Jenny's Medical Thriller Blog

Real Horror Stories

Fiction writers make things up.....but I don't have to. After over 30 years working in Healthcare in a variety of settings, I have enough real life horror stories to fuel a dozen thrillers. Unexplained deaths, requests to be unplugged, accidents, and the dark side of medicine that patients will never see.

I remember as a new nurse working in a major metropolitan hospital, a patient of mine that had ALS or Lou Gehrig's Disease. He had to be fed and he was on a ventilator to breathe. Every so often, the pressure would build and his ventilator would pop off (he had a tracheostomy). When that happened, a loud alarm would call us to run into his room and plug him back in so that he could breathe. There were times when he would have tears in his eyes, and he would shake his head no to being reconnected. He begged to be let go. Of course, I couldn't stand by and let him die. His wife wanted him to live. So, each time i put him back on the ventilator, I would say I was sorry, and leave the room with tears in my eyes. It broke my heart and I have never forgotten the look on his face.

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