6 real-life horror stories from Georgia nurses

When you're part of the nursing staff, you never have to wait for Halloween for horror stories. They happen every day, right before your very eyes, no costumes or special effects required. Of course, most nurse horror stories are so awful or scary that they're no fun to talk about. But there are the incidents that you lived through, processed, and can now look back on and shake your head.

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In celebration of the trick-or-treat holiday, here are a few true scary tales from nursing stations in the region. (Note that identifying information has been eliminated and certain sources are using their nicknames. Admittedly, any of these nurse horror stories could have happened to anyone.)

Couldn't see the problem, at first

"I had a patient who went on a meth binge and sent her diabetes haywire. I noticed she had the lens from a pair of glasses on her bedside table that hadn't been there before. I asked where she got it and she said she must have put it 'inside' while she was high. I had to get a doctor to come do a pelvic exam for the other lens. Still couldn't find it."

- Fiona, a float nurse

Why we have waiting rooms

"This truly was a nightmare, and very sad. I was working in a small community hospital emergency room, with just about five beds. We had EMS call in simultaneously with two from the same motor vehicle accident. The first was CPR in progress, and the other was walking around at the scene and just had a minor cut. They both came to the ER. Two nurses and one doctor were working, and all of our attention was on the CPR patient we will call Ms. Doe. Well, the family for both patients came to the hospital about 10 minutes after. It was a small town. So the family of the patient who was alive and well (we will call him Mr. Smith) kept trying to come in Ms. Doe's room while we are trying to perform CPR! They were threatening to sue because their child's car was wrecked! We didn't have security so we had to try to save Ms. Doe and keep Mr. Smith's family members out of the room at the same time."

- Former ER nurse Lany

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I'll find time to yell, though

"Most of the attending and consulting doctors we work with are humble and willing to listen. But there was an attending once who traveled down several floors of the hospital to berate our secretary because she'd messaged him about a patient that wasn't his. She caught the mistake early and had only been requesting a diet change. When he responded that he didn't have the patient via our Instant Message system, she apologized, saying she'd just clicked on the wrong doctor. You would think that'd be the end of it? No, he came storming down to our floor and loudly berated her in front of patients and staff because 'Doctors have more important things to do than to respond to a page about an incorrect patient. There are lives on the line!' He came down there several hours after it happened, by the way."

- Ebony, nursing assistant

What's for lunch, doctor?

"I worked in an ER with a doctor who was too lazy and out of shape to get around so he would move through the ED on a rolling chair and bark orders at us. He would literally get us out of other patients' rooms to do something he could do himself, like get a patient a blanket because that was 'a nurse's job.' And then he would wheel to his desk and snack. He also would go in the break room at night and eat food the nurses brought for themselves. At the desk. Right in front of us."

- Dee, a critical care nurse

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A tragic and mysterious death

"A family member had come to pick up a patient. They said they were going to the bathroom before going down to pull the car around. They disappeared. We later learned they'd died feet from the patient in the room's bathroom, from a sudden cardiac event caused by a vasovagal attack."

- Ebony, nursing assistant

Thor now stays in the supply cabinet

"Patients with feeding tubes or difficulty swallowing, things like that, would need us to crush their meds. We used to do this at the nurse's station with a big hammer we called Thor. One night a very large psychotic patient got out of bed and chased the nurses around with it. We don't leave the hammer out anymore."

- Fiona, a float nurse