WHEN you work in A&E you're bound to see all sorts - from bizarre injuries to the most heartbreaking scenes.

Our nurses are front-line witnesses to this every day, seeing things many of us would hardly be able to stomach.

Cleaning up sick and other bodily fluids; disinfecting wounds; helping the elderly and frail; and comforting grieving parents can all be in a days work for nurses and doctors.

Nurses have been sharing their worst cases on Reddit - and it will make you appreciate them even more.

 

'He kept money in a hole in his stomach'

"I’m gonna go with the homeless guy that came to our hospital with an abdominal abscess (basically a hole in his abdomen)," one nurse wrote.

"We were trying to clean his wound and assess the damage, and when we reached inside his wound, we started finding money.

"He nonchalantly stated that he kept his money tucked in there, to protect it from being stolen."

 

'I heard her screaming down the hall'

"Saddest stories are the kids," justwatchmefly said.

"Six- year-old shot by a drive by and was being coded by the time she arrived.

"She didn't make it and hearing the mother hear the news and screaming from down the hall will stick with me forever."

 

'His parents kept thinking he would wake up, but he wouldn't'

"A 20-year-old patient in for a motorcycle accident sans helmet," zombie_goast said.

"Kid 'survived' but was never going to be not a vegetable living off of 15 different tubes ever again; he literally lost too much brain tissue.

"What was hard was watching his parents stay in his room in shifts, documenting every little twitch and spasm and reporting to us as a sign that he was 'waking up', only to have to be gently told (after assessing of course) that it's just spasms with no conscious thought.

"They would also happily keep telling us about the welcome home party they had planned for him, and making jokes that they're never letting him buy a bike again.

"One day they started visiting less and less, and eventually stopped coming at all. Finally, they made him a DNR (do no resuscitate) He was their only child."

 

'He shot himself in the face and was left with no nose'

"A 17 year old kid shot himself in the face," runupriver wrote.

"He was left with no nose, no mouth, no jaw, but everything north of that was totally intact.

"Incredibly sad eyes. He lived long enough to attempt suicide again (more successfully) later."

 

'Mum refused cancer treatment to give birth'

"36 year old female patient who had been diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer in her eighth week of pregnancy," beat_of_rice wrote.

"Her and her husband had been trying for a baby for 10 years.

"Was advised to terminate the pregnancy to pursue aggressive treatment, of course she refused.

"Was induced at 32 weeks and her entire abdomen was overcome with malignant tutors by this time.

"The cancer had also spread to her lungs and bones. Baby was born, sent to NICU and mum was sent home on hospice.

"She died 3 weeks later. Baby is doing fine today and just turned a year old."

 

'A hole is a hole'

"Elderly prostitute admitted for sepsis yet again," jareths_tight_pants wrote.

"Cultures are all negative until someone sees that her colostomy bag is a bit too red and puffy to be considered normal.

"We cultured it and she had syphilis as well as a bunch of MRSA [a hospital superbug]."

Further questions revealed she had been letting some of her customers have sex with her stoma bag.

'His toe just fell off...'

"Was doing wound care on a diabetic man who took zero care of himself," another wrote.

"It was a foot ulcer with necrotic tissue and gangrene.

"As I was pulling the old dressing off, I felt a subtle crunch. I looked and saw that, yep, the dressing pulled one of the mans necrotic toes completely off with it.

"He just sighed and said 'not again'.

"Turns out just a few months ago, his other foot was at that level of ulceration, and one of those toes came off when he went to put shoes on."

 

'Things I've helped removed from a grown man's penis'

Dude-RN had an interesting story to tell...

"Things I’ve helped remove from a grown man’s penis: LEGO lightsaber, baby carrot, plastic spoon, small circular magnets, purple crayon, golf pencil.

"And I’ve only been in emergency medicine for 6 years."