What is the worst thing you’ve seen in A&E on a Saturday night?
Posted by missafricanbarbie77@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 31 comments
I hear so many horror stories of people doing silly things when they’re drunk and wonder how bad A&E is on a Saturday night or weekend when the general public is on the piss
Healthcare workers of Reddit, what’s the worst thing you’ve seen in A&E on a weekend?
SillyStallion@reddit
A young farmer who lost his leg trying to unblock a muck spreader.
His mate was in the waiting room and had the leg in a feed sack hoping it could be reattached...
All the drunks in left due to the smell.
SoggyWotsits@reddit
Something similar happened to a friend’s dad back when I was at primary school. It was his arm though, and he was wearing a waxed jacked at the time. Because the jacket was so strong, his arm was ripped off but he couldn’t pull free and he sadly died.
Dimac99@reddit
You wouldn't think a severed leg was a waiting room sort of issue, would you?
SillyStallion@reddit
It wasn't , the friends were in the waiting room after following the ambulance
Dimac99@reddit
The friends had the leg though? I'd have expected that to be a "go straight through"! (At least for the sack.)
WastelandOfConfusion@reddit
At least they had the courtesy of wrapping up the severed leg in a filthy sack.
D5LLD@reddit
Probably my dad who decided to cut a tree with a chainsaw on CHRISTMAS EVE whilst STANDING ON A BRIDGE.
He proceed to slip and fall and hit his head on the ground (the river side). Then went and hid on his walk back up as his sister was walking by the bridge at the time, as he didn't want her to see him. Then sneakily went into his van and drove home whilst blood was running into his eyes from his head. Then went for a shower before my mum called me and thought that maybe, just maybe, he needed to go to A&E. When I saw the huge gash, and I mean huge, across the top of his head I immediately says "yep, A&E now". It took me having to tell reception "I know I said he fell off a bridge, but I mean like a 6 ft fall" before he was actually seen.
Luckily, no issues other than having to eat his Christmas dinner with a wrapped up head and stitches. The A&E nurse couldn't believe he went for a shower before going there. My dad said he didn't want to step into A&E looking like something from a horror movie!
NecroVelcro@reddit
The most disturbing part of that was the fact that he "sneakily went into his van". The stupidly and entitlement of far too many drivers disgusts me.
DutchOfBurdock@reddit
My reflection in a window.
OnlymyOP@reddit
I sat all night in a corridor with my MiL while she was on a bed parked there after she took a turn in her home.
There were five trolley beds lined in the corridor all with elderly people and one woman in the bed along from my MiL was screaming in pain every hour on the hour ... I left my partner after 8 hours to get some sleep, but it turned out this poor woman had broken her shoulder and nobody gave her any pain medication until nearly lunchtime.... her cries still haunt me.
BionicWallaby@reddit
I broke my wrist really badly last year and I was in urgent care for hours and hours and hours and they didn't give me any pain relief or a sling. I kept asking and they kept saying someone would bring them but they never did
xhaggishunter@reddit
That’s terrible.
Little-Abroad3413@reddit
The colour of the liquid that came out of my abdominal abscess.
Gravy…
ScottBotThought@reddit
Work in an NHS AHP role where we only work Mon-Fri but get urgent referrals from ED from people admitted with acute injures. Mondays are always manic with us catching up with what came in over the weekend. Response to bank hols weekends are a nightmare to manage. In that more people sustain injuries over bank hol weekends and we have 1x less working days in the week to manage their cases.
flapsmagee@reddit
You should probably explain those acronyms
xhaggishunter@reddit
I was sat there with a broken cheekbone with my right hand of my face swollen around two inches out (so much so kids were shouting ogre at me in the street for a week). They had queuing systems at the time. There were 4 lassies there and they were chatting to each other about how they came because one of them felt a little bit dizzy in the nightclub and they got seen first.
DC38x@reddit
My dad went A&E a few years ago, and as he was queueing to see the receptionist person, in front of him was a young lad (10 years old or so) with his mum. She took him there because he had a fucking splinter in his finger
xhaggishunter@reddit
😭😂
Savings-Spirit-3702@reddit
My friend did a rolly polly through the dying embers of a large bonfire, the prize was 20 pence (don't as, we did dumb shit a lot) what my mate actually got was 12 days in the burns unit!
machinegunraza@reddit
Iv had afew trips to A&E over the years. Every time Iv been the same woman is there. She’s well enough to go outside and smoke and then come back in. Could be mental heath related but they usually get seen by PLS pretty soon.
Saw a lady have multiple seizures but the staff were quick, 4-5 doctors in the room within seconds, crash cart the lot. Wheeled her off.
A lady was told she had malaria in the waiting room! She was balling her eyes bless her.
There was an elderly couple there and the lady was worried about going to the loo incase they called her husband in and she lost him which was so cute, so we told her we’d let them know you’re here. I think the gentleman had dementia.
Slightly nicer - When I broke my fingers early last year, it was at the peak of the flu/ virus that was going around. Mrs forced me to A&E paid for 6 hours of parking. Thinking I’ll be at the bottom of the list is a minor injury, backpack was loaded with snacks, books the lot. (She’s used to taking me) I was in & out in 32 minutes. We were looking forward to eating the snacks. That’s Initial observation, tried to remove my ring, cut it off, X-ray, review, taped up and fu**off. 32 minutes.
Few years before that I smashed the end of my finger (fight with an SDS drill & a stone wall long story) Was very quick. But the nurse was horrible, I had clearly come straight from work, and she told me off for having dirty hands?! Like mate, sorry I injured myself while I was working. I didn’t wash my hands because my bone is kinda sticking out of my finger??
-dylpickle@reddit
I had surgery a few years back, when I came too in the surgery room there was a woman screaming in the room and all I could see was the bright lights above me and I thought I’d been abducted by aliens for about 20 seconds till I remember where I was. Scared the shit out of me 😭
Suddendeath777@reddit
Not a healthcare worker but I was on A and E in January on a Saturday night after suffering an injury at home.
Some poor lad no older than 18 walks himself in with a gaping slash wound from cheek to cheek, with half the front of his nose hanging by a flap of skin.
He was trying to wipe himself up with paper towels from the dispenser in a state of shock and moving around what was left of his face.
Looked like it was a bottle or a glass that did it, because there were multiple small cuts around the large one.
CAElite@reddit
The injury you're describing was often associated with gang crime, called a Glasgow smile, it was commonly done purposely during bar fights in the 80/90s, often in Glasgow but happened throughout the UK.
TheViscountRang@reddit
Not a healthcare worker but the only time I've been in A&E was when a priest spilled a tray of boiling drinks down my back and gave me a wicked scald (standard stuff), and there was an old women in there who had had a fall. Nasty cut to the head, and she just wasn't being seen to. She was there for about an hour crying and being sick into those cardboard bowls, saying the pain was getting worse and worse but getting no attention. She then went into a seizure and after a lot of shouting and screaming for help from those of us that noticed, a couple of orderlies got her onto one of those board/stretcher things, started to hurry off then fucking dropped her in the middle of the floor, she just rolled right off and landed on her face. Absolutely horrible.
Noctemme@reddit
That’d be comedic if it wasn’t so horrendous.
My friend’s great grandmother died because they didn’t secure her in the ambulance properly, and it crashed.
xhaggishunter@reddit
Jfc
CAElite@reddit
As a former coastguard SAR operator.
Getting a shout at 2AM on a Monday morning that someone had jumped off the local \~100m drop bridge, and instead of finding that jumper, finding the one we didn't find 3 weeks ago. There where certain times of year we where out for that bridge every weekend, there was never any urgency, it was always a body recovery.
Spicy_Wimp@reddit
Not an A&E worker but when my brother was doing his nursiing training in A&E he got stabbed with a needle. He had to get regular bloodwork done and graduated later than his classmates.
littlebushpig199@reddit
These comments are already a hard read 😔
Ok_Note_2791@reddit
you see anything and everything depending on where you are and what hospital you're in
everything from falls, brain bleeds, I had a person break their neck falling down the stairs on the bus, a person who kicked their lawnmower and chopped off their toe. A person who was ejected from a car after it crashed (no seatbelt! ALWAYS wear a seatbelt!) with MULTIPLE broken wounds...
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