The Energon Pub

Realised I haven't posted any horrid nursing stories of late, so here's something I witnessed.

Was out with the crisis mental health team - we go to suicide attempts et al, and we were in the A&E (Accident and Emergency) when my friend ran up to me to get me to check something out.

I walked into a cubicle and found a guy with the following story - while working in a panel beaters, he'd dropped a piece of sheet metal on his foot, it hit just before the steel cap of his boot began.

Long story short, his toes were all hanging by skin, he was so dopped up on morphene he thought it was funny as hell and actually waved/flapped his toes at me as I left. Lot of blood, too. It flicked everywhere, including on the surgeon when he flapped about.

Happy outcome - all his toes were re-attached successfully.

That along with your sig...I actually haven't seen you post before.

... not as disgusting as normal.

Negare is mellowing in her old age!

Wow my mom a nurse and that is one of the more amazing nursing stories I have heard.

Burn wrote:... not as disgusting as normal.

Negare is mellowing in her old age!

that or her work has been slow.

I guess making good out of a bad situation? At least they were reattached. Reminds me of that one Seinfeld episode where "the li'l guy is back at the end of the line" or however that went.

Burn wrote:... not as disgusting as normal.

Negare is mellowing in her old age!

Haha, how about these then:

Whilst caring for an elderly gent, after feeding him I had to rush out of the room to the assistance of someone having a coronary in the hall, while helping the coronary I heard a puking sound but shrugged it off as coronary > puking. Anyway, when the other nurses and doctors arrived I could go back to the location of the puking.

I walked into this scene: the gent I had just fed had vomited up his dinner - thankfully into his bowl. While there's nothing foul or extremely messy about that - he had managed to grab the spoon and was eating his vomit and he was half way done!

Had a patient who had a MASSIVE reaction to an antibotic - resulted in these horrifically sized blisters on his hands and feet - something very rare indeed. Anyway, it took three of us to move him and one of the care givers he didn't like very much, so he hit her on the head with the palm of his hand - exploding his blister in the process, the woman ended up with drenched hair, and me and the other nurse got collateral damage from the spray.

Went to cop shop with crisis team, pt who had amazingly escaped from mental health custody in aussie, made it to UK caught by their mental health team, then escaped them, got to America, then made it to NZL and had somehow rented a car and hotel - where the car was now was anyone's guess as she had been found strippign off in shops in our local town. She smelt like a gypsy after a swim in a cess pool and decided to **** her pants and smear her faeces around the cell spelling out comical profanities. Then she threw faeces at the cops and at the mental health nurse while screaming she was perfectly healthy and was doign fine on her st. john's wart remedies.

Finally got her into the back of the prison van to take her to the inpatient mental health ward, when we arrived, she had disrobbed and again made a fine mess with the faeces and urine. Then we got her into the mental health unit she took a dump in the middle of the reception in front of everyone. Long story short she was sedated.

Next time I saw her she was escaping from the unit and in pursuit were about 6 nurses, who tackled her, which was not fun for them as her habit of smearing faeces was still alive and well despite sedating medication. The dose was drastically increased.

Saved the best till last:

Pt showed up at A&E complaining of pain in his lower leg, he had had a diabetic ucler that had been cared for. Anyway, he had moved house and not bothered to inform the district health nurse of his new abode's address. The pt hadn't bothered to care much for his dressing, and had left it on - for six weeks. It stunk like a dead sckunk stuffed into a dead fish with pureed dead cat smeared over it. It was leaking black pus and there were black streaks and bruises all up his leg (which he ended up loosing). When the doctor removed the dressing chunks of rotting flesh came off with it - in these long strips of black pusy jerky like stuff. The doctor then had to stop because he didn't feel well - enter a hardly nurse. She continued the examination. She had to peal away strips of dead and dying flesh and irrigate it with saline, pus was leaking everywhere and then came the fun part. She removed a large piece of flesh which honestly looked like it was sitting there, underwhich another piece of flesh about a cm thick which looked like it was moving. Underneath was a throng of maggots!

I grew up on a farm, I've seen my fair share of rotting animal carcuses, but by square cm this is the most maggots I've seen in one place. The nurse went as pale as a ghost, sat back on the floor, and got me to wash out the maggots. Which were juciy and pus covered.

Essentially, after the magots were out and the full extent of the rotting was guessed, he was off to surgery. he ended up with septis and managed to clock up a staggering 19 weeks in ICU. He's still alive and happy in a wheel chair awaiting the fitting of a fake leg.

I'm glad I never wanted to be a doctor.

See, now THAT is the stories we know and love from Negare.
But I should know better than to be eating when reading such things

Wow! That's downright tummy-wrenching! And I have a strong stomach!



Gotta be made of some seriously sterner stuff to be in the medical business.....Being a doctor is bad enough, but the ones I take my hat off to are triage nurses! Now THEY see it ALLL!!! I could not do it for one nanosecond!

I love it, it's like reading late night Discovery Health.

OMG.. well at least he wasnt feeling any pain, for now anyway.

In keeping with the spirit of the thread, I have to ask:


What does rotting flesh actually smell like? I've read my share of Stephen King, so I've been exposed millions of times to the idea that it smells, but like what?


All that dead skunk dead cat dead fish stuff seems more like exagerration. I know it probably wasn't. I'm sure in terms of how bad it was that was probably an understatement.

But what I mean is, can you narrow it down to one specific analogy. ie it smells like __________ for the most part, with a touch of ________ for good measure.

I've heard it's almost sweet, almost.


Why? Just curious.

Dark Zarak wrote:In keeping with the spirit of the thread, I have to ask:


What does rotting flesh actually smell like? I've read my share of Stephen King, so I've been exposed millions of times to the idea that it smells, but like what?

Rotting flesh is the second most gut-wrenching odor a human can smell, the first being burning flesh. It has it's own distinct odor, nothing can compare to that smell, so trying to say it is like this or that is just not possible.

Pyrostrata wrote:

Dark Zarak wrote:In keeping with the spirit of the thread, I have to ask:


What does rotting flesh actually smell like? I've read my share of Stephen King, so I've been exposed millions of times to the idea that it smells, but like what?

Rotting flesh is the second most gut-wrenching odor a human can smell, the first being burning flesh. It has it's own distinct odor, nothing can compare to that smell, so trying to say it is like this or that is just not possible.

Well, is there at least anything else that smells like it? I know there is a specific plant that smells like it, but that's not anywhere around where I live.

As for why I want to know, I'll just say it. It's for a book I'm writing.

Dark Zarak wrote:

Pyrostrata wrote:

Dark Zarak wrote:In keeping with the spirit of the thread, I have to ask:


What does rotting flesh actually smell like? I've read my share of Stephen King, so I've been exposed millions of times to the idea that it smells, but like what?

Rotting flesh is the second most gut-wrenching odor a human can smell, the first being burning flesh. It has it's own distinct odor, nothing can compare to that smell, so trying to say it is like this or that is just not possible.

Well, is there at least anything else that smells like it? I know there is a specific plant that smells like it, but that's not anywhere around where I live.

As for why I want to know, I'll just say it. It's for a book I'm writing.

sounds like its gonna be an awesome book

I first smelt rotting flesh when I was working in an elder care hospital, at first I thought it was rank sugar.

It's got this really sticky kind of sweet stench to it, which at first is no real big deal - but after about ten minutes, and you think nasal fatique would set in, it starts to make you feel a tad nausous and is no longer a kind of "sweet" smell. - The owner of the stench was an elderly woman with arterial ulcers that were rotting. Ended up killing her.

But honestly, you could smell it from the other end of the facility, hell, you could smell it from outside, it gets into everything.

But the maggoty flesh - it smells, well, I can't name a plant or anything that resembles it as human rotting flesh smells a tad different to animal and plant matter.

My suggestion, get some pork mince, beef mince and chicken mince, mix it together, then leave it covered up in the sun for a week or two.

Wow, I finally made it to this thread, I've seen it before but never read it all before now and I too work in the medical field and have to smell the lovely odor ( sarcastic tone to voice ) of burning flesh on a daily basis either from a laser device or electro cautery device.

When I first started working where I do I thought it was burning hair which is bad enough but within that same day I learned it was actually burning flesh from the above listed devices...I however feel that the smell of decayed flesh is much much much worse than that.

My friend had to care for a woman who set herself on fire and then had second thoughts. When I met up with my chum for student meetings and lunch and stuff, she would stink of burnt flesh.

Moral of the story - if you want to kill yourself, don't do it with a can of petrol and a box of matches, because it took the nurses 6 hours to do a dressings change and even with a crap load of morphene on board the woman would scream the hospital down.

I stood outside the elevator once, on the same floor, and three doors and the far end of the building away, I could still smell it.

You get used to it.