“How Did That Get There?”: 40 Shocking Things Doctors Discovered Inside Patients

The medical field is full of surprises, but sometimes even doctors and nurses are left completely speechless. Someone on Reddit asked healthcare workers: “Weirdest thing you’ve found stuck to a patient?” and the answers did not disappoint.

#1

Image source: hydrangea_danger, Affectionate_Net_213

I’m not a nurse but a friend of mine is. She said a guy came in with a buzz lightyear figurine in his butt. The real problem was the wings deployed while he was enjoying his time with dear old buzz…

#2

Image source: IfEverWasIfNever, Cornelia Ng

A woman who liked to store her family heirloom rings in her v****a (yes, she had dementia). Family requested them and they were nowhere to be seen. They assured us she had them. While cleaning her up, she coughed and a few fell out. We cleaned and disinfected them the best we could and gave them back to the family.

#3

Image source: Milesofstyle, Getty Images

As a medical student, our GI co-ordinator had time for a few questions at the end of our block, open floor. Being a somewhat precocious medical student I asked “What is the most interesting thing you have had to remove from someone’s butt?”

Sniggering ensued but the Doctor wasn’t phased. She earnestly recanted a story about removing someone’s eyeglasses from his r****m but before that she had the xray and showed the patient that there were glasses up his behind. He alledgedly replied, “I’m sorry, I can’t really make it out as I don’t have my glasses with me.”

Laughter ensures in our class; however, sensing a golden opportunity my hand shoots up for a follow up question.

“I have to ask,” I say, “in that moment, how did you resist the urge to make a joke about hindsight?”

That was a fun lecture.

#4

Footlong Subway sandwich under their fat roll, the chips and cookies were under the pannus near the pelvis. Lady was pissed. She came to ER and needed surgery, and “knew you wouldn’t let me eat.” That one really shook my faith in humanity, but then I got coffee and remembered I never had any.

Image source: anon

#5

When my mom was in vocational school she had a classmate who had an unpleasant odor. Over time it got worse and worse until the instructors pulled this gal aside and have the personal hygiene talk with her. She broke down into tears and told the trusted adults that she had been using a pickle in place of a s*x toy and lost it. It was just gone. She admitted that had been around a month earlier. One of the instructors took the girl straight to the ER and waited there for her while the makeshift toy was retrieved.

That instructor deserved a d**n raise. I would have lost my s**t. Also, imagine the smell in that procedure room upon removal! 😣.

Image source: LaquishaFromTheBlock

#6

Image source: Forsaken-Ad-7502, Yunus Tuğ

Not a nurse, but a medic. This was awhile ago, but it was a paper prescription stuck to the patient’s back. He had been given a prescription for lidocaine cream for some type of back pain. The instructions were, “apply to affected areas for pain relief.” So he did.

My partner hid behind the clipboard laughing so hard, tears were pouring out of his eyes. I had to stand there with a straight face until I finished assessing him and triaged him to the BLS ambulance for transport. Poor guy, he was so nice, just couldn’t understand why it wasn’t working.

#7

Image source: Mark3l4, IamCristian

Cousin of mine had to remove an apple from the same guys r****m on two separate occasions. Due to the hospitals procedure, an MRI was required before extraction. The computer system analyzed it the second time and concluded that “the tumor had increased in size”.

#8

Image source: acm-5h20-1996, Kaboompics.com

20+ yrs ago as a baby nurse assisting with septic work up on pt who had to be cut from his trailer d/t morbid obesity. Myself & 3 others lifting pannus to get a cath in & a tv remote was found it did not fall it was adhered to his skin causing a wound. He was such a kind man & jokingly said “I’ve been looking for that!”.

#9

Image source: MR-DEDPUL, Hans Herrington

Intern here.

Dude came in with an iPod jammed up his a*s. Idk how or why it happened but he said he wanted to ‘feel the bass’.

Let the record state that I’m a musician too and I have serious doubts as to how effective jamming an iPod up your a*****e is in terms of ‘feeling the bass’.

#10

Worked in a closed s*x offender unit where we did non-emergent care on site but flew out if there was a real crisis. Had a guy who was constantly claiming to have inserted items into his p***s or r****m for the flight out, until eventually we didn’t believe him and would take him to X-Ray in visitor screening every time.

One day one of my subs comes in and says, “‘Guy’ has a tobasco bottle stuck up his r****m and he says it broke. I guess he was masturbating with it and put it too far up there and lost it.” She never explained to me at which point it was “too far” to insert a tobasco bottle into ones a**s.

I go out to talk to him and he’s standing upright, refusing to sit down but not appearing to be in any obvious distress, so I assume his faking. Ask him what happens. He recounts that he was stimulating himself with the bottle and lost it, got embarrassed, tried to fish it out with a wire coat hanger, and the bottle had shattered. I looked him dead in the face and said, “So you’re telling me that you have a shattered glass bottle cutting into your a*s, and if dripping vinegar and peppers into your a**s and those cuts, and your just standing here all chill?” He says yes. I send him to XRay to call his bluff. Cut to all of us just staring at the machine… he’s telling the truth. We can see the shattered bottle and his large intestine is distended from all of the blood inside of it. It’s horrible, and I have no idea how he’s upright or why he’s not soaked in blood. On the lifeflight we go, where I not only have to accompany him, I have to explain it over radio to the recieving hospital. They rerouted is twice because no one was sure what type of specialist we needed, and no one wanted to touch that with a 100 foot pole.

Image source: PembrokeLove

#11

Image source: Harveyjeter, Sreeja

Not a doctor but a nurse. Had a patient come in with a toothpick in his p***s. Refused to tell me how it got in there, insisting he was picking his teeth and it fell in.

#12

My wife is a gastroenterologist .. she once had to take care of a guy who had a ‘foreign body’ stuck in his a**e. He didn’t even try to come up with a b******t story.

Eventually she was able to extract a full-size long can of Gillette shaving foam (the Best A Man Can Misplace).

Upon further inspection, ‘but wait there’s more!’. The guy then admitted there was also a full-size can of Axe deodorant spray stuck up there as well!

(Normally patients lose a foreign body due to unexpected ‘a**l rectal reflex’ that pulls things up and out of reach. This clown was not a fast learner!).

My wife could not extract the second can .. she had to send the patient for surgery and he ended up with a colostomy bag.

Be careful playing around back there!

p.s. this patient was 73 yrs old.

Image source: LausanneAndy

#13

600+ lbs patient with a rusted and fully loaded revolver stuck underneath one of their fat rolls. It had been there so long it was covered in a slime and dead skin goop.

Image source: SWEATYTURTLENUTS

#14

Image source: anon, Liliana Drew

Toilet brush… The handle/stalk (don’t know what it’s called in ebglish) had broken off and the dude couldn’t get it out. The brush part I mean.

#15

The weirdest thing I’ve seen is a #2 pencil in a female’s urethra. She had pushed it up to the level of her bladder and came in for blood in the urine. She was a frequent flyer sadly.

A colleague had a billiard ball in the v****a patient.

Lots of shampoo bottles. It’s amazing how many people slip in the shower and just end up with one in there…

Image source: Fluffernator8486

#16

Sunflower seed shells.

Apparently if you devour an entire bag without removing the shells and you’re shy about pooping in public for 5 days you develop a sunflower seed shell bezoar (blocking mass of foreign material).

The patient had to go to the OR for disimpaction under anesthesia (EUA).

Image source: aetuf

#17

Image source: Lazarus73, Rebecca Peterson-Hall

A rather large pumpkin spice candle in one of those hourglass shaped jars. To this day the process boggles my mind, and it was back in the day of x-rays on film. I had a copy made, without identifying personal information of course, and now have one of the most interesting lampshades you’ve ever seen :).

#18

My first sem lab tutor told us a story of how she found a mushroom growing under a patient’s breast 💀.

Image source: viobro

#19

Image source: bahknee9, Alper Çuğun

ER nurse here. We have hall beds for drunk/high people. Once found a mouse trap stuck to someone’s leg with a dead mouse in it.

#20

Image source: EnsoElysium, Sandra Gabriel

A friend of mine is a doctor, and it has to be a tossup between a pound of potatoes “lovingly shaved” as he puts it, to resemble eggs, and a totem pole of barbie heads superglued together.

#21

Image source: zetecvan, Geri Jean

A friend (nurse) told me this story. A couple came in, and the woman had an apple stuck inside her v****a. She said her and her husband were making out on the sofa when the doorbell rang. She jumped up, and over the coffee table, when she slipped and landed on the fruit bowl, and the apple went up.

So they managed to get it out. When they did, they found it had a bite taken out of it.

#22

Image source: heavily-caffinated, Nathan Dumlao

In nursing school, a half eaten biscuit tucked away under a tiddy. Granny was saving it for later 😂.

#23

Image source: Brithefryguy56, LegoRobinHood

Here we go, you will not believe this one.

I had just had a daughter and was always exhausted due to the lack of sleep from her. (Not on her it’s just kids y’know) and I was half asleep in the ambulance when we got dispatched to pick up a kid from this house on the edge of town. The dispatcher said the girl was complaining of lower abdomen pain so we should be very careful with her. The ride was normal and then later that week an x-ray specialist friend of mine asked me if I remembered that girl. I said yes. He said she had a Lego lightsaber stuck sideways 4 inches from her r****m. She must have swallowed it (….hopefully).

My sleep deprived a*s had to race across town to save a little girl who had a lightsaber stuck in her r****m 😣

If that’s not hilarious I’m not sure what is. When I ended up saying to my wife when I got home that “I saved a girl with a lightsaber in her r****m at work” she just stared at me in confusion.

#24

Image source: PHC_Tech_Recruiter, Christian Wiediger

Friend of mine had to remove a pool/billiard ball from a guy’s r****m. They were taking bets on which # it was. Lol.

#25

Image source: jemmo_, MJH SHIKDER

Bowling pin, St. Patrick’s day several years ago.

Patient claimed he “couldn’t remember” how it got there. Paramedic’s comment was, “Buddy, if you’re so drunk you don’t remember that going up there, you should be dead.”

#26

My friend’s father had to remove three toothbrushes from a pregnant 16-year-old’s v****a. Her boyfriend got insanely drunk and then tried to make her abort by stuffing a toothbrush up there. She agreed with it. The first toothbrush got stuck, so he tried to pry it out using a second toothbrush, which also got stuck. So he tried to get out the second one by using a third toothbrush… which also got stuck.

Image source: Brunsui

#27

Image source: SalesAutopsy, Kier in Sight Archives

Had a friend that was an ER doc who described a patient coming in who had a rather large fish inside of him. The problem was that the fish have been inserted while it was frozen. Once it thawed out from the warmth of the body the fins expanded and surgery was needed to remove it, or the spines would have tore the guy up on the way out.

#28

Image source: lauren1capri, Hans Splinter

During residency my mom saw a guy who shoved a garden gnome up his a*s.

#29

Image source: Boyiee, Noel Nicolas

Guy had a glass vase in his r****m in our ER.

He’s really lucky it stayed intact through to surgery.

#30

Image source: Obi-wanna-cracker, Kateryna Hliznitsova

My sister works at the ER and she got to remove an intact light bulb out of a guys a*s. Like this man got a light bulb up his a*s, figure out its stuck, drive to the ER, sit for maybe 30 minutes ans have it removed without it breaking. To this day I’m still trying to figure out how it happened.

#31

An entire 20oz bottle of Dr Pepper hidden in their skin folds….while looking for their glasses….that were also in their skin folds.

Image source: combo_platter

#32

Found a spoon and a fork in one ladies bilateral flank folds and an Oreo under her b**b a few days later. Set the Oreo on the bedside table to finish cleaning her up and when we rolled her over she decided to pick it up and eat it before we could stop her.

Image source: Elley_bean

#33

Image source: maraxx66, Andrej Lišakov

One guy came in, he had a beard trimmer stuck up there. But that’s what he wanted. He got off on “being caught” and having it removed. We’ve seen him a few times before for other things.

#34

Hospital deodorant with no lid (ball roller applicator type) stuck the hip/buttock. Pulled it off and said “hey friend, what is up with this”….”oh I put that up my butt”

And that is why you always always always wear gloves.

Image source: apocalypseconfetti

#35

A couple of years ago, when I was an ER Tech , another tech and I were cleaning and bagging a body. When we rolled the body, a bunch of change rolled onto the floor, we were both speechless because the person was naked… and we had just cleaned it…

Image source: SheSends

#36

Image source: girlcommainterrupted, Diana Polekhina

Turned a patient I received from RRT and they had their dentures on their butt cheek. Imprint and all.

#37

Found a slice of pizza (cheese side up) stuck to a patients back

another time I found a gabapentin tablet in a morbidly obese patient’s abdominal fold. It left the entire pill imprint into his swollen skin, including the numbers and letters. We only do gabapentin capsules so it was from home and he had been there for weeks. Originally I thought it had been missed for that long, but then after multiple more admits we realized he was getting meds from home and stashing them.

Image source: slothurknee

#38

Nothing like getting a text from your mom (nurse) to tell you about the other text she got from a friend (ER nurse) that not one but two guys came into the ER with gerbils up their butts. They thought coming in a half hour apart would make things less suspicious. Yes, my mom and I have a weird relationship.

Image source: Red_Trivia

#39

Not a nurse. I work in a lab at a hospital, and we get some weird stuff sent down to us to be sent out for microbiology testing. I was working the front desk and a nurse called and said she had a patient who claimed she had worms crawling out of her butt. Pinworms aren’t super uncommon around here, especially in the low income areas. I explained to the nurse how to do a tape prep and if there were actual worms to bring them down in a plastic collection cup.

Maybe like 5 minutes later I get a cup that had earthworms in it. I asked 0 questions and just sent it off to micro to do their thing. I have no idea if they were actually in this person’s r****m, or if just around the general area. I also have no clue how they got there or why, and I was too afraid to ask the nurse.

Image source: AshenNecromancer

#40

Peanut butter and jelly sandwich beneath a massive underboob that was so moldly you could smell the yeast from five feet away.

Image source: NurseExMachina