My coworker found a loaded handgun in the belongings of a patient who had been admitted for 3 days already. The patient brought it because “well I bring it everywhere”.

Also had a patient snort coke off his bedside table.

Also had a patient who was hiding crack in his socks.

A salt shaker under a boob on a cardiac unit…a sword, every drug you can imagine, several thousand dollars in cash…

Guinea pigs. 2 of them.

ER. Psych lady middle aged woman, very pleasant but off her rocker. Crazy hair. Saying for hours that she had guinea pigs in her backpack in the ambulance bay. No one believed her because she was psychotic. She would not let off it so I checked it out and sure as shit, she had 2 little guinea pigs in there. Got them into a basin and some lettuce from the cafeteria and called the shelter cause we had no fucking clue what to do. She went to the state psych hospital but was like "I was trying to tell you guys!"

I’m dating myself, but patients used to have old school desk type phones. Had a patient we suspected was shooting up, among other things, with a visitor. I knocked the phone off the table, the face of it fell off and multiple Xanax bars fell on the floor. I also had a homeless lady in triage with a large bag. The bag seemed to be moving. I asked if she had an animal in there. She said no. 🤷‍♀️ put her in a room. The bag meowed. It was the cutest tiny kitten.

A shiv. 

This patient was bought in by ambulance post a suicide attempt in a public place. Spend some amount of hours in ED. Several days in ICU. Finally got transferred to the ward. He was an ongoing suicide risk so had a 1-1 sitter. That sitter found a shiv hidden in the patients bed. 

This man had tried to kill himself in public, and, once he woke up in ICU, continued to declare his intent to kill himself. Yet no body checked his belongings before handing them back to him on the ward. 

I had a patient have a hooker sneak in after hours. We were always full and patients shared rooms. This guy shared his hooker with his roommate. They were best friends by discharge. I didn't even want to get involved. I asked them both to verbally say they had no needs. I said I'll round again at 4am and closed the door. Not my problem. They didn't teach me anything about breaking up a threesome with two patients and a hooker in nursing school.

The talus that fell out of his foot in a wal-mart bag. I shit you not, it was the craziest thing. I thought it was a dog toy or something. Like, you just didnt think to mention this FIRST? I had to ask him repeatedly, what is this?? Why did you bring it to the hospital? What the fuck is going on? So he didn't really sneak it in, but he brought a bone from his body in a plastic bag and just didn't bring it up. This was in the ER so he hadn't made it upstairs yet, but still. His bone slid out of his foot! He had an injury and maybe surgery, I can't remember but he had a brace on. I guess it wasn't healing properly and he just stopped worrying about it. Take care of your sugars kids or your bones will start falling out.

Once had a CT surgeon flip back the blankets when looking at the chest prior to surgery and got nipped by a tiny dog.

Another time I had a patient come in with a COPD exac on bipap and wouldn’t let go of his albuterol inhaler. I just figured it was a comfort for him and he couldn’t take it anyways on the bipap. I’d deal with it later. Turns out his wife was smuggling him in some oxys stashed in it. When I went to take it from him it rattled and we figured it out.

LSD……patient’s friend soaked a letter in it and passed it on to the patient in our psych unit. We thought he was schizophrenic the entire time until we realized he was eating the page over the course of several weeks.

Patient transferred into a chair and left his meth pipe on his wheelchair. I handed it back to him and told him to leave it at home.

Meth. Its always meth. Or like, a gun once, but I wasn’t that shocked because we’re very rural and he was apologetic.

Pt getting off the gurney and their vibrator falls out onto the floor while getting into bed 😭😭

We had an elderly gentleman on suicide precautions not too long ago. He demanded to use his own walker while in the hospital. Wife brought it in, thank god security found the loaded gun in the basket. I also found a syringe filled with heroin hidden in an open bag of sweet tarts ropes on a patients bedside table. We were under the impression she might be using but I think that was the first time I ever actually saw heroin in person

I work in an inpatient psych facility and we do body checks/searches of everyone entering our facility for safety. And this year we had a woman try to smuggle in 6 vapes. When asked why did she try to sneak in so many she said “I figured you’d catch a couple but I’d still have a vape” but when we found the first we were way more diligent. Another woman snuck a Vape in her vagina, and since sharing is caring she let 4-5 other patients use it. However it turns out she had chlamydia. And I had to escalate it to management and then to legal on whether or not it was a HIPAA violation to tell the other patients what they had been exposed to. Legal decided it was. So they may have developed oral chlamydia after leaving our care and we couldn’t even warn them.

A literal rolling suitcase full of malt liquor 40s and bottles of tramadol

We have a frequent flyer who is the reason we added metal detectors and security screenings at every entrance. Found a handgun in her hair bonnet when they took her to CT. She proved to be a feisty one so no one was really that surprised. She’s been on our floor twice in the last month.

An extremely sharp, very carefully maintained hatchet. He had it in a duffel bag.

A dead bird.. because we would want to test it they thought. Drugs. So much heroin. Dildos, an old dude with dementia and like $80,000 cash

not me but i was on the floor the night a patient was admitted who had a crack pipe and a 30mg oxy shoved up her extremely yeast infected cooch. when the nurse admitting her found it she grabbed the yeast covered pill and ate it. 

A chain saw - homeless man with a duffle bag of belongings

But the worst contraband incident was when a heavy set lady who was a frequent flyer on a psych hold. She had a huge bra on that nobody had her take off in the previous shift. At the beginning of my shift she kept desaturating and started to require nasal cannula oxygen which wasn’t out of the ordinary for her being a COPDer so I didn’t think too much of it. But then it became evident from neuro changes that something else was going on. Inside her bra we found a bottle of Xanax,oxy, a combination lock (no fucking idea why), insurance papers, ID and credit cards, and some other random stuff. She had a full on bra purse and was just sitting there for 24 hours popping xanies an oxys until she put herself in respiratory depression. Always undress your psych patients!!

I had a lady once in step-down who would keep this old crusty tissue box tucked under arm at all times. She fell asleep while I was reading off the night time meds I was giving her and the tissue box fell to the floor.

And wouldn't you know...she had 23 Xanax bars and a plastic spoon in there. Essentials for a hospital stay, of course.

Combative ETOH patient came to ED by ems, immediately put in 4 pt restraints. Policy is to change into paper scrubs but he was too violent.

I go to take his vitals a few minutes later, he’s got one hand out of his restraints and is trying to set the stretcher on fire with a lighter. I come closer, he reaches into his pocket and throws some kind of make shift throwing-star at my head.

A few days later he presented to the ED with a machete taped to his leg.

Loaded gun in the purse of a woman with Alzheimer’s who was clutching her purse and not letting go. It was my coworkers patient but she called me into the room and then I called security. She had just admitted to our floor. I’m a firm believer that belongings should be searched before entering hospitals and no weapons should be allowed. But what do I know. I’m just a nurse.

Prepping pts for surgery.... - heroin syringe (recently used) tucked up under a scrotum - bag of meth sticking out of rectum (med student thought it was ioban.. bwahaha) - bag of crack & kit in the vagina (aka Florida fanny pack) - chicken wing in a pannus fold - 1" navel "tooth" of ketatinized skin/lint/hair

It's always exciting when I also have a brand new, very sheltered sweet nursing student who's never in her life been around a truly diverse population. Welcome to the world sweet child!

A entire subway footlong under a patients breast 😣

She was surprised and happy that we found it, she was “planning to eat it earlier and lost it”

One of my floatpool buddies would say a gun, and they didn’t really sneak it cuz they just gunned down two people in the ed.

Fucking wold

I had a coworker tell a story about a psych pt speaking incessantly in a foreign language while they did a skin check on admission.... She apparently had a smell and significant amount of vaginal discharge. Upon closer assessment, they found a TV remote and she reportedly said "I was looking for that". 🤷🏻‍♀️

I worked psych peds the first three years of my career. Our subacute and residential patients could go on passes with family once they’d reached a certain level of privilege in their treatment. A 16 year old girl came back from a pass and when we found her passed out in the floor with her arms cut up, we discovered she’d snuck in a razor blade and some Xanax in a small hole in her scrunchie. We ended up having a whole education session about more thoroughly searching their belongings when they came back and patients weren’t allowed to have scrunchies anymore.

A sharp, metal scissor (think like something a barber would use). Found it in the infant’s crib!!!’

Went to straight-cath a combative Methany in the ED. PD invol, 4 point restraints, fighting, spitting, the full ED psych-corner experience. Flipped the gown up and had to remove the meth baggy from the ol’ meat wallet before I could proceed.

They weren’t hiding it but a miscarried fetus that happened a few days prior in a white deli container. OB ED wouldn’t see them as they were sometime in 2nd trimester but <20 weeks. Mom came in for vaginal bleeding and passing large clots with N/V from the pain. I had no idea what was in it till dad unprompted opened it up to show it to me.

We had a patient who we found getting ready to shoot up heroin in his room. I was the supervisor on the house. His nurse called me because he refused to give her his heroin. He also threatened to stab her with the needle if she tried to take it from him. I called the sheriff’s office to confiscate it. They couldn’t legally take it from the patient so they deputized his nurse so she could confiscate it. He didn’t stab her once they informed him that she was now law enforcement. He signed out AMA later. This was over 30 years ago. Crazy times.

This was in the late 1980’s- yes I’m ancient. I had a lady age mid-60’s admitted to my unit for telemetry. As I was admitting her I asked her if she had any valuables that she wanted us to lock up in the unit safe. Usually someone had a piece of jewelry or a couple $100 bucks. She gave me a shoebox that was filled with$10,000 cash!! I almost fainted!! It was a big deal, security was called to count it with me, another RN, and pt. Crazy night.

Male patient, brought in by EMS for ALOC. He was wearing a red lace thong to keep his baggie of drugs tucked into his butt crack. We also found other drug paraphernalia and a gallon ziplock full of used cigarette butts in his backpack. The weirdest thing in his bag were used feminine hygiene products wrapped in toilet paper. I unwrapped the toilet paper because I thought it was more drugs, instant regret. Nice guy though, 10/10 would take care of again.

Lunch meat in the abdominal folds. They were legit saving it because he knew he would be NPO when he arrived at the hospital from his assisted living facility

Vodka. Security searched her and backpack. Hours later, she was caught chugging vodka in ER. She was in ER for alcohol induced psychosis.

Cock rings. I have removed cock rings from unconscious patients far more times than I would have ever imagined. On one occasion more than one from the same penis.

Also I'm pretty fond of the lady I went into the room to tell she could not eat because her blood sugar was through the roof and found her with a whole buffet laid out across her blanket, who then sighed dramatically and pulled a whole ass marble pound cake from under her boob

Found a gun on Election Day when Trump first ran. That wasn't fun

A snake pet. I use to work in the ER. What surprised me the most is what people put up their butt.

Knife, on a geriatric/medical psych unit.

He'd been admitted on the prior shift & I have no idea how they didn't find the pocketknife, which was in a front pocket of his pants.

I had 2 male RNs come up and casually stand on either side of him, then I reached into his pocket and grabbed the knife.

He was like, "Hey, what was that all about? It was just a pocketknife"! 😄

A very nice house plant. Old lady didn’t like her facility anymore because they weren’t following her very specific care instructions for said plant. She wanted them to ‘mist’ her plant three times a day instead of watering it a few times a week. Showed up to the ED on a stretcher with her carpet bag at her feet and her plant clutched in her lap saying she refused to go back. She even brought the mister for us to use!

Personally, a machete found along the patient's leg discovered while we were changing him.

Coworker found a melted bottle of blue bench goo that had melted and the patient refused to throw it; she said she would grab globs of it.

Another coworker found a crack pipe in a butt Crack. Gave me lots of jokes about their Butt Crack.

Loaded gun in the bed of a patient with a sitter for SI found after 3 days. That was fun for the unit that found that.

Found a bearded dragon in a patient's bed after he got out of bed without calling and seized on the floor. I walked in mid-seizure and called for help. After the seizing, we were attempted to assist him (mostly just lifting him) into the bed, pulled the blankets back with one hand, and the little dragon popped his little head out at me. It brought levity to the situation though.

Another time, I walked in on a patient while he was actively freebasing in the treatment room.

We had a guy who came in overdosing. One of our regulars. Nice guy. We found some pork chops from a local meat mart in his waist band. We put them in the fridge for him for when he was discharged. 

A pt came in for detox and admitted she’d been drinking hand sanitizer for the alcohol in it. Triage nurse confiscated the bottle from her and she asked if she could have one last drink from it before we took it. I later found her sitting in her stretcher drinking from a travel size hand sanitizer bottle.

I had a patient come in with a snake bite. His family captured and killed the snake so that it could be properly identified, but failed to tell anyone that they put it in a Walmart bag in his backpack. After admission, I was going through his bag, looking for a cell phone to find the family's contact info. I untied the Walmart bag, glimpsed the snake (didn't notice that it was dead) and ran, screaming from the room. I called security because who the fuck else am I supposed to call about a snake in a hospital?

A dildo in a purse. I had no idea what it is so I held it up and asked staff what this was. The patient ran over and said she was so embarrassed. THEN I realized what it was. It was also dirty.

someone brought their emotional support miniature pony into the ER. another time a patient had “his brother” dropping off food, and after he got it we saw his heart rate skyrocket on the monitor. went to check on him and he was smoking crack in the bathroom

A machete, and roughly 20 pregnancy tests (was a male).

Edit: on the same person. Had been admitted for many days before they were found.

I work in psych emergency and had a teen that had taped small throwing knives to the bottom of his feet. He asked to keep his socks on when he was searched. Security patted him down, but didn’t check the soles of his feet!

Me, personally, I was cutting the pants off of a teenage boy who was there for AMS and found stacks and stacks of cash lining just pants.

A coworker turned around to open the door in a patient's room, heard a noise, turned back around, and the patient had pulled out a full machete and was waving around.

Mind you, both of these were at a pediatric hospital!

1. A rat. Not a pet, not Master Splinter, a regular feral ratty rat. A big ole fat black n brown rat with a long ass tail. It came in their belongings when delivered to us from living in squalor . The issue is he spent a day in short stay first ?! He then blamed the rat from coming into his gross ass luggage from short stay. Look I hate admin as much as the next bedside nurse but they are human shaped rats not actual rats and short stay does not give rats to patients. I don't know what ended up happening to the rat.

2. 20 grand in cash in a neat little brick except in between the first 10k and the second 10k there was a perfectly neat, entirely organised , note sized layer in plastic wrap of what I assumed to be cocaine. when I was putting the money into the ward safe I gave the plastic wrapped powder back to his girlfriend and said "no". I'm not a cop and I ain't doing the paperwork to sign a bunch of coke into the DD cupboard (which we have to do as they're technically a schedule ... 9? 11? Something) . Get rid of it thanks

3. I've found a lot of little objects in skin folds and tummy folds etc etc but the other day I found a soy sauce fish stuck to my arm when I woke up on my couch so I can't be judging that sorta shit , play on hahaha

$10,000 in cash with no family to give belongings to who came in for day surgery.

An older slightly confused lady with a lunchbox full of loose pills and pill bottles with all different kinds of pills mixed in them. She dug around in there and took what she wanted for the night and I just bagged it up and put it up in the cupboard where she couldn’t reach it. Call the doc and said idk what she took but she took some home meds. 😂

Two iguanas hog tied in his bag. Yes they were alive. Yes we released them.

My coworker was being admitted to mental health. I'm in the ER psych hold area trying to get her to change. She insisted, and management allowed her privacy. She got to the unit and told them she had a razor blade in her vagina, reached up, removed it and handed it to them.

while helping clean a bedside table a patient told me not to dump her “special drink”. i brought the nurse in and we discovered it was a full glass of vodka (btw patient came in initially for having a fall while having a bac of .135). family was just in visiting earlier in the shift and poured it for her and took the bottle home. nurse called family to let them know and they said they had no idea how she had that, nurse said that patient already admitted that they have the bottle. family suddenly remembers what happened…

Someone's family member brought in "home meds" after a patient had been admitted. Nurse comes to the pharmacy window with a bottle and says "hey, so I opened this and I'm not really sure what this is but I'm pretty sure it's not the drug that's on this pill bottle." Myself and a pharmacist look at the contents of the bottle -its a pretty standard looking pill bottle, the kind that comes from a manufacturer that a retail pharmacy just labels and dispenses- and there's these while, chalk looking, things. I'm pretty naive about street drugs and what they look like. The young pharmacist was baffled. Another pharmacist who has worked there for 10+ years walks by and she's like "that looks like crack cocaine!" Without missing a beat. We were like "ohhhhhh! That's what that looks like." And then contacted security to witness the disposal.

A kid taped a baggie of pills to his buttocks, kind of nestled it into his crack and taped it. He had been there for a shift when I took over his care. He was checked by security and put in a gown. His mom was sitting in the room with him too. Kept finding random pills in the floor around his bed and in the bed itself. I had security come back and we checked him again and found the baggie. He told us they were random pills he found at home and just dumped them in the baggie.

Then a psych patient with a huge history of violence got discharged from the same psych obs area and when we stripped his bed there was a 4 inch blade under his pillow. No idea, he probably just tucked it under there when he changed into a gown. Luckily I got along with him, or maybe I should say he tolerated me being his nurse better than most of the other staff.

I was taking care of an older lady in a very urban hospital. She asked me to hand her pocketbook to her, so I did. She was rummaging through it and pulled out a fried chicken leg and a handgun. She was talking away, waving her chicken leg in one hand and her gun in the other. Plus her wig was somehow on sideways.

It wasn’t in a bag but a patient in my hospital claimed to have an emotional support snake, her husband brought it in and she laid it in bed with her and tech went in to do something and bam, snake in the bed!

Backpack with a loaded Mac-10 and a brick of some sort of drugs and all sorts of paraphernalia . She (passenger) and her boyfriend (the driver) came in as traumas after he drove his bike into the side of a car turning her into a human missile. Ems just grabbed her stuff and boogied on to us. Was quite a shock when we were inventorying belongings.

40 Klonopin and a hunting knife that a father brought in his sons suitcase to the psych ward

$9000

In mostly fifty and hundred dollar bills.

Rolled up and stuffed into their shoes that from what we could determine they walked numerous blocks in.

The patient was very altered and we could not figure out where they got all that cash.

Had a patient float vials and needles out of a sharps bin (they would pour water in to raise everything to the top). They were found sky high several times but nobody knew why till they were caught in action doing that and injecting right into their IV port!

I had to confiscate an extremely sharp knife. Pt was upset because it was their ‘maggot knife’ for flicking/scraping maggots off their rotting leg.

Someone’s family member brought in a purse dog puppy. They had it in a big pocket inside their coat- were in the Midwest and it was winter so it was “the big coat” (IYKYK) I only saw it cause when I went back in to check vitals of the actual patient the dog popped its head out of the pocket of the coat once roomed. Pt IIRC Signed out AMA because the family member refused to take the dog home or call someone to pick up the dog.

Lots of alcohol in brought in drinks. One guy who was regular we’d have to pat him down cause he’d have like the airline size bottles of vodka cleverly placed in every single pocket in every single garment.

Tech once found a crack pipe in the linens of a patient who had been discharged. I being stupid and naive had no clue what it was. Security spent the entire rest of the shift teasing me for my “innocence”.

My favorite though was when I worked on the floor, some guy brought in MJ. And was smoking it. while on o2. Security had to be called because they were refusing to stop smoking because “they had a medical card” they were legit not comprehending why open flames from lighters and o2 were not a good idea

Heroin in a hamburger. It was wrapped in foil and when we heated up the burger it caught on fire. 😂

Not my patient but I was just triaging a guy in the ED and he had multiple risk alerts on his chart...mostly yelling/profanity but then there was 'has an axe in his bag'

Big ass illegal switchblade. Stilletto style, bout 6 inch blade, found it when we were packing up his valuables to go for open heart. Called security, they came up and told patient he would not be getting it back.

A 750 ml of Bombay Saffire gin in the bag of a patient that was known to carry alcohol onto the campus previously. I received this patient in report from the previous shift and was told they were such a problem that our nursing director came down to search their belongings on the previous shift, so they were allowed to keep what was left. Yep. Found them drinking a bottle of Bombay Saffire after that. The big regular 750 ml bottle. Still don’t understand where it came from. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

We used to let patients bring their own canes and walkers to our Drug and Alcohol unit. One guy was just telling a joke, swung it around, and out popped an 8 inch stiletto. A belt with a concealed knife we caught on admission. Lots of pens with pills inside. One guy with a colostomy smuggled a phone in his prison pocket, but I never got the details.

Towards the end of my shift, my patient called me to his room. He said he wanted to show me something. His girlfriend was visiting had a zipper up hoodie. She pulled down the zipper and out popped….

a kitten’s head! It was black with yellow eyes and meowing its little meow.
I said “aww, how cute!!” then said “uhh I gotta go give report now”, left the room, and never told anyone. Well, I told my husband, and now the internet.

Had a patient who had been dressed out by security into papers stash a loaded 45 under his nutsack. Security did great on dressing him out they just forgot to wand him. Luckily the PD officer who was working in the Ed noticed something was off right away and called it before anyone was injured

A battle axe. Hahahahaha. Family member brought it in and no one caught it because it was a rural hospital with no security measures. It was the patient's birthday and he personally hand-crafted the battle axe and didn't see the problem about bringing it in to the hospital. I wish I was kidding.

Once had a patient who was extremely likely to be a drug mule. He was unresponsive and on a Narcan drop when he soiled himself. We had to undress him to clean him up and found little baggies of drugs in a few crevices.

One of my friends is a former ER nurse. She said, once, a lady brought a bunch of used needles in her purse. She used said needles as weapons and threatened various staff with them.

Working in pediatric surgery, someone’s meemaw dropped a handgun in the preop area. It was so busy and I don’t think anyone saw but me. Meemaw picked it up quickly. I had the charge call security who ended up confiscating it.

Not my story but one from my unit. I work in a NICU and one time a coworker heard meowing and thought she was going crazy. Apparently a mom had snuck in a couple of kittens and put them in her baby’s bedside with them because she didn’t want the baby to get lonely. They were not the cleanest kittens either 😬

A hamster named Peter Pan that she kept in her purse. She wore it was a “support hamster” and had “papers” on it.

This was in the late 90s, hence the old school pen and paper story: A patient wouldn’t use the ink pen 🖊️ she brought with her to sign admission paperwork for the clerk who was trying to get the necessary documents completed and patient kept saying she couldn’t get the pen to work, but refused the clerks pen, so I stepped in to give the pen a good shake like it was an old school thermometer 🌡️ and I heard a rattling inside. I opened the pen and the ink ✍🏽 tube was removed replaced with a bunch of tiny Xanax pills. She was high as a kite and a frequent flier. Performed a search for other items that may put her at further risk and her prosthesis was hollowed out and also filled with all kinds of pills, powders, rocks and paraphernalia. Thinking back, our small town ER was the Wild West with all kinds of crazy situations.

Burn unit: patient on O2 had a lighter in their belongings bag.

I was doing an admit on a patient in observation. Asked her if she had any valuables that I needed to take inventory of. She casually mentioned that she had brought her handgun and forgot to leave it at home.

No sneaking just rural Oregon. Gun strapped to hip. Noted just before cardioversion.