"Her Face Ripped Off": 49 Most Bizarre Medical Cases Medical Workers Saw In The ER

ER doc-the worst cases I see are the patients who only come to the ED for their care due to a lack of insurance and other social supports. Appropriate preventive care would limit many of the severe presentations we see. People can’t afford their medications, healthy food and don’t have transportation to get to primary care appointment. They don’t have sick time from minimum wage jobs, so they put off being seen for something treatable and then come in to the ED at 2am because it’s the only time they can actually get health care. That diabetic foot infection could have been treated in clinic, now it’s so bad it needs amputation. The CHF/hypertensuon/diabetes could have been managed well with mediation and diet changes at home, but patients can’t afford their meds so they don’t take or stretch out the doses and then end up in the ED with an acute exacerbation. This is the wort part of emergency medicine-seeing how our society fails basic health care for so many people.

Had a patient last month come in because the glue on their toe stopped working.  They didn't come in 2 days ago when their diabetic toe fell off but came in when the glue stopped holding it on. 


I pretty much go to work always thinking people can't get any dumber.  I'm proven wrong weekly....

Had a guy come in that got struck by lightning. We stripped him down looking for the exit mark from the burst of energy. We couldn’t find one and were worried his ~~insides~~ *organs* were ~~cooking from~~ *heating up from the energy of the* lightning strike and at risk of failing.

About an hour later his friend showed up to check on the guy and let him know his dog was okay and he got the dog home. He then proceeds to say “did you see the dogs collar explode off its neck?! That was crazy”

Turns out the guy was holding the dogs leash when he got struck and the energy from the strike traveled down the leash and exited through the dogs collar.

I think about this often and this happened almost 15 years ago. There’s so many wild and unpredictable cases that come in but this one has always stood out to me.

Saw a dude bring in his own leg after a motorcycle wreck. It was completely severed and dude still worried about his boot.

Not the most crazy but we had a woman come in for a headache and her husband decided to get his nagging back pain looked at “while we’re here”, he had an aortic dissection.

Had a guy, maybe around 20-22 come in and had the wire of a pair old school wired apple earphones stuck up his johnson. All the way to where the single wire split off into the two wires , so maybe 1-2 feet of wire up there. Claimed he passed out at a friends party and his friends did it to him. Had to x-ray to see what all was going on. The wire made it all the way to his bladder. What happens when you had those headphones in your pocket? Yeah some thing happened in his bladder, so it couldn't just be pulled out, had to have it surgically removed.

Also had a woman somehow make it past check in, past triage to the emergency bay and when a doctor asked what was going on, she said she sneezed and popped her stitches and showed us her hands. She was holding like two feet of intestines in her hands. She had a c-section and popped the stitches and it came spilling out. I still don't know how she made all the way back there.

I spent 18 hours in the emergency room next to a woman handcuffed to the bed and two officers trying to explain she cannot leave. From what I gathered, she partied it up at an Applebees, drove home, wrecked her car, broke both of her legs and well was above the legal limit. She didn't understand where she was or why she couldn't go home. The police explained repeatedly that she was in a bad accident, the car was totaled, she was under arrest and they wanted to know who her passenger was in the car for the passengers safety. They could tell there was a passenger because the blood splatter patterns indicated someone else was in the car and badly injured. Hours later, the pain relievers wore off and she started to feel the broken legs, so in addition to being completely unaware of where she was, she was screaming in pain.

Thats what its like on an average night in a level one ER trauma center.

Walked in to help my colleague with a level one trauma. The lady had been hacked to death by a machete. She was still alive when she came in but succumbed shortly afterwards. Colleague was white as a sheet and swaying. I looked at the ladies face that was hanging off her skull with the lady swinging her arms around with hacked off fingers

I swiftly departed before I made a biological mess on the floor Had a bit of a cry. The ex had been waiting for several days for her to come out.

A woman who had her face ripped off by her romantic companion during an argument, with their teeth.

My brother had a women arrive into ER who had had a cucumber shoved so hard up her bottom that it had broken the wall of her lower intestine and vanished into her abdominal cavity.

She was adamant that it was consensual and she was enjoying it up until her partner ‘slipped’.

She later admitted that it was their first tinder date, and she’d only met the bloke an hour previously.

Girl came in with a busted up face, we thought she was beat or involved in a serious car accident. Nope, she was tending to the family cattle and got headbutt by a freakin cow.

It isn't the craziest thing we've seen but it was pretty random and gave us all a good chuckle. (We were laughing with her, she was making some hilarious jokes about it).

Was waiting to pick up a friend after a surgery and a lady pulled up covered in blood. Like pouring off her face and arms. She goes running inside. A second lady pulls up also covered in blood and goes inside.

A couple minutes later a third lady covered in blood walks up, sees the two cars sitting there, tosses her machete into the bushes and walks inside.

At that point I went and talked to security and they got the machete and separated the three ladies. Turns out the first lady had been sleeping with the third lady’s son, the second lady was married to the first one and she was the third lady’s sister, and they’d all gotten into a knife fight because the son had posted pictures of him kissing his aunt in law to Snapchat accidentally.

I was booking in one of my patients at reception in the early 00s. I could smell smoke and burnt meat for a few minutes before a man walked in looking like an extra from the walking dead. He mumbled to the receptionist that he needed to see a doctor. It took me a second or so to get up and grab stretcher for him and take him into resus. The doctor in resus was royally pissed with me for not pre-alerting the dept.

The patient had been burning rubbish in his garden and had managed to burn more of himself than the rubbish. Full thickness burns over all of his body and in no real pain whatsoever. Needless to say he died.

For about 6 months my wife had been telling me I needed to go to ER. I couldn't walk from house to street without having to catch my breath. I kept saying I'm OK I just need to lose some weight. Finally we were going somewhere with my daughter and granddaughter and the saw me struggling, I couldn't defy all 3 of them so they took me straight to ER. I was checking in and my wife made sure they listened to her rather than me. Straight into triage, told not to move. A new nurse put me in a wheelchair and pushed me to a room. She and another nurse put me in bed, one had me stripped down in a gown and I've started . The other was hooking me to a heart monitor. She started that and Dr walks in a few minutes later. Before asking me anything he looks at the paper rolling from machine. He asks if I had ever heard of A-Fib. If I knew it k****d people. Then asked why the hell hadn't I listened to my wife. 10 days in cardiac care unit trying to control it with meds. He comes in tells me we need to get a little more aggressive as meds weren't doing what he needed. Says he is going to do a procedure called Cardiac Inversion (??). I'm gonna give you a little shock to correct the rhythm. No big deal. After he left my nurse asked if I had any questions, I said no he is gonna give a lil shock fix it. She tells me it's a bit more and give me all details Dr. didn't. Give me a sedative like I'm going to have surgery. Then the fun part, stop my heart. Then kick start me. Twice. I was still joking as they wheeled me in wanting someone to film it for me. They refused. I was a huge bruise nearly all around my torso. Felt like a few guys had me down kicking my ribs with steel toe boots. 4 days later I left hospital. Within a year I lost 110 lbs. I just past 5 year mark I'm still 80 lbs down from then. Not taking any meds. And I try to listen to wife more.

tldr: Had a-fib. Dr turned me off then turned me back on again.

Dude with gauged ears got his pet snake caught in the gaping hole in his earlobe.


Came in by ambulance. The snake wiggled out of the hole in the ambulance bay. Female doctor who was very afraid of snakes screamed and told the EMTs to put everyone back in the ambulance and go home.

Hospital security/ Hospital peace officer for years. I mean there is a million. I've told some of these stories on here before.

Had a guy come in with a gash on his neck claiming he like accidentally cut himself you could straight up see into his neck. Turned out his girlfriend slashed him with a broken beer bottle.

Guy came in claiming some people tried to cut through the middle of his foot. Like top down right in the middle. Had to hold him down while nurses gave him pain d***s. Allegedly gang related but I never got a follow up.

Had a woman run up to our ER security desk with her hands bound together claiming she had just escaped from someone's trunk.

Had someone come in complaining of bad flu symptoms. Sat down while his wife went to park the car. Keeled over within two minutes of being there. Team ran out and started compressions until nurses came out and some paramedics from the ambulance bay helped get him in the back. By the time his wife was back from parking the car he was dead.


Overnight ER is the only registration open so pregnant woman in labour comes into ER to register. Her husband is talking to the registration staff and she walks around the corner to the washrooms. Registration and husband come around the corner to grab her and she has her pants down and pushing while standing in front of the washrooms. This husband half dives because the baby was literally coming right there and he catches it like a d**n football to prevent the kid from falling on the floor. Blood everywhere. It was like her eighth kid apparently.

I nearly delivered a baby one time. Husband came running into ER saying his wife was in labour in their car. So I went running out with a wheelchair. She was refusing to get out. He went running off for nurses (Redundant as I just radio'd out to get some nurses out there" She pulls down her pants and says "Baby is coming now". So I gloved up and was basically begging her to just get in the chair to get inside. She eventually said yes and I dragged her out. Got met halfway in with a stretcher and nurses. She gave birth while getting wheeled up to delivery.

One time at like 2 am I see on cameras there is a small goat outside. i went outside and it ran up to me until the owner got out of his car. Goats name was Rudy and they were waiting for the dudes wife. Guess they had the goat on them when they needed to bring her in. That was pretty great.

Foreign objects (flash lights & shot glassed being common) put where the sun don’t shine, but apparently Mag Lites work. Every semester in school, at least weekly at the hospital I was working at. The waddle was always a give away. I have redacted prints of five or six goodies.

Also a guy who’s wedding ring came off in the v****a of a women he wasn’t married to. Guys, if you’re going to cheat, take jewlery off.

Husband and wife run into the ER together. Man is holding something small, covered in a bloody looking blanket, in his arms. The wife is hysterical, while the husband looks blank and confused. She screams that they need help with their son. She starts explaining that there was a four-wheeler accident and their son was thrown off of it. Nurses grab a gurney and have the father lay the blanket on it, and they take it off. Just as they pull the blanket away, the wife pulls something out from under her arm that hadn't been noticed before, also wrapped in a blanket that's bloody. She plops it on the gurney, and it's the son's head, severed from his body, but the eyes and jaw are still moving slightly. She screams that he is still alive and demands that the doctors and nurses fix him.

I do not work in a hospital, but was a witness to this event. The woman couldn't understand that there was nothing they could do for her son. The boy was about 7 or 8. It was so shocking and sad. The man was literally in shock, of course, and just didn't have any real reaction to what was happening.

I was with a family member (they're fine now). Down the hall some poor lady was just screaming and screaming in pain. In the end we asked the nurse what was wrong with her. She said "nothing, she's a regular and it's a small cut on her finger".

People who work in the ER are a special breed to put up with all the craziness.

Not me but my friends are EMTs. They had a call where a man on d***s had cut off his own arm to then jack off with it. Was still doing it, with a smile, when they arrived. .