Working in healthcare is one of the most demanding jobs there is. You’re responsible for people’s wellbeing, often while dealing with them on the worst days they’ve ever had. The emotional weight alone is enormous. And sometimes, what you encounter on the job goes far beyond anything you could have ever anticipated.
When one Redditor asked medical professionals to share the most foul and disgusting things they’d ever witnessed, they had no shortage of stories to tell. We’ve rounded up some of the most shocking ones below, but be warned: this list contains a lot of upsetting content. Read with caution.
#1
A patient had such severe gangrenous necrosis in both legs below the knee. She had been crawling around her apartment. The smell permeated the whole unit. I had a nursing student with me to change the dressings. Doused a mask with peppermint oil and put another mask over the top. I was legit afraid that her leg would just come off in my hands while changing the dressing. She was so afraid of surgery that it still took several days to convince her it was necessary.
Image source: trustme_imRN, Maxim Tolchinskiy/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#2
A majority of my medical career was spent working in plastic surgery at a level 1 trauma center. Ive seen lots of cases so heres my maggot story: We had a homeless patient that came to the ED for chest pain and had literally 10 layers of socks on. When the socks were removed all of his metatarsal bones were fully exposed, no flesh. He didnt even realize his foot was basically all bones because he had went years without taking off his socks. It probably started as a diabetic ulcer but the maggots did their job plus some.
Image source: _d0ntm1nd_me, Clay LeConey/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#3
Called out for weakness and wife tells us that he had been crawling around for a day or two (older couple where the husband has the final say dynamic.) Wife is telling me about a spot in 2002 while my partner was assessing the husband, and I was trying to redirect the conversation to events happening now. Walk into the bathroom where he’s sitting on the toilet, and turns to look at me and that spot from 2002 was now necrotizing half his head. Corner of the eye to the back of his head was untreated skin cancer. Ear was gone, which ironically his only complaint was that ear itched. They had been covering it up with a beanie style hat when he would go out and he just refused to go to the doctor for the whole 50+ years they had known each other.
Image source: BasicB23, Getty Images/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#4
A homeless man came in complaining that his foot has been hurting for some time. He was wearing some really old work boots and said he hasn’t taken them off in over a year. Took off the boot and a toe fell out. The smell almost cleared the room.
Image source: discostud1515, Ben Hershey/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#5
Relayed to me by a friend: elderly frequent flyer comes in last summer and for some reason or another a hospital staff member is sent to retrieve something from her RV. Staff member gets to the RV, opens the door and is swarmed with flies. When those dissipate, they see a mummified corpse. Turns out her husband had died a while ago of natural causes and she’d been living in the RV with the remains for who knows how long. Apparently she did not think it necessary to warn the staff member she was sending to the vehicle when she handed over the keys. When asked she said something about not knowing what to do with the body when he died so she just left it.
Image source: SlipperySloane, Jin Yeong Kim/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#6
Get your skin checked, especially if you live in a sunny climate and have fairer skin. I cannot stress this enough.
I once saw a patient’s eyeball *from behind*. The patient had skin cancer that got out of control and rotted off most of their face. The skull was exposed, from the mandible (jawbone) to zygomatic arch (cheekbone). Much of the bone was involved, and the part of the skull that holds the eyeball had mostly rotted away. That’s how I could see the back of the patient’s eyeball.
The smell was overpowering, to say the least. Thankfully, the patient was not at all alert and oriented.
Image source: el_cid_viscoso, Andrej Lišakov/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#7
He had severe mental illness which caused him to eat his fingers, infection in the bone and his blood and had to be restrained so he wouldn’t continue to eat his fingers. He was in the hospital for months, eventually his meds got straight enough he stopped trying to eat them and he healed.
Image source: insomniafog, Curated Lifestyle/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#8
Obese woman came into the ER because she had an itch. We found the cause. It seems, behind the remote control in one of her folds of fat, there was a whole colony of cockroaches. They scattered around the hospital pretty quickly.
Image source: BAT123456789, MART PRODUCTION/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#9
The ‘Maggot Cast.’ We had a patient come in with a leg cast he hadn’t removed in nearly six months. He said he ‘felt a little tickle.’ When we finally sawed it off, the smell hit us before the visual did. The entire space between his skin and the plaster was a thriving, writhing ecosystem of maggots. The worst part? They had actually done such a good job eating the necrotic tissue that they likely saved him from sepsis. He looked down and just said, ‘Oh, I wondered why it felt heavy.
Image source: Theprotagonist5, Getty Images/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#10
While working in a nursing home we had a patient transferred with an absolutely huge pressure sore on his buttocks. He was meant to start a wound vac upon arrival but the wound nurse at that nursing home thought she was god and could heal anything so she made up her own order instead.
The order? Clean it, pack it with normal saline soaked gauze and then cover it with an abdominal pad. I worked weekends and I watched it deteriorate more and more. Brought it up to management- never addressed of course because it’s cheaper to do that order than it was to do the right thing— the wound vac. He would ask me every time if it was getting better and every time I would tell him no but for some reason the wound nurse and wound doctor were feeding him lies that he unfortunately believed.
I was super pregnant when he came so when I came back from maternity leave I was shocked 1) to still see him alive 2) to see just how bad his wound had gotten. It was the most rotten, foul smelling, super thick green/yellow discharge I’ve ever seen in my career thus far. By that point he was literally rotting and going septic. He lost his mind and will to live. I had to fight to convince him to please let me change the dressing but by that point he was beyond saving or being able to be convinced. Still I had to try because it was so awful.
He passed away not too long after my return. That nurse was fired and reported by so many people but according to the state board of nursing still has a license. So long story short after typing all that out I think the most foul and disgusting thing I’ve ever encountered in my career is just how many nursing homes/healthcare professionals can be absolute pieces of trashwho do not take care of patients and nothing happens to them even when reported.
Image source: Aggravating-Pay-9405, Ani Kolleshi/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#11
A very nice couple came in from a rural area for the wife to have a short elective procedure. The smell of them combined was enough to clear out our unit. Everyone was throwing on masks. They were from the middle of nowhere where I think they must not have had (or at least regularly used) running water. They smelled like a giant, moist, yeasty, bacteria-infested groin. We had to have the curtains changed after they left because the smell was lingering.
Image source: Odd-Following-4952, SJ Objio/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#12
We were treating a guy for late stage head & neck cancer and colon cancer. The chemo for his colon cancer made some crazy reaction in his bowels that released the most disgusting fowl smelly gas that any of us had ever smelled in our lives and he couldn’t stop releasing it while getting radiation treatment. Four of us including myself threw up (and gross smells never bother me) and the whole area had to be aired out because other patients started retching or leaving. Words cannot describe what was coming out of him
Another day, while his head & neck cancer was raging and his mouth was basically an open wound full of pus that smelled of death we walked outside to find him making out his with girlfriend who was also being treated for cancer (something must have been in their water). Think of someone not brushing their teeth for a year or two and having their mouth filled with mucus. Some areas were necrosed and smelled like a dead body and here they were making out 🤢
He also never stopped smoking. I can’t even imagine how bad the smoke had to hurt on his raw mouth and throat. Like smoking with strep throat x 1000.
ETA: this was in early 2000s and radiation treatments have come a long way since then.
Image source: Cool_Jelly_9402, Curated Lifestyle/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#13
I work in the lab. One time we received a gangrenous toe with a fresh coat of pink nail polish. It shook me because someone had just painted it, then you go to the doctor for your black/d**d toe? But at least they got medical care 🤷♀️.
Image source: Striking_Bullfrog711, Getty Images/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#14
I had a patient that was 300-400lbs. We were moving them into a bed because they couldn’t walk and cigarette butts kept falling out of their fat rolls.
Image source: Desblade101, Curated Lifestyle/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#15
Mother brought her toddler in who had been vomiting big time. Incredibly sick. Like deadly sick. Mother decided that her kid got sick eating Ants from the garden
What did she do? She gave her child ant poison to stop the ants making her sick….
Yeah…….
Image source: Lopsided-Muffin9805, Helena Lopes/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#16
While working in an urgent care a daughter brought her elderly father. He had dementia and his finger was swelling around his wedding ring and beginning to cut into his skin. It wasn’t all that gross, but he would occasionally almost forget that he was in pain ??? and mindlessly try to twist the ring around on his finger out of habit, digging it in deeper and drawing more blood. He’d do it over and over and didn’t seem to register he was in pain until his daughter would tell him to stop. It was so hard to watch even though I’ve seen much nastier stuff over my career.
Image source: bleh0923, Alberto Sharif Ali Soleiman/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#17
Matted hair with severe lice infestation that I had to cut out, maggots in new amputation (patient discharged to nursing home & came back in as re-admit), wax buildup in ears so thick other nurses were documenting hearing aids, loads of patients coming in that were neglected with feces caked and dried in every crevice of their body, necrotic toes that the patient proceeded to pull off and hand to me, 12+ inch long fingernails that were curled up and dusty…. the list is truly never ending when you work bedside.
Image source: Lonely-Ad-1179, Getty Images/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#18
Gentleman had a cut on his leg and went swimming in a polluted lake. He ignored the infection to the point where he was either gonna lose his leg or his life. Surgeons did multiple amputations, first at the ankle and then at the knee. It was gnarly.
Image source: butt_scratcher_007, Michael Proctor/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#19
Another maggot story from the ER. Former prominent lawyer, raging alcoholic, wheelchair bound, incontinent, and homeless, was found freezing on the streets. For footwear he wore rubber rain boots with socks. Paramedics brought him in where we discovered he was urinating into his boots, socks were decomposing, and the tissue on his feet was decomposing to the point you could see the ligaments and tendons in his feet as well scores of maggots. He went to surgery lost half of both feet and was recovering in a room. Went up to the floor where he was 4 days later and there were Shell No Pest strips hanging every where. They had a serious fly problem up there from the flies crawling out from under his bandages.
Image source: punycuny, Getty Images/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#20
Guy came into the ER with an abscess on his forearm about the size of a golf ball. Needle marks on both arms. He asked me, “How did this happen?” I thought he was joking. With a chuckle, I said, “How do you think?” He said, “I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking.” “Well, when you stick yourself with dirty needles…”.
Image source: Montag_311, Dre Nieto/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#21
The one that still keeps me up at night: a baby girl (18 mos) comes into the pediatric ER via ambulance with Grandma. Awake and alert, EMS reports baby has been brought in for neglect assessment. This baby is dirty dirty- dirt in between the cells of her skin, embedded in every crease.
Baby girl has shop towels tied on as a diaper, padded with boxer shorts, a tank top, and tube socks. I cut the “diaper” open, and start removing the soaked and soiled padding, and realized the first layer is fused to her skin.
Her entire diaper “area” from belly button to knees and all the way around is one gigantic, and severely infected, wound. Equivalent to third and fourth degree burns. She screamed the most gut twisting screams when air moved over what was left of that skin. We soaked off the fabric, and covered her with temporary bandaging as soon as we could. She refused to stay in the bed, and Grandma was talking with police, so after a bed bath and graham crackers, she got to stay in my lap. 1 to 1 care for that angel. She snuggled right in and slept like she spent 40 days and nights crossing the desert.
She spent 7 months on the peds burn unit with surgeries and grafts… It’s been 18 years and I still think of her, how that skin looked and smelled…her gigantic eyes and sweet smile. I hope she got the life she deserved and the scars aren’t too bad.
The more common one: The patient living in terrible hoarder (animals and items) conditions whose leg ulcers had gotten so bad they had maggots in them and was so oblivious we made up reasons why we had to treat them on the porch because we couldn’t physically go into the house. We had to put those on the last appointment of the day to prevent cross contamination with any other patients/homes.
Image source: IWasBorn2DoGoBe, Christopher Magat/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#22
Home health nurse here. Had a patient with a severe pressure wound to their heel. Took the bandage off to change during a visit and there live roaches scattering out of the gauze wrap. She was 100% alert and completely unaware. Sadly they lived in low income housing apartments and the whole building was infested.
Image source: Summerfield_Plains, Maria Luísa Queiroz/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#23
I had a call where a patient’s family told me that she was scheduled for a below knee amputation the next morning, but that she was delirious and febrile. The daughter was a med/surg nurse, and she told me that the patient had poorly-managed diabetes and she couldn’t feel a pulse in her bad foot. She met our sepsis alert criteria, and I loaded her up and had my partner drive us to the hospital lights and sirens, because her BP was like 90/30. On the way, I was like, I guess I should check her pedal pulse just so I could note that I didn’t feel one. She was wearing an ankle sock over a compression sock, so I pulled the outer sock off and started to cut a hole near her toes so I could get to the top of her foot and that’s how I learned what gangrene smells like.
I spent the rest of the ride standing in the stairwell of the medic unit with my face stuck against the tiny window, breathing in hot diesel exhaust and getting my ears blasted out by the sirens just so I wouldn’t have to smell it.
Image source: HogmanDaIntrudr, Getty Images/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#24
Taking a guy to the hospital who said he had a bed wound bothering him from a bad nursing home. I put my hand behind his back to put a blanket there and making some pillowing. When I pulled my (gloved) hand out, it was covered finger to wrist in thick, foul smelling pus—his entire back was infected with weeping pressure wounds.
Image source: Powerful-Form-6817, Getty Images/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#25
Well…oblivious because he was d**d, but one time I was notified by the roommate of this poor soul in a skilled nursing facility that I needed to go check on him. When I walked in the room I found him hanging by a flap of skin that had been flayed off of his thigh. He had tried using his call button to call for help during a heart attack, but instead he confused it with the bed adjustment button. He had raised his bed all the way up, in fully sitting position. He tried to climb out of bed and his skin got caught on the railing and basically devolved his entire thigh. It’s unclear whether he died of shock from the degloving, or the heart attack…but his obituary said he died peacefully in his sleep.
Image source: VoiceArtPassion, Getty Images/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#26
My boyfriend (a doctor) saw someone throw up s**t , yes you read that right , vomitting feces.
Image source: MoveIll6737, Maskmedicare Shop/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#27
Ok. Story time.
This guy had been homeless and without his psych meds for years by the time he wandered into the city I’m in. He had been moving entirely on foot from what we were able to put together, and had walked close to 500 miles. At some point in his journey, he walked through a water logged ditch, and without access to clean socks/shoes, he kept walking in the wet ones. Some time later he attempted to take them off and peeled the skin off the bottom of his feet. Wrapped them up in makeshift bandages, put the same shoes back on, and walked on.
By this point he had Trench Foot, his feet were horribly infected, but his brain wasn’t letting him make the connection so…he walked on some more. He was at a gas station in town where I was and someone noticed he looked very, very ill and called EMS. They bring him in and he just says he’s tired and would like to wash his feet. When asked about pain he said he was fine, but his feet were dirty and they’d feel better if he could wash them. Ok well that’s a simple ask that can be accommodated, and if it helps him feel better and more likely to accept treatment, cool. He’s brought the items for washing and a couple of people go in to help.
When I tell you the closest thing I’ve ever seen to what this mans feet looked like is a zombie in a horror movie, I am not exaggerating one bit. The toes had no flesh on them, it was literally just bone. What flesh was left higher up on his feet was completely black. Whenever they would change the bandages over the next several days, parts of his toes would just fall off.
He had no understanding of the severity of his situation. At this point he wasn’t really in pain because he had no sensation left. He’d adapted by walking on his heels. He was septic, and once that was getting under control, he genuinely thought he was ok because he felt better and wanted to leave. He thought his feet were just dirty. It’s one of the saddest situations that I’ve encountered at work and I often wonder how he’s doing. It took a long time and a whole lot of patience to get him to understand well enough to agree to amputations. We think we figured out where he was originally from but he refused to allow any contact with his family. He was young, too. But yeah. Zombie feet. Don’t think I’ll ever see anything quite like it again.
Image source: cellophanesheeps, Ghadeer Jdeed/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#28
In for BV and severe abdominal pain. Severe inflammation seen during internal exam, and turns out there was a small cap from a toy that had detached and actually suctioned itself against flesh, resulting in severe infection. Took Doc a bit to figure out what the deal was but the smell when the cap was unsuctioned and removed was bad.
Image source: dutchbunns, Miguel Ausejo/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#29
My aunt, a midwife in rural Kansas, told me about meeting a woman in labor at the hospital and helping her get her underwear off and a cockroach appeared from her privates. My aunt was pretty magnanimous about it: she said probably the woman was grabbing underwear from somewhere (back of the drawer, laundry pile) and the roach just got caught up in the hubbub of labor. The woman had a few kids and was already overwhelmed. This story is decades old, but it still
freaks me out to think about.
Image source: Clean-Simple4758, Curated Lifestyle/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#30
Went to a patient’s room to check his blood sugar and he asked if I could take it from his toes because it wouldn’t hurt as bad as his fingers. He takes the blanket off his feet and they look rotted. Guy says it’s fine, he just lets his dog chew on his toes. Nbd.
Image source: satanwearsgucc1, Getty Images/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#31
Bed Bugs..Idk about oblivious but he sure didn’t give a flying F. As he sat in the waiting room. He comes back to Pre Op (this was a surgery center) As I am prepping him for surgery he’s getting into a gown. I notice he is covered in what had to be thousands of bugs. Crawling all over the guy…They shut down the Center for 2 days after he came in..
Image source: FilledwithTegridy
#32
Orthodontic assistant, teenage patient came in with his dad, hadn’t been in for years. Dad says he cant eat is basically on a liquid diet.I lean him back and see the rapid palatal expander we put in years ago was still cemented to his teeth. RPE’s are usually only in the mouth for 3-6 months. His oral hygiene was terrible so the gums had completely grown around the entire appliance. There was barely any of the metal visible and what was visible was caked with calculus. I worked at getting that think off for so long. Eventually I got the doctor to take a look. We ended not being able to get it off that day. He came back again later and the doctor was able to somehow work her magic and pry that thing out his face.
Image source: FatSithInAPrius
#33
We had a guy who had a severe diabetic foot wound. He had already lost several toes and he was refusing to have further amputation, so he was basically hobbling around with a decomposing half a foot. It looked like a melting candle. He would come in for wound care and IV antibiotics and you could smell his rotting foot coming in from waaaaay down the hall. We had no idea how his wife tolerated living in the same house.
Image source: Zealousideal-Aide890
#34
Not me, but my midwife friend. While doing an assessment to check for dilation, had to say to a woman in labour “we’re going to have to clear these worms from the birth canal before you birth your baby”. The woman asked “why?”.
Image source: Admirable-Site-9817
#35
I am not a medical folk but my cousin is and I have a story she told that will never leave me.
She worked at a methadone clinic where a woman came in with a hole (abscess?) in her stomach. My cousin was tasked with cleaning it out, dressing it, whatever the usual protocol is for it. The woman left but came back a couple weeks or so later and the hole was noticeably worse. Turns out, she was letting dudes on the street… confuse one hole for another, if you will… so she could fund her addiction. My cousin had to fix all that.
Image source: TheMandarinsToeRing
#36
Maggots in the brain. Literally. They came in through a skin cancer removal wound on a fella with dementia. It was so sad. There was nothing we could do for him.
Image source: giraffegoals
#37
Changing a diaper on an 83 year old home health aid patient I got squirted in the face with watery feces. I was pregnant and already nauseous at the time and couldn’t quit gagging and vomiting. I soon took a maternity leave after that. I also did a number on my back pulling them up in bed when they sagged down. If I could have afforded it, I wouldn’t have worked such a physical job while so pregnant. I’ve been pooped on by plenty of babies and toddlers, but there’s something so much grosser about adult p**p.
Image source: Lotus-child89
#38
A homeless came to see if we could help him change his colonoscopy bag , and by colonoscopy bag I meant a regular supermarket plastic bag taped to his body, and yes it was full and had maggots.
Image source: skitray
#39
Worked in a consumption treatment centre providing wound care. Had a guy who would come by to get bandages to-go; he really didn’t trust our nurses.
One day he came in and we were able to get his trust enough to assess some wounds. He admitted that he had been without sterile water recently and used his own urine to dilute his d***s before injecting.
Every time I see a bubbly mozzarella pizza I think of that man’s arm. Just slough. So much slough. Miraculously he did not lose his arm.
Image source: jerichonightwolf
#40
Retired Respiratory Tech here – grossest thing I’ve ever seen is a patient who cleaned out their trach tube by inserting one end into his mouth and then sucked the mucus out. I was both impressed and horrified. Dude was a Vietnam vet who’s definitely been thru some s**t.
Image source: vae_victus1
#41
When I was a med student, we had a local GP ask if we could add a patient to the end of a gen surg list I was observing. Incision and drainage of groin abscess.
Surgeon said sure. Patient had an abscess in their groin that when incised erupted in massive volumes of grey pus. Everyone including seasoned theatre nurses and the surgeon started gagging. Two nurses vomited.
Turns out patient was an alcoholic who had basically been drinking themselves to death in a pile of their own filth. The abscess extended from their groin down to their thigh and up into their abdomen and they had basically rotted from the inside out.
They didn’t survive.
Image source: DumbShoes
#42
Patient with Charcot Foot and he had it wrapped in Tin Foil to catch the blood….
Image source: DelightedEnlighted
#43
Had an older lady with an unspecified mental illness. She was always oriented so we couldn’t say it was dementia or something. She was a bit of a hoarder and didn’t want to be seen in the ER for an infection in her leg because she felt like she’d be medically kidnapped by staff and social services.
Anyways, she would s**t in paper bags and kept them all in her house. She didn’t want social services coming to clean it up while she was in the ER. .
Image source: 420bipolarbabe
#44
Untreated breast cancer. She was against chemo & surgery, all natural, drinking a green smoothie when I saw her, the cancer was growing right out of her chest, through the skin. It stunk so bad. She died the day after I saw her. Had young children too.
Image source: Danish_girl68
#45
Had a patient come in with 3 bedbug bites to his armpit. He was d**d in 24 hours of necrotizing fasciitis. The surgeon said every time he would go to debride more of this man’s chest, the skin and fascia would just fall apart.
Image source: LittleMrsMolly
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