oyster.
By impactEDnurse • Aug 6th, 2007 • Category: reflective practice.
Sometimes things happen to us that we just cannot tell. They are Taboo.
I’m sure many of us have our own Taboo stories, they are all part of the whole ED experience that is so difficult to explain to those not on the team.
And today I’m thinking what the heck…I’m just going to throw one of those stories out there anyway. ( Easily offended readers: turn back now).
I have told this story to my colleagues many times, but it has been far too shocking, far too gross and in far too much bad taste to even consider writing down.
That is until now.
And yes….. it really happened.
This was way back in the days before compulsory seatbelts, airbags and blood alcohol levels. Back in the days when people used to really know how to break themselves up good.
A 40 year old man had just drunk himself around a tree at 110 kilometers an hour. He had sustained massive head injuries. In fact the left side of his head was a jagged maw of skull-shards and pieces of brain. Needless to say we did not work on this poor chap for very long.
We began to clean up the body. In a hurry to return to his ward, Alex, an ICU nurse who had come down to help us out, was trying unsuccessfully to extricate the man’s cut up shirt from under him. It had become caught up in the wet mess under the cervical collar…but instead of removing the collar, Alex decided the best thing to do would be to brace one of his feet against the side of the bed and pull even harder. Thats ICU nurses for you.
Without warning, the snag slipped and he shirt flew out not unlike a sling-shot. Along with quite a bit of gravel, a spray of blood and some soggy particulate matter.
I was standing across the small resuscitation room sorting through the man’s notes. I have no idea why I was standing there with my mouth agape. But I was.
Against all probability, an oyster sized gob of grey matter slam dunked its way past my teeth and way back into the depths of my mouth.
Looking down at the paperwork, I wasn’t sure what was going on for a few seconds. For some strange reason I remember thinking that one of my teeth had fallen out.
What was that? I spat it out into my hand and looked.
OK…….. it is a piece of brain.
I gagged and spat and spitooned and slagged and spluttered the entire upper portion of my digestive tract onto the resuscitation room floor. But it was too late. I had tasted it.
I tumbled into the pan room where I promptly gargled half a bottle of Betadine, followed by a long soaking chaser of Cepacol mouthwash. If I could have fit a wire scrubbing brush in there I would have done so.
I brushed my teeth, I sucked on mints. I became a vegetarian.
But, just as the smell of a patient with severe burns lingers in your nose for days, the taste would not wash out.
It was salty. It was rubbery.
So now you know.
[ More gross stories:
the back passage.
puppetry of the penis.
wipeout. ]
impactEDnurse is also known as Ian Miller, a nurse with over 26 years experience working in a busy emergency department in, Australia. This site in no way reflects the opinions of that hospital.
All stories (although based on actual experiences) have been changed to protect patient confidentiality.
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Best. Story. Ever.
Absolutely fantastic, yet horrifyingly disgusting.
-Nick
I remember you telling me about that day Ian and I have often relayed the horrfic details to my workmates. Reminds me of the day in my First year of Nursing Training I was forced to give Mouth to Mouth to a woman that I had just fed Cornflakes to because there was NO NFR order..I’ll never forget it!! Glythamol Mouthwash never tasted so good!!.
Oh, dear. Definitely a life-altering experience.
I have to wonder, though. What does it say about me that, reading the telling, my first reaction was “what did it taste like” and my second was “yuk.” At no time in the reading did I “squick” (as defined at the Urban Dictionary: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=squick )
Do you think I need to be worried about myself, or do I have the makings of Emergency Department personnel?
OMG. That is quite impressive – I am totally grossed out!
[...] Monday, August 6th, 2007 in Uncategorized I don’t even know what to say. I’ll just let Ian over at ImpactED tell you. [...]
That. Is. Too. Yuk.
marvellous, It puts the common or garden vomit down the legs to shame.
Ewww. Fascinating but ewwww.
I remember a colleague telling me he was assisting a patient to expectorate sputum into a cup, which for some reason was half full of congealing sputum. As he gently held it to her lips, she took the cup from him AND DRANK IT…it made me retch when he told me.
Oh. My. God.
Dr Lector I presume? Would you like some fava beans and a nice Chianti as a chaser?
With respect, Chianti sounds all wrong, I’m thinking Sauvignon Blanc or a dry Chenin Blanc, but tastes vary, of course.
Damn! Someone beat me to the fava bean/Lector comment! Okay, what does it say about ME that once I discovered it was brain it was less gross than what I THOUGHT it was going to be (no pun intended).
Salty Rubber Brains. Sounds like a Martha Stewart dish.
[...] Nurse that she named “The Grossest Emergency Room Story EVER”. Ian simply calls it Oyster. He didn’t submit it, but it is the most…..unusual story I have ever heard and [...]
Didn’t taste like chicken then? If for some freaky reason a similar incident happens again try to wash it down with a nice chianti!
Cracking story.
Max
OMG…this has to be the most disgusting thing I have ever read on a blog…or elsewhere. At least I had some warnings from the previous blog from whence I came. But…I’ll still keep reading since I’ve got a strong stomach. One nasty tale isn’t enough to deter this longtime reader. My immediate reaction was, of course, something along the lines of “EWWWW, how gross is THAT!!!” Guess that’s one of the hazards of nursing. Hopefully something like that only happens once in a career…
[...] My habit of walking around with a gaping yap gets me in no end of trouble. [...]
Mary’s sputum story made me gag when I first read it so I’ll say it out-grossed Ian’s brain story but only on a personal level. I think I was prepared for Ian’s story by the Oyster title and the setting of the story. Sputum is the only body fluid that can make me gag. So far… But please keep reviewing your taboo ED stories for us ward staff who need the hit (from a distance).
That is just brillant, just such a ED type of story……….only a nurse could experience it, survive with a smile on your face and then laugh about it later……. i love it
We don’t get paid enough.