FPV is a core vaccine) and the other friend's cat got pregnant, ended up having one gargantuan kitten, and had to have a c-section because the kitten got stuck during birth. Mom and kitten almost díed. Both of these situations would have been prevented if my friends had gotten their cats spayed and vaccinated.
It is wild how something that feels so minor at the time can end up having such a huge impact.
Have you ever seen a small mistake turn into a much bigger medical problem? Tell us what happened in the comments.
#28
Not sure this counts as a minor thing but during a residency rotation a sweet elderly man came in for a skin concern that was a simple benign fix and patient said he had no other concerns but dermatology attending did a full skin check. On patient’s shoulder was a gnarly looking growth larger than a plum (insert attending looking at me shaking his head because he knew right away). It was black, blue, green, white, red, crusted, scaly etc. When attending scraped (biopsied) it, parts just crumbled apart. Patient said it’d been there for like 15-20 years so he wasn’t concerned. Sadly, the patient passed away a few months later from something so treatable. 😞.
Debby Keir 15 hours ago
Diagnosis? Doesn't sound like a melanoma, nor SCC, nor BCC. He died of a lump?
#29
Patients sleeping in their contacts or showering/swimming in them, leading to an infection. It can lead to corneal scarring and ultimately reduced vision for life.
Upstaged75 1 day ago
I will never understand why people do this! It must be so uncomfortable. 😖
#30
PACU RN: woman in her mid-twenties had a tooth infection she ignored. By the time she got help for it, the infection had spread into her chest and she was septic. She had to have emergent surgery to drain the infection, a PICC line for IV antibiotics, and two drains running from inside her mouth to under her jaw. The extent of the infection was severe, and she had to remain sedated and intubated in the ICU for a couple days.
There was also a minor complication during the surgery where a facial artery was clipped. She had quite a bit of blood loss and needed 2 units of blood transfused.
Earonn - 1 day ago
Oh d**n. I had an infection in my jawbone once. The treatment was pretty gory ( I don't want to frighten people, so let's just say it involved surgery on my gums) - but what happened to that poor woman could have happened to me. So I'm glad I did it. Also - if you're afraid of some tough treatment: yes, it's sh/t - at that moment. I had forgotten all about the stuff I went through just a year later. think of that, close your eyes, nod and let the doctors do what needs to be done.
#31
A minor intervention that prevents a major thing. Not giving their newborn the vit k shot. Have seen way too many babies with brain bleeds over the years.
Upstaged75 1 day ago
This makes me furious. 😡 There's absolutely no reason to refuse the shot. (Other than sheer willful ignorance) You go through pregnancy and birth only to have your baby disabled for life because you refused a simple shot?
#32
My mom’s best friend was sick for months, coughing and losing weight. She refused to go to the doctor because she thought it was cancer (so many people their age have/had it) and didn’t want to go through the suffering of treating it. One day she collapsed and was taken to hospital. It wasn’t cancer - it was tuberculosis. If she’d gone to the doctor earlier it could have been easily treated. She passed away a week later.
#33
I had a poor patient that lost an infant and had her footprint tattooed on his shoulder as a memorial. It got infected and it led to sepsis and spinal osteomyelitis that eventually left him a quadriplegic.
#34
Necrotizing fasciitis in a dudes shoulder, during a car ride he reached into his back seat and got a little cut on his shoulder. Boom.
#35
Blood in urine, especially in women, gets constantly dismissed by patients and doctors alike. I have seen enough women with metastatic urothelial carcinoma that have told me they'd been having bloody urine for months.
Nicole Weymann 1 day ago
To be fair: "I'm bleeding" is a regular feminine state of affairs, many periods are irregular, both in timing and volume, and not everybody is all that attentive about the details of their bodily fluids.
#36
Ignoring routine foot care when you have type 2 diabetes... Diabetic neuropathy can manifest as lack of feeling, so injury to the foot in those cases can go unnoticed and untreated, lead to ulcers, and possibly to amputation if the situation isn't corrected in time.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 1 day ago (edited)
I have (and HAD) a lot of obese family members. Most of them end up with type 2 diabetes and díe from comorbidities. One of my cousins died aged 24 from kidney failure resulting from his ignored (untreated) type 2 diabetes resulting from obesity. His mother díed a decade later from the same issues, and had to have both feet amputated in the weeks before she díed. His father later also díed from diabetes; he was so obese that the EMTs had to knock out part of the bedroom wall when he was taken to the hospital because my uncle no longer fit through the doorway. Another great-aunt had to have her arm amputated due to gangrene (yep, from diabetes resulting from obesity.) Her daughter had hernia surgery and the surgical incision literally did not heal for 4 YEARS because she was so obese, the fat layers would not "grow back together". I'm sitting here (admittedly overweight myself) watching my family members díe one by one. And this kind of diabetes and obesity IS preventable... EDIT: Want to know the absolutely worst thing, though? My aunt, the one with the hernia incision? She was an ER nurse for decades. She knows the damage obesity can do. But she did nothing to try to help herself, or her daughter, who is also obese.
#37
My doctor didn't realize that my years of diarrhea was due to gallstones, which resulted in severe necrotizing pancreatitis and a two month hospital stay.
#38
Misdiagnosed and therefore untreated otitis externa (swimmer’s ear) eventually led to 2 craniotomies to remove pus pockets putting pressure on his brain, plus months of IV antibiotics.
Robin Roper 9 hours ago
Otitis externa (swimmer’s ear) is very painful! How could anyone go for more than a few days not treating it?
#39
Kid was vaping, a common enough thing among adolescents. Unluckily for them, they ended up with vape associated lung injury. Team was trying to decide if they could lung transplant or if they were too neurologically devastated to be a candidate.
Spencers slave no more 1 day ago
Popcorn lung is becoming a serious disease in people who vape. Statistics are now being recorded and the younger the vaper, the earlier it presents. Lung damage caused by vaping cannot be fixed/cured and transplant becomes the only "fix".
#40
Me. Training for a running race. Diagnosed with tendonitis. Did all the things to fix it. Strengthening, PT, reduced workload etc. only for it to continue to get worse.
Turns out I had bone marrow edema which has now morphed into a chronic neuropathy. I've spent over $100k out of pocket in 9 months trying to fix it. Will likely lose my job/house over the next year and its likely it will be chronic and worsen.
#41
Mother brought her kids next door so the kid there could transmit their chicken pox to her three children “to get it over with.” All got the chicken pox. One of them appeared in the ER comatose and seizing. Varicella had made its way into her brain, caused infection there, not just the skin.
Upstaged75 1 day ago
Kids in the US almost never get chicken pox anymore due to the vaccine. My friend's daughter somehow caught it the month before she was eligible to be vaccinated. (They need to be 12 months) All the doctors at her Pediatrician's office kept coming in to look at the baby because none of them had seen it in person before.
#42
I had a diabetic patient who got lobster red sun burn on his feet one day at the beach. It didn’t register with him that anything involving the feet in diabetics is serious. He wound up with bilateral AK amputations. Very, very sad.
Karma Black 17 hours ago
I'm a T1D. This is one of my nightmares, and why I check my feet daily.
#43
Riding mowers and tractors with a child passenger. The kid inevitably sees you out mowing one day, runs to join, and loses a limb or their life. Totally unnecessary.
Upstaged75 1 day ago
I remember this happening in my neighborhood back in the 80's. I believe the little boy lost some toes.
#44
One of my nursing instructors had an abscessed tooth and didn’t want to take time off to get it dealt with, spring break was 2 weeks away. They had it pulled first day of spring break, infection had already gone to their heart. They developed sepsis and passed a week later. They were only in their late 40’s.
Earonn - 1 day ago
Did you know that in Germany and the UK (and probably the rest of Europe, too), you have the right to time-off for a doctor's appointment? And that you also get sick days that aren't be taken from your PTO? Your doc writes a sick note, that's it - you're off work. You get your money, you can't get fired. After IIRC 2 months you get your salary not from the company, but like 80% of it directly from the health insurance. they made it so that there is really no reason not to go to a doctor. I'm not gloating, I'm not criticising - I'm just saying: don't vote for anyone who isn't already fighting for all this.
#45
Patient popped a pimple on her face and then ended up with a cavernous sinus thrombosis (blood clot to the brain) because of it.
Upstaged75 1 day ago (edited)
The area around the nose (Google triangle of d.eath) has a very extensive network of veins. Popping a pimple om that area of the face can result in a bacterial blood clot developing, creating a thrombosis in the bigger draining veins of the head/brain
#46
We had a patient that was gonna discharge. He was inpt for one night, he had something simple. I can’t remember his original thing, but it was probably like a knee or a lap appe. Regardless, he was in his 30s young, no medical history, a great independent patient. The nurse did not put an O2 monitor on him overnight because he was getting up and going to the bathroom on his own and he was going to discharge the next morning. The LNA found him deceased in his bed during 2 AM vitals. He was already cold by the time we started compressions, we got 1 weird rhythm on the AED but he was gone. Turns out he had had like an unknown heart condition…
But I always wonder if we would’ve been able to save him had that o2 monitor been on.
#47
Former hospice worker here. Our medical director expressed frustration at a patient who was golfing two weeks prior to hospice admission and then passed away from a hernia that was easily repaired by surgery. Patient had fashioned a sort of sling to support the hernia instead of going to the doctor.
Debby Keir 13 hours ago
My uncle had an enormous inguinal hernia. He'd seen his GP and been put 'on the list' for surgery (UK early1970s) As a nurse, when I visited, in the late 70s, I asked why he still had the problem....ghost list ( not completely uncommon in th NHS) He finally got his surgery about 8 years on the waiting list) Immediately 6 sizes smaller for his trousers...
#48
During my time at paliative care, I saw a retired first responder. He noticed a minor bleed occur from a freckle on his upper back. He didn't really pay much attention to it, until it ulcerated and started to hurt. At that point it turned out it was full blown metastatic melanoma. Mets in the brain, bones, liver...
Debby Keir 13 hours ago
So if I have a minor bleed, I need to dial 911/999? I can't see my upper back, so how would I know ( or anyone else who's not phone mad) RETIRED. We don't live by phone use. How TF would he know, because he's not preening in front of a mirror or looking at microscopic blemishes through his phone. All this stuff about his her back clearly showed xxx - if you're elderly and single, there's nowt much you can do other than await some youngster saying ' you should have scanned it with you iPhone.
#49
Guy who nicked his foot with a nail clipper, ignored it, and got full-blown tetanus
get your shots everyone.
Earonn - 23 hours ago
That's what I don't understand about Britain. You get your initial shots, of course, but no refreshers. It's "oh, come to us when you have an injury". Which is stupid, because almost EVERY injury could include tetanus bacteria. Surely it's better just to keep up the blanket protection?
#50
Friend of a friend took her 3 year old to a petting zoo. Child gets e.coli from the animals, spends 7 weeks in hospital with kidney failure and eventually such severe brain damage that they end up turning off life support. She passed away a few weeks ago. All because she patted some farm animals. Craziest part is that another child was infected the same day and made a full recovery.
#51
EM doc. So many people with devastating head injuries because they didn’t wear a helmet.
Geoffrey Scott 14 hours ago
I've bounced my head off the tarmac (bicycle) enough that I'm grateful I always wore mine.
#52
From a bicycle crash. Guy was on a paved cycle path, missed a bend and rode down into a grassy ditch about 1m deep. Soft landing on thick heather and grass. Wasn't going particularly fast. Wearing a helmet. Ended up with 8 vertebral fractures, upwards of 14 rib fractures, bilateral haemothorices, and the rest I don't remember now. Ended up intubated / ventilated in ITU. A relatively moderate mechanism compared to many I've seen (and usually with far less injury burden!), but this guy's body basically just exploded when he came off.
#53
I had a friend for years who suddenly started having what looked like pimples under the skin on his thighs and arms. Not diabetic, no heart disease, early 40s, just overweight. Over the next few years, the things kept coming back and getting bigger to the point where they were decubitus ulcers, but the skin was mostly intact outside of a pimple and you could see the redness underneath about the size of a quarter, like someone with a mosquito bite welt. He had to have them pierced and drained and then started doing the whole pack with saline and gauze routine. Again, this went on for a couple years.
Finally, the breakdown got into his femoral artery and he was hospitalized and ended up needing a femoral artery transplant on both legs. Before the surgery, I went to see him and he got up to just walk to the hospital room bathroom to pee, next thing I knew, he was bleeding out from blood gushing out of one of the injuries. I ended up literally applying pressure and yelling at his spouse to push the code button.
Post surgery, he went through rehab and eventually discharged with IV antibiotics via a port. Took his kids to school, sat down on the couch, probably threw a clot, and his older daughter found him cold about an hour after the school trip. He was 46.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 1 day ago
Sounds like either gas gangrene (clostridial myonecrosis) or possibly pyoderma gangrenosum. Absolutely horrifying :(
#54
Pregnant patient came into the hospital with the sniffles.
Mother and baby passed away in less than 18 hours from a (likely) rickettsial disease.
#55
During Covid a patient had a small lesion on his lip. Because of masking no one saw his face for months. When I saw him he took his mask off and there was a huge skin cancer growing off of his lip. Could've been cut out in the office if caught early instead he had to go for reconstructive surgery.
#56
My collegue (a nurse). She broke her ankle, on the stairs, in the hospital, during a shift. After years of pain treatment she developed CRPS, she was almost bedbound, and now she just had an upper leg amputation...
Blue Bunny of Happiness 1 day ago
Complex regional pain syndrome. Ongoing pain from an initial injury, but also physiological changes to the affected area (often a limb) such as changes in hair growth, temperature and colour. Patients often report that the area doesn’t feel like it belongs to them and if you ask them to draw their body will often draw the affected area as grossly different to the corresponding area on the opposite side of their body.
#57
Severe liver failure from taking st John's wort and paracetamol.
Debby Keir 13 hours ago
St John's wort is reputed to help depression. However, it interreacts with sooooo many meds, including anti depressants, that it can cause fatal reactions. See your GP, rather than self treat - please.
#58
Had a patient apply some salve for her leg pain. Ended up with chemical burns. It was superficial at first, but no matter what we did to save the leg, the necrosis became too much and we had to amputate.
#59
Saw a person who'd accidentally lacerated a tendon in their pinky finger. They refused tendon repair to that finger (mentally unwell) and wrapped the whole hand up in bandages and carried it around wrapped up like it was acutely wounded and *didn't use it at all*. By the time I saw them just a few weeks after the initial injury, they'd generally lost function *in the whole hand* due to atrophy and contracture. .
#60
Patients not taking their ARVs despite knowing their HIV status. So many disastrous complications that I couldn’t even begin to list them all. I’m not blaming the patients, not taking medication is often a result of systemic failings, it is just terribly sad.
#61
Nec fas secondary to a thrombus in a young carpenter’s hand. She’d gotten decent sized splinter in it at work, pulled it out, and finished the work day wearing leather gloves which were moderately (standard) work-site dirty and too small for her.
Ignored the increasing pain for far too long bc she a) thought she was making too big of a deal out of nothing b) figured it was just normal pain and the pain meds weren’t working and c) previous negative experiences in hospital. Understandably.
Debby Keir 12 hours ago
Likely a wood splinter - bacterial infections are would be a rarity. but necrotising fasciitis would be a rarity. Not disputing, but worrying that it's out in the general population rather than just 'hospital acquired '.
#62
Devastating head bleed because they didn’t take their blood pressure meds.
#63
Not a doctor but experience is still wisdom.
My little sister was born premature. No big deal right? She grew up to be taller than me. Stronger than me. Healthier than me. But back in the 90s they never did a work up with her birth.
Fast forward to her being 14 and I was 15 and I watched my little sister collapse to the ground and passed immediately. No. Reason.
Until the autopsy showed she had an over sized heart and it wasn’t treated and she was being super active. And it just gave out.
PLEASE even if your baby is healthy coming out.
Do
The
Tests
I know they are frustrating and they make parents uncomfortable and the baby cry
But I’d rather have my son go through it all now while young and won’t remember and have a clean bill of health
#64
Older men who climb to the roof without any safety precautions to do "a minor thing/work up there" just like they used to do back when they were younger.
#65
Patient got a coronary CT as a cardiovascular risk stratification tool and as a result of a false positive the patient ended up requiring a heart transplant.
Edit: coronary CT was read as having a high risk blockage. Patient went for angiogram, gold standard for diagnosis coronary artery blockages, which showed no blockage. Unfortunately patient suffered a procedural complication called a coronary artery dissection that required open heart surgery to fix. Patient did poorly in surgery. Went into post-cardiotomy shock. Went on ECMO. Got listed for and eventually received a heart transplant.
#66
Worked with a young teenager once with a spinal cord injury from jumping, feet first, into the deep end of a pool.
#67
I once saw a pedicure result in amputation, which caused depression, and the patient ended up passing because of the depression. So heartbreaking. The pedicure place had run out of nail polish remover and had instead used chemical grade acetone.
#68
Someone with a shellfish allergy ate a crawdad. Admitted for 5 days of treatment. He likes the taste.
Geoffrey Scott 14 hours ago
Dude at work had hands the size of catchers mitts a few times. He and his wife LOVED going out for the peel and eats (shrimp). They affected his gout terribly
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