ER nurse reveals the scariest thing she's seen in a patient which is even worse than cardiac distress
Liv Bridge
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A nurse has revealed the medical emergency she considers even worse than cardiac distress.
When working in the ER, it's a given you're going to see some pretty gruesome injuries and scary health conditions.
Patients might be raced into the emergency room for a whole host of concerning reasons, like severe chest pain, difficulty breathing or having turned blue, purple or gray from an apparent lack of oxygen.
Then there's the telltale signs of a stroke, affecting balance, eyesight, facial drooping, arm or leg weakness or speed difficulty, as well as seizures, heart attacks, crippling headaches and more - not forgetting the tons of other grim situations like car crashes and other freak accidents that might see someone suffering heavy blood loss, serious burns or major head or spinal injuries.
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However, for one nurse, Natalie Beeson, who goes by Natalieexelise on TikTok, there's one type of gnarly situation she's come into contact with which she puts right at the top of the disturbing list - and it's to do with insects.
Telling all to her 117,000 followers, the nurse said: "The scariest thing I see as an ER nurse is, hands down, the number of live cockroaches that crawl in people's ears.
"This week alone I had two patients with cockroaches in their ears and, statistically speaking, I don't love that."
Elaborating further to the New York Post, Beeson said she can 'handle cardiac distress all day' but draws the line at bugs.
That's because the critters have to be extracted from the human body but are pretty difficult to pull out - so medics apply an aesthetic cream called lidocaine and have to wait for the invaders to crawl out themselves.
Although not considered painful should one settle in the ear canal, it can be pretty emotionally taxing, as you can imagine, especially as patients report not only feeling but also hearing the bug scuttle around in their crevices.
"The primary goal in these cases is to kill the insect — many providers opt to use lidocaine for this,” the nurse said.
“In fact, the patient I had last week had a roach crawl out of their ear after it was submerged in lidocaine.
"The provider calmly pulled it off their face and tossed it in the trash. I quickly ran out of the ER carrying the insect-filled trash bag."
Beeson continued: "The patient knew the roach had crawled into their ear and could actually hear and feel it moving around.
“Understandably, it was incredibly distressing. While they didn’t report any significant pain, there was clear discomfort and psychological distress."
However, while it's typically not a painful situation, Beeson said cockroaches in places you don't want them to be can possibly cause a rupture or an infection.
"The ear canal has very thin skin — if an insect is scratching around, it could cause pain or inflammation,” she concluded.