re: For the nurses/docs, what's the craziest things you've ever seen at work?

quote:

---

No body sees more disturbing things than people who work the streets. Except maybe active military war personnel.

---

I was a hospital corpsman with a marine infantry platoon in the Nam. Not even going to tell any of those stories because you won't believe them. BUT, while working a dirty surgery ward in Oakland, many years ago, we had a sailor that survived his aorta being severed. At the time he was only the 2nd person in history to do that. I believe his story was in Life magazine. The doctors did a hell of a job patching this guy up. His aorta was fine but the problem was his small intestine was leaking on the outside of his body on his stomach. He kept going into surgery to try and remedy the problem but there was always a leak because the small intestine couldn't heal. What was cool was we used placenta therapy on the wound. I wound walk over to the maternity ward a get a fresh placenta every few days and keep it in the refer in the treatment room. We would cut the placenta in the shape of the wound and bandage him up and that would keep the intestine from leaking on his stomach and keep the surrounding tissue protected. OH, forgot to tell you he was stabbed by his girlfriend's husband. I remember him getting his first liberty after he was somewhat recovered. You guessed right if you guessed he went back to see that same girlfriend. I'm guessing her husband was not at home.

You can't make stories like this up.