Professionals Are Revealing the Most Messed Up Moments They've Witnessed at Work

Young guy came into ED with hand in cooler, said his friends “jokingly” pushed him into the campfire, but he did indeed fall hand first into the coals. They drove an hour and a half to the ED. When he pulled his hand out, all skin, lots of muscle/connective tissue sloughed off but dangled from his mostly-just-bone hand.

He asked how long it was going to take to heal... I told him I would try and keep him comfortable and gave that guy just as many meds as I legally and safely could. 19yo victim of domestic violence with multiple, multiple stab wounds. We intubated her through one of them. She didn’t make it due to blood loss from over 30 wounds.

Motorcycle accident, wore a helmet but not one with a jaw/face protector. Face was hamburger, had to follow the bubbles to intubate him, but it was like raw meat, floating tooth soup. He coughed right when he came in and a tooth hit my cheek.

Ruptured globe (aka eyeball) - not that unusual, but eye trauma makes my skin crawl so I hated that. Any other eye stuff makes my tummy tight, too... but the opaque blindness caused from chemical burns and stuff reminds me of some Black Mirror episodes where tech use muddles the eye, and I can’t watch those ones.

Mass trauma event.. several people dismembered but otherwise conscious and in varying states of shock... getting rolled in with their detached foot or arm in their lap. Mentally ill lady brought in after a wellness check post-mastectomy. Uncovered her chest and winced at the black necrosis over her surgical site... but then the black started fading to a sickly green... because the fleas and bugs were jumping off the wound once exposed. She had lots of cats, per EMS.

Diabetic guy in a motorized scooter, hadn’t seen his legs in idk how long, but thought he saw “a bug” so got his leg into a black garbage bag and came in. In a tiny triage room, I opened the bag and a waterfall of maggots spilled out of his lower leg/calf. Bugs indeed.

One particular paraplegic nursing home patient who was technically sane by all accounts, but mean, violent, and refused care. Had a bed sore on his buttock and you could see his entire pelvis, sacrum, and upper femur... chronically on antibiotics, but still... yikes.

Obese, psychotic man - again, somehow not hold-able per Psych - in sepsis. Pulled his pannus (think fat apron) back to reveal gangrenous and necrotic tissue... penis so far buried in slime and tissue, had to press on his pelvis to make it pop out for a straight cath (which, come on... frivolous order, doc). What popper out eventually was just a macerated tiny mushroom, urethra not able to be found even after cleansing. Just mush.

Jesus, I could go on and on. But the worst things I’ve seen involve abused children. That I don’t repeat, for those horrors have caused so much pain already, they don’t need to be spread. Be kind to kids, and tell your kids to be kind to other kids, especially the “weird” or “stinky” ones. Poor children 💔

Username: JFC-UFKM

An old man with severe mental health issues and whose body is in complete collapse from years of drug abuse was on our psych unit. This man had a catheter in and the bag was physically attached to his walker, remember this, it will be important. This man has lived a very hard life, and he has been abused and fucked over by the American Healthcare system, and society, for his entire life post Vietnam.

One day, someone bought him a 20oz Diet Pepsi and he decided to enjoy it in the common space. As soon as he sat down, a nursing aid said to him, "John Doe, you can drink out here but watch your mouth." Anyone who has ever worked in high intensity situations where escalation and de-escalation are important will recognize that it was at this exact moment that an escalation was guaranteed.

The man is a fully grown adult, minding his own business, but he was a man who didn't take shit. This was a provocation. So of course he fired back and called her a slew of incredibly creative names and escalated the situation. A nurse then approached to investigate the commotion. She stood in front of him in a classic combative posture, hand on her hips.

She proceeded to make the situation worse by instead of asking what happened, just assumed that this man was in the wrong and ordered him to his room. Not only would this have been unfair, but it would cause him significant discomfort and effort due to his health issues. He refused, and threw the bottle cap, again, the bottle cap, at her.

She immediately pouched on his, attempting to restrain him. At this point that nursing aid and another nurse jumped in. They slammed this 74 year old man to the ground, restrained him, and then proceeded to drag him back to his room. They did not think to grab his walker, which had his catheter attached to it.

So when they dragged him about 3 feet, the line went taught and began pulling the walker along with him. Because of the condition of his skin in this area, the force not only yanked on the catheter, but began splitting and tearing his penis. He was screaming in absolute agony, bleeding all over the floor and leaving a trail of blood and piss as a wake.

This whole event had happened in about a minute, and it was at this point that I jumped in and yelled at them to stop while I grabbed his walker. Surprisingly, they all came to their senses and stopped dragging him. They let him stand and let me help walk him to his room.

I was so appauled by this that I reported it to HR. It just so happened that our hospital was re-certifying it's accreditation that week. It ended up being pushed up to the head of nursing. Nothing ended up coming of it except that everyone but me blamed the man and stuck together as a unit rather than admit their fault. I was shunned from the group and and left about 6 months later. Incidents like this were not uncommon. Mental health care in this country is atrocious.

Username: hoorayfortoast

Wasn’t a job, it was for volunteering. Here’s a more lighthearted story but slightly NSFW nonetheless. 16yo me was volunteering with the hospitality dept. in the hospital where they wheelchaired patients, gave out hot washcloths, be messenger boy/girl, replace glove boxes, etc..

Refilling hospital mugs with ice water was one of those duties. You go room to room asking patients if they wanted their hospital mugs refilled. Naturally, rooms that were closed we would knock first before coming in. If the patient was asleep we’d just fill up the mug and go.

On one lonely, quiet evening maybe around 6 or so, I was doing just that. Door to door, scooping up ice chips and pouring water. It was already dark out so I tried to do my job quickly to go home. Some patients were dozing off with doors open. In and out I go.

Some with doors closed. I do it fast. I had 4 or 5 more rooms before finishing when I came upon one with the door closed. Knocked on it loud enough for the patient to hear but softly enough to not wake up a possible sleeper. I listened for 1 second.

No reply. Knocked once more. Listened again. Nothing. Perhaps I did hear some faint squeaking in retrospect but I paid it no mind since in my mind it was a sleeping patient and I could just slip in and do my thing without having to make conversation.

I stepped into the room. It was dark. But the moment I stepped in I heard it. Squeaking and it was loud and paced. And it never occurred to me that I shouldn’t be there or maybe I should have grabbed help because it was probably something I was in over my head. It wasn’t just squeaking, there was a lot of breathing. Curiosity got the better of me and my heart was beating a bit faster.

I was panicking. What if someone’s having trouble? I briskly approached the source. The first bed was empty but the second bed by the window had its curtains pulled and all I could make out in the darkness was a big shadow MOVING behind it. Reluctantly I stepped right in front of the bed to get a better view of the situation.

Naked woman. The image is burned vividly into my 16yo teenage boy memory. She was riding cowboy on what I assumed to be the patient. It was jaw dropping and I was just... speechless... And I stood there for a few seconds (seemed like it was forever watching them smh) until the guy finally saw me standing in the shadows and he SCREAMED and made the woman scream too.

That shocked me and made me scream which made them scream even more. And for some crazy reason this whole time I lugged along my water cart with me. Nothing was registering at the moment and in my state of panic I yelled, “DO YOU WANT SOME ICE WATER?!”

And before they could say anything I grabbed the patient mug and filled it up and left so fucking fast. It was so bizarre and surreal. I bet they were shocked too.

Username: TikkiTakiTomtom

I briefly worked dispatch/skip-tracing for a private tow yard. If I hadn’t been desperate, I wouldn’t have taken the job after all of the red flags during the interview. The owner had a pair of brass knuckles on his desk, an assortment of hard liquor atop his filing cabinet, and was the spitting image of J. J. Jameson from Spider-Man.

One day, I was working at my desk when a “customer” came in. I say that in quotes because charging someone money for their stolen property to be returned feels more like extortion than capitalism, but I digress. This guy had just paid to get his car back and while driving out of the lot, realized that his iPod was missing.

The clerk was the owner’s wife, a very petite but hot-tempered (or bi-polar) firebrand from Bolivia, was not giving this guy an inch. They start getting into a shouting match, largely instigating by her gaslighting, until J.J. Jameson comes flying out of his office, through the security gate into the front hallway, and right up into this guy’s face.

The “customer” was a young twenty-something, hipster type in skinny jeans, who couldn’t have been more than a buck-fifty soaking wet. J.J. was beefy. I don’t know if he went to the gym or not but I suspect his muscles came simply from being perpetually on the verge of rage.

Hipster guy toned down a bit he we was suddenly nose-to-nose with murder. He explains that his iPod never left his car as it was attached to the glovebox. J.J. demands pics or it didn’t happen. This was back in the flip phone days so that wasn’t a very reasonable request. Hipster expresses that but takes a bold risk by adding that, “come on, we all know that tow-truck drivers have a reputation for shady shit.”

J.J. exploded with a left into hipster’s ribs, grabs him by the throat with his right, and lifts him up off his toes. I can’t recall the litany of curses, slurs, and threats that spewed forth that day but suffice to say, hipster quickly left sans iPod, reimbursement, & dignity.

Had I witnessed this as an objective passerby, I might not have called the police since the whole incident only lasted a few minutes, but seeing as my boss was a total prick and, knowing that some of the drivers were indeed criminals, I called with an anonymous report. Apparently, hipster didn’t file charges so they couldn’t do anything. Coincidentally, I came down with a persistent cold that week and never returned.

(honorable mention): I worked at a gas station where a murder took place the night before my solo graveyard shift. Nobody had cleaned the bloody handprints on the checkout counter and display rack. I stared at them for 8 hours straight and never went back.

I saw a coked up assistant manager at Round Table pizza spit on every pizza ordered by someone named Mary because he hated that name. I also worked at a McDonald’s which held a weekly fight club in the basement.

Username: stievstigma

When I was a young teen, I was a nanny for a family. At 16 years old that family was excited I could work for their family business. Their family operated a auto glass company, and they had telemarketers cold calling local numbers. They paid double the minimum wage plus bonuses, and for the most part it was a pretty easy job. There was a small group of us making calls for hours every day.

We had an employee who bragged about being able to sleep with any man she wanted. I was young and thought she was nasty, but just went about my job. She never respected boundaries, personal space, or peoples personal property. We had headsets that were provided that took a bit of adjusting to get comfortable (it was the mid '90s) so everyone preferred to use the same one everytime, except ms nasty.

One day she comes into work complaining about not feeling too well. Allergies must have her all out of sorts she claims, as her eye is crazy swollen. Over the course of the shift her eye starts oozing green puss. Think of the foulest puss riddled infected wound you have ever seen.

That was her eye. She discovered if she could apply the right pressure to her under eye area she could get it to squirt out of her eye several feet. The smell was one of the most horrendous, gag inducing things I had ever smelled and I visited a chicken farm one time that left my unable to eat eggs for a year.

Super amused she starts flirting with one of the guys who works there trying to show him and joking about squirting him in the face with her eye puss. She keeps rubbing her eyes and touching everything. I voice my concerns, she should leave and see a doctor. That isn't sanitary and please don't touch shit that isn't yours.

She gets pissy, claims that she can do what she wants, I am not her boss so just fucking deal. I leave for break and the guy she's flirting with comes with me. He starts bragging about giving ms nasty the best oral of her life and cuming on her face for the last few weeks.

Fast forward a few days and it's worse, and we finally have the boss convince her to see a doctor. She comes back a week later laughing about getting gonorrhea in her eye, "oops must have taken too many shots to the face" she giggles. *gag so now the other guy is like F I must have given her gonorrhea of the eye. So he leaves to get tested and the test comes back negative.

So all the shit she gave him at work while he waited for the results was unfounded. Turns out she had to call over 20 people that she was sexually active with in the last month, and most she didn't have names or numbers for. She did wind up giving him gonorrhea in the end because he refused to stop messing around with her, even knowing what he knew.

Username: Tahitisummer

I used to work as a doorman in an apartment complex populated by a number of odd characters. One of them was a woman who was schizophrenic. She lived there on rent assistance and got disability payments.

Generally when she was taking her medications she was still a full bubble off level. Her delusions were all religion based with demons and her neighbor's casting spells on her through the walls. She cut up the walls and floor with a knife to try to stop the spells. That sort of thing.

But every 6 months she needed to get evaluated to keep her assistance checks coming. The way this should work is that the caseworker would stop in, see that she is taking her meds, she isn't too crazy, check the box, she keeps the assistance. But she didn't see it that way. If the caseworker saw her acting normal then the caseworker might think she is cured and didn't need the assistance. So she would go off the meds for a few days and then would have an episode.

One day she comes to the lobby to tell me that when she was in the elevator, Satan raped her in her ass with his tail. I checked the elevator. No Satan, no ectoplasm, no readings on the PKE meter. So then I asked her if she was maybe raped by a man on the elevator.

Given the type of residents we get - rapists, mother rapists, father stabbers, father rapists, litterbugs who create a nuisance - it was entirely possible. It took awhile but she told me that it was the actual, red colored Satan with pitchfork, horns, and pointy tail and it was the actual Satan's tail that raped her in her ass and she needs to go to the hospital because now she has a demon inside her.

So I had to call for an ambulance. Before the EMS crew shows up, two cops arrive. One is super annoyed to have to be there. And he is even more annoyed that his partner seems genuinely interested to hear about Satan and the demons and the neighbors casting perverted sex spells through the walls to make her horny.

EMS arrives and they bring in a gurney and set it up. They take her vital signs and tell her that they will take her to the Catholic hospital. She wants to go to the Jewish hospital, which is not only larger but much closer. There is a standoff between her wanting to go to Jewish and the crew wanting to go to Catholic.

Finally, the paramedic says 'You got raped by Satan and you have a demon in you right? Well, then we need to go to Catholic because Jews don't know anything about removing demons and the Catholics do it all the time.' So she says 'Ok' and jumps up on the gurney. A couple days later, she is on her meds again, the caseworker gets to see her crazy episode and the checks keep coming for another 6 months.

Username: inkseep1

I work a relatively safe job, but my husband used to work in the mortuary services. Oh yeah. I'll go with the second most fucked up thing since I can't bring myself to share the other...

Middle of August, the office gets a call about a body that has been located in a trailer park. My husband, and the other assistant journey out to the neighborhood. When they turn onto the main road, police cars are parked along the side, leading all the way to the trailer in question.

They get out of the service vehicle and can instantly smell something foul. My husband notices a 30 foot radius from the trailer in which no one is standing. The pathologist walks up and explains the situation. A body had been left undiscovered, in the summer heat, for long enough to create such a stench that someone in a neighborhood that doesn't enjoy police presence made a call.

The pathologist shares some of the goop they put below their noses to block the smell. "Use a lot" he says. (My husband respected how unphased the pathologist was, not using any smell-be-gone himself). The police asked that the pathologist and assistants remove the body, get it into the service vehicle, and drive it up to be examined.

It was mighty optimistic for him to believe anything would be left to dissect. My husband approaches the trailer door with the other two appointees. When the pathologist opens the door, a gush of black, crusted over sludge rushes out, oozing through the slats on the steps, and splattering across the ground.

The pathologist didn't even blink. Husband heard gagging and coughing behind him. Every officer was clearing out as quickly as possible. I've been told that despite the nose goo meant to block all smell, my husband can still tell in meticulous detail how a body stenches once liquefied in the heat for months.
Turns out the puddle had lived alone in his trailer and keeled over one day. No one knew.

To add a cherry on top of the algae covered human molasses, my husband, being the sick fuck he is, turned to the other assistant and asked casually, "Hey, friend. Wanna make soup?" A cop nearby began to wretch within the bike helmet he'd hoped would stop the stench reaching his nose.

Vomit came streaming down his neck and he had to run behind a tree to finish what he started. My husband loved the job, but that wasn't the worst case. The worst made him leave and never return to that line of work. I'll just say... multiple criminal acts performed on a deceased minor.

Username: NoKidsJustTravel

Nurse: Lady comes into the emergency room. heroin addict. She's got abscesses on both arms the size of baseballs. both arms are bruised, red, and mottled which is basically the same thing you see when someone dies and there is no more blood flow. She still had pulses in the arms so they were getting circulation but it was like michelin man arms.

Swollen, oozing purulent bloody drainage and it smelled like a combination of rotting animal corpse and old stale food. She was in severe pain but her narcotic tolerance meant that we couldn't control her pain very well. She just cried and screamed all the time and she would shake and pass out and then wake up and do it again.

They finally decided to take her to surgery and I believe if I remember right they wanted to cut off her arms but she wouldn't let them, or maybe they just wanted to cut one off. I forget that part exactly. Anyway she said hell no but they still had to take her to surgery to drain, clean, and debride all the abscesses the best they could.

That would have been the end of the story because I work in the emergency room so I don't get to see the outcome.... But no....she comes in a week and a half later for the same thing! What ended up happening is that they essentially degloved both of her arms which means they took off all of the skin and tissue on the top layer and now she just has these arms exposed muscle and tendons and skeleton hands.

It wasn't exactly a degloving but there were huge chunks of tissue missing and it was a wreck. She looks like a zombie! Apparently the plan was to hospitalize her and give her IV antibiotics but she just crept out of the hospital with her IV in place so she could get high. The IV worked for awhile (it was in her chest it's a special line called a central line). and then it occluded and stopped working so she just left that all ramshackle stuck to the dressing on her chest piled up with all kinds of dirt and pulled partially out and taped it with scotch tape.

meanwhile she had neglected her skeleton arms which needed constant dressing changes four times a day and started just shooting up in those again and now she has MORE ABCESSES! MORE CRYING MORE SCREAMING! but this time she just sticks her arms up in the air, all this fluid just dripping over her shoulders onto the sheet and every time I walk in she is like a lump of hospital linens with stick arms moaning from her linen grave.

It was the scariest and saddest thing i'd ever seen. I tried to help her the best I could but I will never forget her noises and just the irreparable damage she was willing to do to her own body in the name of getting high.

Username: jonniethm

It's a tie. The first was a man putting on his work boots. When he pulled on one of the boots, he instantly froze and looked confused. He pulled his foot back out, and it was covered in shit. He then stomped out the door, one boot on and leaving a shitty trail behind him, went over a couple of buildings, and did his damnedest to stab my father.

I didn't find out the details until a decade later. The guy was pretty universally hated, because he was a terrible coworker who would actively try to set the next shift up for failure or extra work, and because he would openly rat on his coworkers to management. My father and another coworker decided to send him a message.

I never found out which did what, but one of them held a shovel while the other shit on it, then dumped it into his work boot. They also trapped and killed one of the huge rats that infested the place, then wired it onto the door handle of the guy's truck. The guy was moved to a job that kept him working solo at a different site.

The police were never involved, as management decided that attempting to stab the man who shit in your boot was a reasonable response. Dad and his buddy never got punished, as no one knew that they were the boot shitters.

To my knowledge, I'm the only one who knows for sure that they're the culprits, and I only found out by getting drunk with dad on a hunting trip 10 years later. It was effective messaging, as well. The guy stopped ratting, and became an excellent coworker for the rest of his career.

The second, while less violent, was equally fucked up. 2 coworkers and I were standing outside of a control room, smoking cigarettes. Coworker 1 saw an alarm indicator light up at his station, and given the choice between myself and coworker 2, who was notorious for fucking with other coworkers, he chose to hand his half smoked cigarette to 2 while he dealt with the alarm. 2 looked at the cigarette, then at the door closing behind 1, then at me.

Then he quickly unzipped his pants, pulled out his dick, peeled back the foreskin, and began furiously rubbing the filter of 1's cigarette around the head of his dick. He had just zipped up when 1 came back out, retrieved his cigarette, and started puffing again. He'd taken another few drags when he realized that I was fighting tears back trying not to laugh, and 2 was watching him and smiling.

He stopped, looked at us, looked at the cigarette, then yelled "GODDAMNIT" as he spiked the cigarette and left to wash his lips off. To this day, he still doesn't know what was done to his cigarette, just that something was.

Username: LilJacKill

Once worked as a care support worker at an addictions treatment centre. One particular night I was working in the “detox” house. This is usually the most difficult support role because most patients are in the midst of detoxing, which has its own medical implications, but because these patients can be at times severely emotionally disregulated.

On this night I remember we had a particular patient detoxing off of opiates who had “seasons tickets,” meaning they had unsuccessfully completed and then returned to treatment multiple times. In his room was another patient, first-timer, also detoxing off of opiates. Usually cases like these involve a lot of sleeping and medical checks, but otherwise not too much hassle on my end. To be sure, it’s a miserable experience, and we try to keep these folks hydrated and as comfortable as possible given their circumstances. These two were in a particularly bad way.

The one guy with seasons tickets was having a real bad comedown. Opiates tend to “gum up the works,” and so those detoxing tend to release a lot of pent up feces. The best way to describe the amount of shit on this guys clothes, bedding, and the floor around his bed was “profound.”

He’d also vomited all over himself. It was caked in his hair, his beard, and all over his pj’s and bedding. For good measure, he had wet himself too. The smell was ungodly. This all happened in a 30 minute span between medical checks. He was awake, but unable to respond to our medical staff.

His roommate, having heard and smelled his neighbour’s bodily functions, himself vomited, though luckily he managed to deposit it onto the floor beside his bed rather than all over himself. The guy with seasons tickets clearly required a level of medical care we were unable to provide at the centre, and so the decision was made to take him by ambulance to the nearest hospital. H

owever, he was unable to get up, so I and another support staff capable of carrying him had to haul his shit, piss, and vomit-soaked body up the stairs to where the EMTs could take care of him. That smell still haunts me. The saddest part in all of this was, upon returning to treatment following his hospital-supervised detox, the guy lasted about 3 days before deciding he didn’t actually have a problem.

I reminded him that people without the disease of addiction don’t often find themselves in treatment covered in their own piss, shit, and vomit, but this did not seem to convince him that his life and drug use was unmanageable. I hope the poor fellow accepts his powerlessness over drugs before it’s too late.

Username: [deleted]

I was a teenager working my first ever job bagging groceries at a local grocery chain. I worked with a group of close friends. On my day off, my best friend (who didn't work with us) called me in hysterics and could barely speak. I couldn't tell if he was laughing or crying. He says,

"Dude... Dude... Did you hear what happened at your job today?" This is a few years after Columbine happened and mass shootings were becoming more common, so I start panicking, thinking the store got shot up. I get him calmed down enough to speak clearly, and he tells me the story:

An very old man, maybe 80s or 90s, comes in and buys exactly two items: a large cucumber and zesty Italian ranch dressing. He then approaches the manager who hadn't seen what he bought and asks if we have a restroom. We did have one, but it was employees only and it was back in receiving. The manager takes pity on an old timer and tells him where it is.

Maybe thirty minutes pass and the man is still in there. Concerned, manager sends my friend Jeremy in to check on him and make sure we didn't have an Elvis Presley on our hands. Jeremy goes in and can see the guys feet under the stall but he's not moving. He decides to peek through the little gap between the door and stall wall, and sees the man leaned over with one hand behind his butt and the other furiously jerking his flaccid penis.

Jeremy runs back to the Manager's podium and tells him what he saw. The two managers and Jeremy go to the back and wait outside the bathroom door for him to come out. When he finally does, he's holding the dressing in the plastic bag and the cucumber in his other hand.

They tell him he's banned from the store and has to leave. He nods in acceptance and then tries to hand it to one of the managers who angrily refuses to touch the thing. They tell him to just throw it away, and he does.

After hearing the abridged version of this from my best friend (Jeremy would fill me in on the... "zesty" details, later), I am in shock and disbelief. No fucking way did this really happen. It was payday, so I decided to go pick up my check that afternoon when they got there.

When I arrive, I approach the manager and say, "I hear we had some excitement, today" He doesn't even look up from his paperwork. He just shakes his head and says, "I don't want to talk about it." I go collect my check, find Jeremy, and we go to the back to the trash can. He points inside and shouts, "fucking *look* at it! I look inside, and sure enough, right on top is a cucumber half-covered with a film of ranch dressing.

Username: Amtexpres

I was a soldier in afganistan. One day my squad and I were just outside of kandahar airfield about 30 mins north. We had dismounted an MRAP (humvee thing on steriods) and were off loading things. I never liked being surrounded by locals for reasons I'm sure you can imagine. You might be thinking that you know where this is going. Another ambush attack on a convoy.

Nope. I heard shouting and screaming on the other side of the vehicle. I could tell that something was going on with the locals. As I came around the other side of the vehicle, I was greeted by the sight of a man dragging a woman (presumably his wife) around by the head. They were both screaming.

One in anger, the other in fear. I felt this odd weight in my stomach when I noticed the hammer in his hand. He began to hold it over his head, and the children around the house screamed and howled something awful. I don't know why, but I thought it impossible that the hammer was for anything other than to threaten the lady into submission.

And yet, without need for permission, the hammer came down. In broad daylight, in front of neighbors and worse, kids. I was prepared to die there. I was prepared to see my brothers die there. I was prepared to kill there. This however... I was not able to comprehend. The first blow flew by my mind. I didn't even think that I saw it correctly.

But again and again, he swung. Blood to bone, bone to brain. She jerked violently on the first two blows, but then went into a twitchy limp on the third. I sorta almost lost it. I had my rifle. I clicked it onto burst and stepped forward. I don't remember telling myself I was going to kill this guy, it just sorta started to happen. Just then, my SGT grabbed and spun me to him. His face was contorted in an odd manner.

A mixture of intense disgust and rage that made him almost appear inhuman. He told me to stand the fuck down. That it was not our job to interfere in local affairs. My fucking God the helpless and hopelessness I felt for everyone and myself. I'm not a killer.

But I often stare out the window and wonder where the rounds in my rifle went. For wherever they are, they will never be home where they belong. In that shitfuckers skull where they should have been.

As a side note, I'm not saying that what we did in Afghanistan was right. I'm not going to say that it was a just war, nor do I feel pride to have participated. I'm glad I killed no one. Not do I condone warfare or murder. Somethings just don't make sense. There is enough out there to break anyone. Be kind to each other.

Username: Stalhouse

At the time I (F) was 26 and he would have been about 54. I have this coworker that I saw walk out of our shop door. Immediately to the right is a door to the break room. He started to walk past it, stopped abruptly, then turned and walked into the break room. For him, I found this a bit odd but didn't think too much about it. Since it was our break time, I walked into the break room to get a water.

Then I noticed him digging in the trash. I was confused but just kept watching. He grabbed a dirty cup and I'm thinking, "Oh my Gawd. He's not going to drink out of that is he?!" He set the cup on the table, then started messing with his pants! This mother fucker was going to pee in this cup, on the break room table, where people eat!!!

That's just one of many points about the situation! My eyes got big and I went into shock. All I could do is just turn away from him and to the fridge to grab my water. I heard the door shut, meaning he left the room. There's so many things I still don't understand. I wasn't quiet when going into the room.

Like I wasn't sneaking in or something. I have no idea how he wouldn't have known I was there. Not just the question of, why would you do that? Why would you do that in the break room? But... why would you do that in the break room, at break, when people are going to go in the break room, because it's break time!?!?

Even though I had told management about it, they laughed and nothing happened. When I told the union about it, they didn't do anything because he was also in the union. They felt that they would have been fighting themselves if they did. When downtown heard about it, they asked, "Why would he do that?!"

And... they didn't do anything either... This guy even admitted to the union rep that he did start to pee but stopped when he realized I was there. Some of the guys I work with were laughing at me, saying things like how I saw his junk... Jokes like that... I was so mad! (I didn't see any body parts pop out, by the way)

Then I heard the guys laughing at him and him laughing, too. While, explaining to them how he was just going to pee and a bottle because he really needed to go. (Again. It was a cup, not a bottle) He never was wrote up or even talked to about this.

No documentation on the incident at all. That response is the most common, if not the only response, I ever get from any management at this company. Yay to being a female in a male dominated workplace!

Username: snake-lady-2005

I was head audio for Beauty and the Beast international tour and we were loading into Cairo. The venue was a tent out in the desert built specifically for our show. Overhead rigging was with a mother grid of truss. The top truss pieces weren't secured and were just gravity mounted. Two of our tour riggers alerted management of broken diagonals, but we were told to proceed anyway.

The mix position was still just dirt and they were pouring concrete while we were there. A 10 year old was wiring air conditioners and there were twisted bare wires all over the floor. Most of my crew wore flip flops while moving heavy equipment. A makeshift ramp was made of boards with rusty nails sticking up out of it.

When the crew went to rig my center loudspeaker array, they used scaffolding, but only had two cross members. They would build one section above them and then bring the cross members up with them to do the next section above. By the time they could reach the rigging point, the scaffolding was really wobbly. I told management I didn't feel safe in there and stood outside the tent while this was happening.

A few minutes later, the whole tent was violently shaking and the entire mother grid had collapsed. My coworkers as well as the Egyptian crew were still inside. I rushed in to see how I could help. My a2 was fine stage left where he wasn't under the grid. The carpenters had been out back with me.

The lighting crew reported they were fine. The master electrician had dove off stage right when he noticed the grid collapsing. His second dove under the lighting truss they had just lifted off the ground. It still had its wheels on it and he was protected by the truss.

When we all reconvened outside, the two Egyptians who were on the scaffolding were rushed out with blood gushing from their heads. Neither seemed conscious and their eyes were open and glassed over. They were thrown in a van and the van rushed off.

Management took us back to the hotel and threatened us if we posted about it on social media. I never saw anything about it in the news. Disney just swept it under the rug. Most of my coworkers stayed quiet about it.

The lighting crew had to go back to London to rebuild the lighting rig as it was destroyed in the collapse. The rest of the crew didn't receive pay the next week, but was put up in a resort in Alexandria. I left the tour that week.

Username: humicroav

Ok, this dates back many years to my time as a US Army CID criminal investigator. I was working a fraud case against a soldier (whom I'll call Sturgis) who had been collecting housing allowance, but actually living in his car. Total was about $11,000 so it's not like he was looking at prison time or anything, worst case scenario was probably a Bad Conduct Discharge.

But his company XO made a hobby out of making this guys life miserable while the investigation was going on. He personally escorted the guy to all his meetings with me, the JAG office, and other than that he was basically on full lockdown.

One day they had an extended field exercise, still on base, but sleeping in tents for a few days and doing...I dunno, Infantry stuff. When they got back to the company grounds, everyone lined up at the arms room turn in their M-16's and other various weaponry, but Sturgis instead walked out into the middle of the parade ground and sat down.

The XO came out after him, yelling all the way about what a world of shit he was going to rain down on him, Sturgis stood up and shot him full auto with ammo he'd pocketed from the range. stitched him from groin to neck. Then Sturgis sat back down and put the muzzle to his eye socket and held the trigger down for as long as he could.

Once the duty Agent who got the call put together who the cast of characters was, he called me since I had the existing case file. When I got there the XO's body was gone, they'd taken him to the ER but DOA. Sturgis they didn't bother with since his head looked like a deflated basketball.

Turned out that the bullet from his rifle went right through his brain and shattered the top of his skull, and the muzzle gas pushed his brain completely out of his skull. one perfect hemisphere was laying next to him, the other a surprisingly long distance away and had landed in an anthill and was crawling with ants. I used a tongue depressor to roll the loose parts of Sturgis into a plastic bag.

His autopsy was the next day, and I attended to take photographs for the case file. that was over 30 years ago, and I can still hear the medical examiner say "UGH, there's fucking ANTS all over this thing". like sorry dude, was that the thing that made this job too real for you?
(and yes, I have posted this before if it sounds familiar)

Username: McFeely_Smackup

Here we go. I work retail auto parts and that day I worked a morning shift. I opened the store with my assistant manager, and the next person to come in aside from our delivery drivers was a new hire. This new hire had a known history of drug addiction, though her getting this job was sort of a turn around point for her.

We’d close a lot together and I was training her, so I heard a lot of her story and to me she was doing great considering where she came from. She was turning her life around, not just for herself, but for her kid, too. That morning she came in a little early. About 10mins before needing to clock in.

She put her stuff in the break room and went to smoke (I assume) and after that I didn’t see her again. About 15 mins after she was supposed to clock in she wasn’t there, but I was busy running the counter so I didn’t think much of it. Cut to one of the drivers screaming my name from the back, so I rush back there to the bathroom area to see the new hire on the floor supine.

She was already pale, but she was turning blue, barely breathing in guppy breaths. She ass. manager came back in from going to the bank around the time I saw her, and immediately went to work calling paramedics and looking for emergency contact info. But she was a new hire, so we had no info in our system yet. So she’s on the floor while I attempt CPR and the ass.

Manager grabs her phone to see if she’s got an emergency system set up. He swipes the screen and what we though was a big crack going down the glass turned out to be white powder. She did not have an emergency contact in her phone. EMTs and police show up and take her into the ambulance just after she’d stopped breathing.

They narcaned her up and brought her back to life in the parking lot. After that ordeal I took my lunch break, and the kind older man I worked with gave me his pack of cigarettes saying “you need them more than I do.” I went home and called my mom. Never in my life did I think I’d witness a coworker dying literally in my hands. It took me awhile to get over it.

A week later she called the store and tired to see when she could come back. Turns out her doctor didn’t renew her prescription for opioids and she found the day before she had ovarian cancer. I can’t say I blamed her for going back to her crutch.

Username: louser0w0

Well, a lot of people are talking about people dying, so that feels a little rote. After many years, I have one experience that stands out among a lot of crazy, barely-remembered antics. I was the bar manager at a local place for a few years.

One of my friends(G-Bizzle) came by to hang out afterward; it was only G-Bizzle, a coworker(Fred), and I still there. When G-Bizzle and I returned from a smoke break, across the store, Fred was lying motionless on the floor of the lobby. From where we stood, G-Bizzle and I could only see his legs. They began to twitch as we approached.

Rounding the corner, we realize that Fred was actually conscious, if only technically. He had taken something earlier in the evening, that we guessed to be some kind of dirty Ecstasy or maybe a research psych. G-Bizzle and I paused to take in the scene and prepare ourselves for the titanically awkward struggle about to ensue.

Fred, while presumably in the throes of a meta-existential crisis, began to furiously and futilely attempt to undress. Concerned to say the least, we managed to keep most of his clothes on as we tried to gage how deteriorated his psyche had become, with any luck temporarily. His mental state was as dubious as his speaking ability (isn't there a better word for that?).

G-Bizzle accompanied a practically unresponsive Fred outside while I finished closing the store. By the time I was done and outside, neither G-Bizzle nor I had decided what to do with our wayward psychonaut. Eventually, Fred burned out some physical and the rest of his mental energy by laying down on bushes and cars. And moaning, lots of moaning.

Did I forget to mention the moaning? The problem we had been having wasn't that his speech was slurred or otherwise uneven, it was that he mostly moaned and groaned instead of speaking. It was very unsettling: the tone of brain-death with the urgent emotional undercurrent of a bad trip.

When Fred finally settled down, he was mostly asleep with probably little danger of brain aneurysm, heart attack, or asphyxiation. G-Bizzle and I went across the street to my apartment and sat on the balcony looking for cops for about two hours. No one came, and Fred made it home somehow. He got fired a week or two later for doing the same thing while we were open.

Username: rabidsalvation

I work as a fire lieutenant. I've been working with my department for about 17 years now. Everybody I work with has a horror story they wish they could forget. Here's one of mine.

We had an early morning fire at an apartment. We got to the scene and there was heavy fire showing on the top 2 floors. The building was 3 stories, with the involved apartment using the top 2 floors

We got there quickly in spite of icy roads, were able to make quick entry, had plenty of water, plenty of resources and man-power. Almost everything went in our favor. The family who was staying at the apartment had family over for the holidays.

The 3rd floor had 4 bedrooms, and we found victims in every room, plus one in the hallway. In total, we found 12 victims, completely charred, still in their beds. Bunk beds, mattresses on the floors, there were just bodies everywhere you looked.

There were no working smoke detectors, and none of the bedrooms had doors. The fire had total freedom to spread to every room upstairs. By the way we found the victims, it appeared as though they probably all died from the smoke before the fire actually reached them. That's a minor consolation.

If there had been doors on the bedrooms, I have no doubt in my mind that we would have managed to save many of them. We did everything right, and the actual firefight went about as smoothly as you could have hoped for. Instead, we recovered 12 victims, most of whom were minors.

I know a lot of people sleep with their bedroom doors open, but PLEASE reconsider. Smoke and toxic gases can cause asphyxiation before you realize there is a fire. Even a hollow-core door will give you a fighting chance of survival, and give us enough time to help.

Also, PLEASE make sure you have working smoke detectors. Many cities have programs in place where you can receive a free smoke detector, and early detection is often times the difference between life and death.

Edit: Guys, don't casually ask people who work in emergency services (police, fire, ems) what was the worst thing they've ever seen. Emergency services have high rates of suicide/alcoholism/divorce/etc. for a reason. Almost all of us have seen some shit that we'd rather not have to think about, especially at a BBQ or party.

Username: Archimedeeznuts

I’ve never seen anyone actually die like the others. My day to day is not usually fucked up. But major TW for anyone triggered by sex crimes, especially involving minors:

I once worked a 12 hr shift that was 10 hrs of operating boards for a neurologist and neurosurgery conference where they discussed how sexual assault and rape affects infants and children neurologically for their entire lives. Everything from the initial wounds and nerve damage to the psychological damage and how it continues to negatively affect the nervous system and brain from infancy to adulthood.

Every. Detail. And real cases, too. Babies. There was even an infant under 1 year old they cited whose father was the perp. They also discussed the many babies and children that died from it or from later complications.

I KNOW the US has a prison problem. I KNOW the caveat with the death penalty is all the people who are wrongfully accused. But anyone who commits that type of crime genuinely deserves to be executed. The layers of psychological, emotional, physical, neurological, and for the family paying the medical bills financial damage that lasts a lifetime... they deserve to pay with their lifetime, and that way there’s no risk of a repeat offender.

That whole day, hearing everything the doctors laid on the table just made me so so so angry. There is a website online where you can see how many registered sex offenders are in your area. There’s so many in the US. How, and WHY do we tolerate this? And also why does the Catholic Church and other institutions tolerate pedophiles and sex offenders in their ranks?

And I had to listen to every bit of that whole conference. It’s not like I could tune out; I had to listen for cues and be at attention in case of any technical issues. Just... it made me think really hard about all the children in my family and the kind of world we are facilitating for them to grow up in. And about all the children who don’t have mindful and protective families who have these crimes committed against them.

Sorry to trauma dump, but there’s just... it was so many cases all day. Every one of them was disgusting. Lots committed by family members and close friends. It was very very disheartening and blood-lust-rage-inducing.

Username: [deleted]

I’ve never seen anyone actually die like the others. My day to day is not usually fucked up. But major TW for anyone triggered by sex crimes, especially involving minors:

I once worked a 12 hr shift that was 10 hrs of operating boards for a neurologist and neurosurgery conference where they discussed how sexual assault and rape affects infants and children neurologically for their entire lives. Everything from the initial wounds and nerve damage to the psychological damage and how it continues to negatively affect the nervous system and brain from infancy to adulthood.

Every. Detail. And real cases, too. Babies. There was even an infant under 1 year old they cited whose father was the perp. They also discussed the many babies and children that died from it or from later complications.

I KNOW the US has a prison problem. I KNOW the caveat with the death penalty is all the people who are wrongfully accused. But anyone who commits that type of crime genuinely deserves to be executed. The layers of psychological, emotional, physical, neurological, and for the family paying the medical bills financial damage that lasts a lifetime... they deserve to pay with their lifetime, and that way there’s no risk of a repeat offender.

That whole day, hearing everything the doctors laid on the table just made me so so so angry. There is a website online where you can see how many registered sex offenders are in your area. There’s so many in the US. How, and WHY do we tolerate this? And also why does the Catholic Church and other institutions tolerate pedophiles and sex offenders in their ranks?

And I had to listen to every bit of that whole conference. It’s not like I could tune out; I had to listen for cues and be at attention in case of any technical issues. Just... it made me think really hard about all the children in my family and the kind of world we are facilitating for them to grow up in. And about all the children who don’t have mindful and protective families who have these crimes committed against them.

Sorry to trauma dump, but there’s just... it was so many cases all day. Every one of them was disgusting. Lots committed by family members and close friends. It was very very disheartening and blood-lust-rage-inducing.

Username: [deleted]

One of the toilets, in the only bathroom of the building, was broken. (Busted u-bend section... somehow, no idea but maybe after this, it will make sense.) The company was going down the pan[pun intended] so they wouldn't pay to fix it, since they were already many millions in debt and just in the process of 'closing shop'.

So, broken shitter stays broken. Not a huge deal, there are 4 more stalls, and other bathrooms in other buildings... Little did we know, someone's relationship with this particular porcelain throne was far too intense to simply break off and move on to others.

The cleaner put up an out-of-order sign and life moved on.
Some unfortunate soul on the other shift found the first crime-scene.
A pan full of un-flushable shit.

Ok, it was reasoned, maybe the perpetrator didn't read English (around %10-15 there didn't), or maybe they were caught short. The cleaner, frustrated but humble and hard-working, cleaned the mess. We don't know how, we didn't want to know.

A new sign. Clean & drained toilet. A padlock fixed to the door. We move on. A new scene is discovered. Padlock smashed open, sign in the toilet, mountain of shit atop the sign. We thought it was innocent, but this was war.

Cleaner, rightfully angry at this point, but still goes about his duties, nobly. After cleaning the scene, he cut up some large, industrial, bleach bottles and glued them (with the companies glue used in production) in such a way that the conical top of the bottle protruded from out of the bowl and sat sticking through the seat like the world's worst pyramid. To make it impossible for anyone to sit on the toilet.
He got one of the shop guys to fix the door shut.

Obviously, our poop bandit was not deterred by the defences. The next attack left the door victim to a brutal kicking, being broken off its hinges. And with bottle-guard standing strong, the fiend had evidently stood on the seat and squatted atop the bottle.

Leaving an impressively large amount of poop all over the pyramid, and even some on the floor. The cleaner left that day and never came back.

Username: crumblypancake

This weird old manager had a wife and used to put money on prison women’s books and pen pal with them. His wife knew according to him. Anyways he brought a recently released one into the office to try to get her a job and manager above him said no, he got all pissy and paid her out of his own pocket cash to clean random things in our office.

Someone in our office complained to upper management because they didn’t feel safe and thought it might fall under sexual harassment. I’m pretty sure it was the only woman in our office. Anyways upper management had no idea he was doing that.

Rumor also is that he fucked her in his car in the empty lot next to us but someone could have been full of shit. The Excon had crackhead energy, I wasn’t too worried since I didn’t keep anything at work that I cared about winding up missing.

Anyways my manager got into a heated argument with the superiors where it almost came to blows. He quit/got fired and they both left. He came back with a fucking rifle and luckily someone noticed so they quickly locked all the doors and got away from the windows.

Police took less than two minutes to show up and he got arrested. He never served any time on it and got off. Also a coworker had that excon dating and living with him a couple months later, he got her number the day she did work there and stole that guys potential side piece.

Car Dealership. Luckily I was in the office on the second floor in a different building like a block away since it was a large auto mall. The one he showed up to announced over the intercom to dealership wide to lock doors and hide away from the windows.

Which at a dealership like half the building was windows. He could easily shoot one out and walk in. We were pretty paranoid for awhile he might randomly show back up and mass shoot up the place but never did.

He had a trespass order, I never seen him again but I never removed him from my special company Facebook account that he was friends with me on in case his ass posted a threat or murder suicide message so I’d know to not be at work that day. Dude was only locked up for like two days then out.

Username: Pretty_Frosting_2588

One night driving for Lyft years back, it was 3am in downtown Denver on a Thursday night. The rider I was picking up got into my vehicle screaming at me telling me to drive fast that she had stolen from a Russian consulate and that they were trying to find her.

Me not realizing what's going on I drove out of there as fast as I could, and proceeded to look behind me. She kept changing the address to the destination thinking we were being followed (when I don't think we actually ever were?), and I spent about 2 hours driving to random destinations and it was starting to annoy me.

She started to calm down and finally put her final address in and as I was nearing her destination she starts groping my d*ck from behind and continues to jerk me off. At the time me being me, I went with it, we pulled over outside of her house and ended up fucking in my back seat.

After sex it turned strange very quickly. She proceeded to growl at me and told me that she was going to get her dogs to kill me inside of her house, that I should come inside, and that she has a 12 gauge waiting for me as well. So I took that information in and did not go inside of her house.

Felt safer inside of my vehicle and where I can watch her wrists, am heavily trained in Krav Maga and in close range if needing to defend myself quickly. Laughing out of discomfort and changing the subject right away, she proceeds to cuddle me, cry and say that nobody has ever been this nice to her....

So she tells me to meet her inside and I tell her I just need to close my app right quick that I'll meet her inside. Ended up driving off as fast as I could, never to see her again.

Looking back that could've all went south in seconds if I chose to step foot inside her home. I didn't know who this person was and what she was capable of, so staying inside my car felt my safest option given that she was threatening to kill me and I was just looking for a good time.

It's one of those moments but did you die? It was honestly fun yet concerning at the same time and I'm just glad I don't have to drive for Lyft anymore!!

Username: KayVenti

One night driving for Lyft years back, it was 3am in downtown Denver on a Thursday night. The rider I was picking up got into my vehicle screaming at me telling me to drive fast that she had stolen from a Russian consulate and that they were trying to find her. Me not realizing what's going on I drove out of there as fast as I could, and proceeded to look behind me.

She kept changing the address to the destination thinking we were being followed (when I don't think we actually ever were?), and I spent about 2 hours driving to random destinations and it was starting to annoy me.

She started to calm down and finally put her final address in and as I was nearing her destination she starts groping my d*ck from behind and continues to jerk me off. At the time me being me, I went with it, we pulled over outside of her house and ended up fucking in my back seat.

After sex it turned strange very quickly. She proceeded to growl at me and told me that she was going to get her dogs to kill me inside of her house, that I should come inside, and that she has a 12 gauge waiting for me as well. So I took that information in and did not go inside of her house.

Felt safer inside of my vehicle and where I can watch her wrists, am heavily trained in Krav Maga and in close range if needing to defend myself quickly. Laughing out of discomfort and changing the subject right away, she proceeds to cuddle me, cry and say that nobody has ever been this nice to her....

So she tells me to meet her inside and I tell her I just need to close my app right quick that I'll meet her inside. Ended up driving off as fast as I could, never to see her again.

Looking back that could've all went south in seconds if I chose to step foot inside her home. I didn't know who this person was and what she was capable of, so staying inside my car felt my safest option given that she was threatening to kill me and I was just looking for a good time.

It's one of those moments but did you die? It was honestly fun yet concerning at the same time and I'm just glad I don't have to drive for Lyft anymore!!

Username: KayVenti

Scrolling thru this mine is pretty mild but it still pisses me off every time I think about it. I was the second teacher for the school’s girls volleyball club and the lead coach was an absolute dragon, clearly had psychological issues but hey, those don’t exist in Japan. She was super harsh with all the girls but if she took a dislike to someone it was over for them.

There was one girl who I taught in a class who had just returned from a study abroad program so she hadn’t had as much practise as the other girls in the club. The coach would lay into her for every slight mistake.

She berated her for half an hour once because her stance for receiving the ball wasn’t strong enough. Sadly this happened at a time when other students had had enough and the third grade were to “retire”. This left only her to be the team captain to a team of newbies.

The coach got worse and worse at the students because they were all new to the game and the new captain couldn’t take the pressure. During one game the captain injured her ankle, a really bad sprain, and despite being in a lot of pain and mental suffering still wanted to go and play to avoid the coach’s abuse getting worse.

Not long after the new captain took a 6 month absence from school due to mental health issues. Even when she returned she was a shell do the bright cheerful girl she used to be.

Yes, I reported the coach many times. And so did parents. But I was a new teacher and she had been there forever and obviously knew what was best as she had been an award winning volleyball player in her school years. However, after more details of this incident came to light she was suspended from coaching for a year and after that transferred to another school.

I wish I could say she didn’t cause anyone harm again but I honestly have no idea. It happened just as I was recovering from Anxiety disorder issues myself and so I related hard with this girl. I still get very upset when I think about it because this stupid birch of a coach ruined this girl’s life over the dumbest little things.

Username: EmmaJuned

Worked at a Greek restaurant in college where at least once, sometime up to 3-4 times a night, a certain song would come on, servers would have to line up and do a sort of Greek conga line dance through the whole restaurant, and bartenders would blow fire, while everyone claps along to the song. It ends with a plate breaking and the whole restaurant yelling “Opa!”

It was fun, but dangerous. There was always grease on the floor from doing the saganakis (flaming cheese) so occasionally servers would slip and sometimes even pile up cause we were in the conga line thing. But one night, we had a newish bartender doing the fire blowing.

All bartenders previously had been males, with short hair. This was a woman, with medium length hair, wearing it down. She also didn’t learn how to spit the 151 properly in a spray....

So she dipped her fingers in 151, lit them on fire, does her spray, which had actually just dripped all the way down her chin/chest because she didn’t know how, and then goes to clap... with her fingers still lit .... And her chest/hair/entire person fully caught fire. Fully engulfed chest up in flame, screaming.

Because she was in the bar area, everyone around her seemed to only have alcoholic drinks, which some tried to throw on her to douse the flames, to no avail. Finally someone grabbed a curtain down and wrapped it around her to put out the fire.

It was so traumatic to see someone literally on FIRE. And then after she is out out and ambulance is there, our boss instructed us to continue running food as normal. Which was a insane. The whole place reeked of burnt hair and everyone had lost their appetites because of the show that just unfolded.

Needless to say, that was the last time we ever did the dance or the fire blowing. They still do the flaming cheese though. And that bartender made a full recovery eventually, but had to cut her hair into a very short Bob and had burnt off eyebrows and eyelashes.

Username: ya-sure-whatever

To preface, I was at work but was on the shitter (thankfully) when i happened. Around Valentines Day, 2021, I worked at a 3M plant, and there are many large industrial machines. Most of which are older than 50 years old. They have added safety features, but people often work around them, i.e., stepping over a pressure pad e-stop or reaching around the perimeter of a laser curtain.

The machine in this situation was a flexer, which had two big winders, one on each end of the machine, in which large multi-ton rolls would be inserted. Unfortunately, the operator that night, a veteran and cancer survivor, who was two years from retirement, had a fatal accident. He would always wear an apron, and he was a little guy, so there was a lot of excess tie that would just dangle.

I'm not sure what the official report says, and there are no cameras, nor were there anyone near to see what caused it. It was a very loud workfloor, but that didn't stop everyone in the vicinity to hear his blood curdling screams and calls for help. I guess luckily, he didn't suffer for too long because the screaming didn't last but a few seconds.

When I came back from the restroom, it was quiter than usual, and I saw a bunch of people standing around looking in the direction of his machine. I also saw my coworker, whom I worked closely with, sitting on the ground with an empty stare. I later found out that he was the first one on the scene.

He didn't know how to stop the machine, but seconds later, someone else ran over and slapped an e-stop. My coworker said he didn't know who it was. They were unrecognizable due to the pure trauma of the injuries. "I saw guts and his leg twisting around the winder."

My coworker didn't come back to work for months. I remember people walking by, trying to see, why?! Before the police or firefighters arrived, news had already spread via people calling loved ones. There was an official OSHA investigation and a fine of less than much less than $30,000. the company built a memorial in front of the plant.

Username: baby_flanks

I worked at a really unhinged GameStop, few weird things. One time a kid ran in while our manager was carrying out consoles from the back room, and the door to our office was wide open. The little shit threw some kind of firecracker into our garbage bin, but it must have been some sort of weird hybrid stink bomb - once it started smoking, the whole room was GAGGING!

The door swung shut, so I ran up behind my manager to grab the bin when he opened the door - he opened the door and kinda leaned in towards me like he was going to tell me something, and then puked all over our feet. We both stomped out the bin fire, but it was so hard the breathe back there and the smell lingered for a week.

Another time was with this family who would drop their kid at our store when they went grocery shopping, they treated us like a daycare but never bought anything. We were re-arrangeing the shelving that day, so all the games were off the shelves in these huge stacks on the floor - so when the kid came tearing in full speed, we figured he was going to smash into them.

He did not - he passed them, jumped full-speed at our empty shelving, and clung onto the wall like some sort of tiny screeching Spiderman. The shelves are held onto plywood by these tiny little clips that broke, so he fell backwards into the stacks of games - with the shelves crashing onto him.

This was all in the span of SECONDS, we were rushing out from behind the counter to stop him and couldn't make it in time - his parents saw everything, and blamed us. We never had to babysit again.

There was a stabbing at the Skyrim midnight release, but I was inside. A lot of fights at midnight releases. One day our district regional manager came in with security to fire a member of staff for dealing weed, and two other members of staff mistakenly thought they were getting fired for the same thing and had to leave, too.

We lost 3 people in one day when we were only supposed to lose one, and all 3 didn't realize the others were dealing too.

Username: ManicMaenads

Worked at an animal shelter. The setup was that animal control brought stray animals to us, we kept them for 5 business days to let people have time to come looking, then put them up for adoption if nobody claimed them. We were mandated by the gov't charter to charge redemption fees as a way to recoup some of the operating costs of the shelter.

Couple of young adult women came in looking for their stray dog who had run off during a fireworks show they took her to, thankfully found her. Girls came out to do the paperwork and found out there were fees, as well as citations from the officer that had picked her up. They get all pissy about it, and with zero emotion other than annoyance one goes, "Well, then, how much to just have her put down?" Like she was asking how much for a loaf of bread or something.

I mean, it's not like we *would* have put the dog down unless it was super dangerous or actively dying of something else, but holy crap, how does that even enter your mind as an option? I could have understood if it was, "Is it cheaper to surrender her, I don't have the money to pay the fees and have no other choice," but "how much to kill her"?? With no remorse whatsoever...?

In the end, they took her home because even if they surrendered her, they had been ID'd as the legal owners and were responsible for the fees and citations no matter what happened to the animal. I guess I'm glad, if only for the dog's sake. She never would have understood if her people had come to see her and then just left forever without her. But I have rarely wanted to hit another person so badly.

Also, PSA: keep your pets at home, *indoors*, away from doors and windows during fireworks shows. IDC if they've never reacted before, idc how "good" and "well-behaved" and "chill" they are, or how escape proof your fence is. Shelters ALWAYS end up near or over full capacity in the days around fireworks holidays, and, sadly, same for emergency vets. Don't let it be your pet.

Username: AlwaysWantsIceCream

Two options come to mind, I work in a mental health hostel; For mentally scarring, one of our underage female clients riding naked on a man four-times her age during room checks - she had snuck him in and he was vaguely known to her. Police called immediately of course, some heads rolled as to how he entered the premises.

The other was a 19 year old female client disemboweling herself in the office suddenly. The client was a frequent severe self-harmer, and we had taken seemingly all precautions to blade-proof the premises. Unlike people who announce self-harm in crisis but never do it, this girl was like the calm before a storm, and without warning would start slamming her head bloody on the desks, or burning her hand on the stove fires.

But in this event, she came into the office seemingly for a chat, and slowly made her way to the office stationery pot without us noticing. Before we could react, she dived, flipped open the large office scissors, and basically staked herself through the stomach. As we were diving up from our seats to restrain her, she sawed and yanked the scissors across her abdomen, and bits spilled out onto the floor, along with vat loads of blood and other liquids.

One colleague got the scissors off her, but she kept managing to bite and punch her way free just long enough to jam a free hand inside herself and yank at her insides. Her intestines were properly hanging out by the time she was finally restrained, and she fainted from blood loss anyway.

Incredibly she survived, and after some time in a facility came back to us for ocassional visits. After she was rushed to hospital, we had to clean up the floor and all of the coated office parts.

I still see her once every 6 weeks for a stay at our place, and she recently wore a crop top, revealing a huge scar and skin graft across her abdomen. Totally sweet as usual, softly spoken and quite cheeky, but we have been warned it could happen again at any moment, so still on high alert.

Username: VulcanVisions