Here, we dive into the most absurd stories of patients who have woken up from anesthesia… “Sorry we seem to have taken a wrong turn, we’re in the morgue”
1. “Do I still have my balls?”
I’m an anesthesia student currently doing my clinical rotations and I had an old guy wake up and the first thing he asked was “do I still have my balls?” and I told him “yep, both of them” and he said “both? Aw you guys are great”
hotsauce126
2. “Youre snoring, rollover”
Told to me by my wife confirmed by the nurse – I was in bed hospital room, waiting for surgery, they already gave me meds to calm me BUT they knocked me out.
2 nurses come in to move me to a gurney’ but they were small and I’m big they can’t move me over, my wife came over and poked me in the ribs saying youre snoring, rollover, and I rolled right onto the gurney.
1shroud
3. “What’s the safe word?”
Had a patient in for an an endoscopy. As a matter of course, we place a speculum (think ball gag, but a metal ring instead of a ball) in the mouth through which to pass the scope so the patient doesn’t bite the scope once they’re under. We typically place it right at induction of anesthesia. This patient had the presence of mind to ask us what the ‘safe word’ was before he lost consciousness as we placed the speculum. One of the rare times the whole OR erupted in laughter.
tdurty
4. Woah.
I once had a patient start totally trashing her sister, telling me how she has always been the black sheep of the family, is a scumbag and wants to bang her husband. She’s just going off, and sitting in the doorway was the sister, the only one there to support her after surgery. You could tell it was crushing for her. This was probably an hour after the patient left PACU, conscious but still pretty whacked out.
noporesforlife
5. “This is the guy!”
I had to get hardware installed in my leg for a nasty bone break at an overseas base. A few days later, my buddy and I were having lunch on base. A group of women came in and sat down at the table next to us and we struck up a conversation.
One of them asked what I had gotten done. (I was in a huge cast and on crutches.)
I tell her the procedure. She gets a funny look on her face and asked when it was done.
I tell her the date.
She immediately starts laughing and tells her friends, “This is the guy!”
Now they’re all howling with laughter.
It took a while to tell the story because they’re in tears from laughing.
Apparently, when I was coming out of sedation, I grabbed a Corpsman’s butt and hung on for dear life. (The woman I was I was currently talking to at the restaurant.)
I just wanted to crawl into a hole when I heard the story.
heat_it_and_beat_it
6. “M’anesthesia”
I was the patient, but I had to get 5 teeth pulled. The nurse was helping my mom shuffle me to the car. I turned to thank her, but couldn’t get my mouth to work, so I bowed and doffed an imaginary cap.
M’anesthesia
Hines_Ward
7. “Was that me?”
Colonoscopy. In this big lounge chair still half asleep in recovery, I half rollover and let rip the biggest fart in history. The devil himself created this one. I open half an eye at the nurse, ask “was that me?”, jaw on the ground she nods and I go back to sleep!
bobsuselesshat
8. Where’s my kitty?
I had a patient pet an invisible kitty that was named after me. The next day, was completely with it and was wondering what happened to that kitty.
indietorch
9. Okay?
I had an 8 year old kid in the OR say “You mother f**kers!” right before she fell asleep.
GreenGlit
10. Kiss me
Nurse here. This really big, hairy guy, whom I’ve never met before, told me how much he loved me and that he wanted to kiss me. Umm… no.
Nilso
11. “Get my pubes!”
Patient checking in. I was 18 and just had my appendix removed, my mum was at my bedside. I wake up in more pain from the operation than the appendicitis and even worse my balls are itchy. I’m wearing a hospital gown & I’m out of it so I put my hand on my stomach and run it down to my skin so I can scratch my balls. Obviously not wearing underwear and my hand runs down an excess of smooth skin, then suddenly I’m touching my goods.
I rummage around and come to the conclusion that someone has shaved my pubes. No one told me this would happen. I was livid, it’s’ the height of visiting hours and I’m shouting in my broad Scottish accent “Aww Mum, they’ve shaved my pubes, I’m not happy about this I want my pubes back, that’s not right, no one told me about this, get my pubes!”
My mother was mortified and she’s trying to get me to calm down while laughing and trying avoid a scene. They grew back in about 4 weeks so it was no biggy but at the time it was a serious issue.
Funkmaster_Flash
12. I am David Bowie.
A patient woke up from his wisdom tooth removal begging the doctor to let him be David Bowie. The doctor actually asked how that was supposed to happen, and the answer was that “it would be fantastic.”
fugbrah4
13. “Why don’t you just come home with me and my wife?”
When my husband woke up from having his wisdom teeth surgically removed his nurse was a rather large lady. He looked her dead in the eyes and said “You’re too beautiful to be a nurse, you should have been a model. Why don’t you just come home with me and my wife?” (yes he was propositioning a 3 way with a nurse) Most awkward moment of my life.
britt5689
14. “Kill her…NOW!”
Not a hospital staff but my great grandfather had surgery one time and I was in the room when he woke up. He was a WWII veteran and was convinced that he was in a Nazi POW camp. He recognized me and told me I had to help him escape by killing the guards (nurses) because he knew I knew how to kill people (I was 16, obviously a trained killer). When the nurse came in he was calm and kept motioning with his head at her to me and finally looked at me and said “Kill her…NOW!”. She always came back with another male nurse after that.
HuntAllTheThings
15. “Goldfinger, do you expect me to talk?”
When I got my wisdom teeth out, they strapped my arm down for the IV anesthetic.
Apparently, before passing out, I looked up at the white haired German Dentist and said in my best Connery, “Goldfinger, do you expect me to talk?”
The dentist didn’t reply, but he did tell me after surgery that it was one of the funniest things anyone asked him in a “haze.”
Werepuffin
16. It wasn’t salvageable.
My father in law was in a car accident that shattered his face, several vertebrae, and his pelvis. This isn’t so much a story about what he said, but what he did. He was in a coma for three weeks, and had to be heavily restrained when coming out of it. He was a marine in Vietnam, he was captured and escaped, and he still hated being restrained.
My wife went to visit him on a Sunday, and the doctors told her that tomorrow he was going to be the first patient to use a new, $30,000 restraint system that would cause him less discomfort. On Monday afternoon she visited again, and he was in the same restraints as before. My wife asked, and the nurse explained that he destroyed it restraint system. It lasted less than an hour. It wasn’t salvageable.
Greenstrong
17. “My name…. is Worcestershire sauce. No..wait”
When I was 14 I had eye surgery, coming out of anesthesia the nurses asked me if I could remember my name. I slurred “my name…. is Worcestershire sauce. No..wait, that’s not a cool name. My name… is Shark!”
TaxonomyAnomaly
18. “We’re in the morgue”
Went straight from the ER to surgery to put a plate in my badly broken arm, so I hadn’t been on a ward etc prior to the operation. Came out of surgery and recovery and was being pushed in a hospital bed to a ward. We turned into a ward and it was full of elderly people, I was in my early twenties, I turned to the hospital porter pushing me and shouted “Sorry we seem to have taken a wrong turn, we’re in the morgue”
sdevine89
19. “Definitely gave one of them a good punch”
I was the patient. I’d had all four wisdom teeth out at once, and I woke up earlier than expected in recovery – early enough that they hadn’t taken out the wadding at the back of my mouth meant to absorb the blood. So I woke up, immediately felt like I was choking, and panicked. I leapt off the bed, and a bunch of nurses came to restrain me. Still out of it, I fought them and definitely gave one of them a good punch before they got me back on the bed. I passed out again straight away.
Still feel bad about it. Poor nurse.
MmmStrawberryCake
20. “Why did I want to be angry?”
Not the doctor or the nurse I had a lot of ear infections when I was younger, and my final time (I was about 7) I woke up to the Rugrats on a tv in the room (I hated the Rugrats at the time). Cue the following conversation:
Me: “Why are the Rugrats on?”
Doctor: “You woke up earlier and said you wanted us to put on the Rugrats. We asked why, and you said that you hated the Rugrats and wanted to watch it so you could be angry.”
Me: “Why did I want to be angry?” Doctor: “You said you wanted to be angry because you don’t like being so happy all the time.”
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