Doctors Share Their "How The Hell Are You Still Alive" Moments (r/AskReddit | Reddit Stories)

doctors of Reddit what made you say how the duck is this person still alive a guy I know with cancer smokes two packs a day and drinks a fifth of fireball every day he lives in a trailer so dirty there is a half inch of dirt according to his wife's mother he recovered from surgeries in that trailer eventually we got word he was quit in chemo and was just going to accept death five years ago he was given two months to live he is now completely cancer-free life is just weird sometimes when I was in college there was the kid that exited a freeway at near freeway speed problem was it was a construction zone at night no lights and it wasn't supposed to be an open exit drove right into a pile of rebar one of the poles went through the car into his face and pinned him to the seats through his head a couple of years later I was in grad school in anatomy seminar and the surgeon presented that kid's case as a study not only did he live the rebar had slid right past the base of the brain spinal column it was so close they had to twist it out like a screw because the ribbing on the bar threatened nerve damage they literally rebuilt his kid's skull around his brain his recovery photo was a totally normal kid smiling he had a small scar on his chin I say kid but he was like seventeen just to be clear edit a couple of people looked up the story and posted it in the responses for the curious be warned there is one photo you may find disturbing I had some minor details wrong but I hope I'm forgiven since it was 15 years ago edit - everyone keeps bringing up Phineas Gage but this guy didn't have any brain damage at all my resident called me urgently one night and said I needed to come to the hospital a young man was cut in half by a train I asked why I needed to come in there was no way he could survive that she explained that somehow he was maintaining his pressure and wasn't bleeding when I arrived they found that the force of train had sealed off all the major vessels from the pelvis down crimped like a human tortellini to that stick out guy gets shot in the abdomen drops to his knees shooter puts one through the top of his head near his for each bullet exits through his jaw he wouldn't stop complaining about how much he hates that the guy who shot him Unger driving a car gets t-boned on the passenger side by an Altima going at least 70 miles per hour her car looks like it was hit by an ie D so we assumed she was deceased upon arrival when the other crew on scene said our focus was extricated the people in the Altima girl driving was completely unhurt by a Volvo kind of a retelling but one time a cadaver on which I was performing an autopsy had a lung which was flipped upside down when I tried to flip it to the proper position bloop it flips right backed an upside down after some view diligence we realized the lung was a transplant and the surgeons who performed the transplant had attached the organ incorrectly along had been fighting to be upside down its whole life in this other man after 15 or so years the man eventually moved in a way that allowed this to flip over resulting in his death not really a how the duck is this person still alive but more of a how the duck did this person live is long with this condition old a woman called 911 for chest pain a vital signs wish T and she had the look that anyone who's ever seen a patient about to die will recognize instantly her EKG suggested multiple blockages in her coronary arteries and we had to put her on a ventilator shortly after she got to the ER because she deteriorated so quickly cath lab confirmed the EKG findings complete blockage of one artery and 99% blockage of two other major arteries unfortunately it was too extensive to resolve with PCI so the only option was to fly her to the University Hospital in the city for an emerge tripled bypass it turned out that she'd had multiple episodes like this but not quite as severe over the last six months and had refused bypass surgery not once not twice but three times in favor of a Mediterranean diet well at this point she didn't have much say anymore and family agreed so off to the or she won't I took care of her again about four months later and she actually seemed to have made a remarkable recovery as a student had a young guy come in who self inflicted a 22 to the inside of his mouth and passed out a woke the next morning didn't recall the night prior went to work two hours into work he says he's not feeling right and starts acting odd co-workers columns they take him in and the IDI is working him up and in the process notices a mix of clear fluid and blood in the back of his mouth they call nth and get a CT head shows 11 or so bullet fragments throughout his noggin the guy was acting by that time completely unfazed I was very phased working in an Aboriginal community a woman walked in complaining of a headache behind her eye she was told to take a seat and she turned around she had a butter knife sticking out the back of her skull apperently a drunk relative came home and stabbed her while she slept at it yes she survived was flown back to Townsville for imaging then on to Brisbane for surgery I helped take care of an old dude who had one leg amputated and had broken his other leg so he was seen yes because of that he was on oxygen and not being very compliant with using his wheelchair we were talking with him and he was getting really argumentative how am I supposed to chop wood in a wheelchair was what he kept demanding when asked how he was chopping wood with one leg in the first place he responded that he'd crawl into the woods and hop up to chop the wood this was even more concerning when the doctor asked how he was carrying his ax oxygen and the wood he chopped he looked him straight in the eye and said I carry him on my back not sure if he was serious but he was pretty dang grizzled and looked like he may have been crawling through the woods any of the patients with flesh-eating bacterias and massive debridement those are always a good source of what the daiquiri one of my best friends had a small boil like thing on the inside of his elbow ER told him to come back the next day for some surgery to get it lanced and stitched up the next day he was on life support but he remained for months his kidneys were shutting down and they thought he needed transplant liver function was way down his lungs weren't doing their lung thing and doctors couldn't quite figure out why it was a no good very bad time obviously the small boil on his elbow was actually the start of a staph infection which made it necessary to Flay his arm open from wrist to armpit they thought they'd have to amputate and he very nearly died several times he wound up with dropped foot in several bed sores from the coma and you know inadequate care however he's alive walking again and even attending music festivals the lesson of this story is don't go swimming in a casino hot tub you might wind up in a coma for months and need two years to gain basic functions back not a doctor a classmate of mine an HS was out snowmobiling in the middle of the night he was going about 50 miles per hour down a trail some Ashla had put a chain across the trail just to be an ash layer he didn't put reflectors on it and it wasn't even on his own land it was on state land unfortunately my classmate had a backrest on his sled the chain hit him square across his chest it slammed him into the backrest which fortunately broke off he rode back home and crawled into bed later his mom made him go to the local clinic that had a small er they life flighted him down to Duluth immediately he had a ruptured spleen part of his liver was torn his heart was badly bruised and he had a collapsed lung he was bleeding pretty bad intern the doc told him that if he hadn't been so muscular he would have died out on the trail the man was about six feet and 245 pounds and ripped like a bodybuilder when he started six months and a bunch of surgeries later he was maybe 130 pounds he looked like death and his whole chest was railroad tracks they had to crack his chest twice to deal with his heart and open up his abdomen numerous times to deal with infections now he's the same loud crazy person he always was a successful business owner with a wife and kids everyone thought he was going to die including the doctors but he pulled through for me it was a guy who was cleaning his loaded shotgun and it blew half his face off Jordan Dahl he was actually pretty good from the mid nose up the thing that surprised me is how good of shape he was in afterwards he didn't even go to the iku we just admitted him to the Med surg floor he was up communicating via whiteboard within a few hours and was adamant that he did not try to kill himself got a psych consult anyway but they agreed another inch dorsal with the barrel of that gun and he would have been done for you know there's big 16 - 18 inch kitchen knives that everyone has had a lady common with one sticking sideways out of her neck handle on the left side and top sticking out the right she went to law where they removed the knife in one of the most tense Ashleigh clenched moments in history minimal bleeding apparently the knife split right between her major blood vessels and airway was lying right against them didn't scratch em absolutely incredible infantry guy in Afghanistan in 2009 some old guy came up to this in a bazaar and asked us to give him a ride to a city his arm was wrapped up we said no since we don't exactly do that he unwrapped his arm his hand wrist was missing and his two arm bones were exposed in white everything else was green and black I have no idea how he was alive much less up and walking around what happened after we had our medic look at it everyone said whoa then we got mortared and got in a firefight so basically we never saw him again I'm guessing he died within a few days but I really don't know work in a hospital a guy showed up who had burst a tire going 180 km/h and flipped his car multiple times his car was a write-off the only injuries he got were a few scratches and a bruise at it thanks for internet points no I don't know what car he was driving modern cars do a pretty damn good job keeping the people inside alive rollovers are also one of the best situations for you as long as you're wearing your seat belt most of the energy is already being spent spinning the vehicle not as much as to be prevented from acting on the passengers I'm not a doctor but I was diagnosed with Addison's at age 13 or so was just generally feeling lethargic vomiting dizzy mum calls the hospital with symptoms and they said if I had all three at the same time to come in to be safe orderly or whatever checks my pulse in the lobby 30 stroke 15 he laughs well this one's broken and gets another machine 30 stroke 15 wait what calls a doctor they double check it and run me to the ER for fluids again not a doctor here but apparently that's not even high enough to have a pulse they had no clue how I was walking let alone conscious but saw the numbers and after realizing it was accurate they freaked the hell out and of course that freaked my mom out then telling my mom 30 stroke 15 as the BP of a dead person did not help and then they said it's either autoimmune or cancer my immune system apparently ate my adrenal glands now I'm on meds for life lucky me on the bright side though I never really have to worry about high blood pressure my dad walked a mile to see a friend and tried to walk up the stairs couldn't get up one step walked back one mile to his office looked up who his doctor was since he hadn't seen one in 20 years and drove there no appointment dr hooks him up to an EKG but it's fine tells him there's a cardiologist next door it's the end of the day they'll see him just in case they hook him up to a blood pressure monitor while he's on a treadmill the monitor is behind him he can't see it he starts walking they set a countdown timer for three minutes and about thirty seconds in one of the nurses steps out of the room my dad is watching the timer and it counts down to zero he feels fine and figures he's going home but the door opens and two ambulance attendants are wheeling in a gurney while he was on the treadmill his blood pressure dropped to zero then restarted then dropped to zero again the nurse who stepped out of the room dialed 911 they let him finish because they figured as soon as he stopped the heart attack would start in earnest quadruple bypass later and he lived but note he said he never felt the same a bypass is not a panacea Edit panacea panacea solution to all problems apparently not a commonly used word close bracket 15 years ago my mom dated a guy who had both a brain tumor and leukemia to treat the leukemia they had to stop treating the brain tumor and vice versa he was given two years to live he told my mum that he needed to focus on getting his affairs in order and spend time with his kids they had only been dating a few months very casually saw the dude a few weeks ago still kicking still has the tumor they successfully treated the leukemia but now he has a steer Prosis coma and a sort of not epilepsy Dart they found out he had brittle bone when he had a seizure and broke a lot of bones for down but he's just getting on with it couldn't kill the guy with an axe not a doctor but a student nurse I had a patient come into the psych ward from the emergency department after he had cut off his own right arm from the elbow down with a ducking chainsaw he only survived because he apparently had some kind of rare clotting disorder that prevented him from bleeding to death he was severely schizophrenic and believed that his arm was going to grow back edit I didn't expect this to blow up the way it did I love this story because my dad was a psychiatrist and I finally have something way weirder than any of the tales of his professional he ever told happy you'll found it as interesting as I did obligatory not mine but dad was an ER doc and one he told a lot one I was present for were some guy with a blood alcohol level of 85 was basically dead on a gurney not breathing suddenly this duck er sits up and punches my dad right in the face says turn those damn lights off and then lays back down and passes out apparently he was a massive alcoholic and no one knew how he was still alive and he had some kind of crazy tolerance built up sucker accident ahead of us on the freeway one day dad goes running up so I see none of the gore the driver is suspended in his seat in a flipped over car the car and the guy were both ripped in half at about midsection dad goes to work on this guy who is fully conscious and rather concerned he is missing everything below his hips being upside down kept enough blood in the guy's brain that he was awake for a while long enough the landed a hello on the highway and tried to fly into the hospital he didn't make it and I have never seen so much blood in my life dad left his clothes on the side of the road after giving the Highway Patrol a statement dropped me at school in his underwear none of this struck him as strange at all another weird world of genetics post got a sample involving some kind of offbeat case where they wanted prenatal paternity testing Plus analysis from my company about telling us anything about the patient in the background as sort of a blind verification thing the paternal test results strongly suggested that the prenatal sample appeared exclusively paternal the fetus only had one set of Auto chromosomes humans have usually two sets at this point we decided to stop referring to the prenatal thing as a fetus because genetically this is generally incompatible with life the answer it was DNA from the products of molar pregnancy which I highly encourage no-one to read more about as it's pretty duck in creepy not a doctor but March 2018 my father who is a type 2 diabetic ended up in the ER because of high blood sugar don't remember the exact number but his blood sugar was over 1,000 handfuls of doctors and nurses told me that was easily the highest blood sugar reading they'd ever witnessed they couldn't believe he was alive or at least not in a diabetic coma his blood was the consistency of syrup not a doctor but I once was visiting a friend and hospital and saw ambulance bring a dude with cutoff farm and lumberjack axe stuck in head think he was assaulted by some drunk Lumbee dude in local bar apparently he survived geneticist here a health care company in our field sent us a sample for genetic testing of a certain gene the paperwork said the patient was 35 male we found a mutation in the gene of interest which was squarely in the category of this person shouldn't be alive this is a prenatally lethal disorder also we noticed the sample had no Y chromosome marker fathom the provider had put the patient label on the wrong sample before mailing it to us this T happens way too much of some company's witness to sedan with a trailer flipped four times at 75 miles per hour on a highway into a ditch right in front of me a 12 y/o wasn't wearing a seat belt and was thrown from the vehicle through an open window he had a superficial laceration of his leg and was in shock but otherwise apparently unharmed we did a quick trauma evaluation of the family everyone seemed okay and applied pressure to the kids bleeding leg until Em's got mer when we were running to the ret car as the dust was settling I was sure we were just going to see disembodied pieces of that kid everywhere but he was really really lucky wear seatbelts folks everyone who remained buckled in the car didn't even have a scratch oh this is a good one for me my roommate is a heavy drinker he had to have some tests done a few months ago and it shows his liver function and how well it's doing this kid drinks himself to oblivion weekly eats like sh t doesn't exercise weighs like 350 pounds and smokes I'm thinking his liver and most of his other organs looks like a mummy's shriveled up scrotum his liver function test comes back perfectly clean he's perfectly healthy on paper other than being overweight he showed me cause I didn't believe him blew my goddamn mind not a doctor but my former step uncle used to work on towers like cellphone towers his harness broke and he fell landed straight on his back doctors said he was lucky to make it to the hospital alive and wouldn't live six months later he's walking and talking again he just has short-term memory issues and his speech is slowed down but he can still function and be a dad used to be an EMT guy was stabbed in the face with a kitchen knife split one on half x-ray showed the knife missed his brain and the tip of the blade was less than a cm from his brain stem lost the eye and lived to tell about it I understand he also broke up with his girlfriend [Music]

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Keywords: reddit, askreddit, top posts, r/askreddit, reddit top posts, reddit cringe, comedy, askreddit top posts, ask reddit, subreddit, reddit stories, reddit tales, funny reddit, best reddit posts, best of reddit, askreddit new, askreddit stories, reddit story, askreddit funny, reddit best, funny posts, funny askreddit, r/, reddit funny, people of reddit, reddit reveals, tales, tales reddit, stories, doctors, reddit doctors, how the hell are you still alive, hospital, nurses, dentists, er

Id: 2REMixiPOXk

Length: 22min 17sec (1337 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 05 2020