Surgeons on Reddit recount their most harrowing experiences from the operating room, revealing the unexpected challenges and life-threatening situations they face. One story details a patient with severe sepsis requiring the amputation of all four limbs. Another recounts a mid-forearm amputation from a table saw injury. A particularly tragic story involves a young man with a stab wound arriving at the ER only to code and ultimately succumb, as his family waited obliviously in the waiting room. These stories exemplify the high stakes and emotional weight of medical emergencies.
One of the worst cases I've had was a patient with really bad sepsis from an infection; all the blood vessels in your extremities constrict, so amputating fingers isn't all that common. But this was catastrophic, as we ultimately had to amputate all four limbs.
I was called to the ED (Emergency Department) to evaluate a 'table saw injury to arm.' Found a mid-forearm amputation and ended up re-attaching it.
I'm a surgeon. Some young guy, 21 years old, came into the ER at 3 a.m. with a stab wound. He waited hours before he decided to come in, laughing and joking around, and brought his whole family - mom, dad, brothers - and friends. Was a trauma Level 1, and we brought him immediately to the trauma room...his body was trying to compensate for the loss of volume. As soon as we brought him back, he coded, and he was never brought back. A last-ditch effort was made, and a manual cardiac massage was attempted; they crack your chest open and manually pump your heart to restart it. The knife had nicked his abdominal aorta, and it completely ruptured - liters of blood spilled onto the floor. It was like a scene from a movie. Meanwhile, his friends were having a pizza party in the waiting room, laughing and having a good ol' time when we had to tell them he died.
Collection
[
|
...
]