What is the worst thing that has happened to you at Work?

[I loveStitchnippyjon]

Twenty years ago. Our department secretary walked out of work mid-day and very publicly committed suicide.

 

[TipsyTraveler]

The mass shooting is the first thing that came to mind.

Working in veterinary medicine lent itself to many emotionally difficult days, one of the worst being the day I held a dog while he bled to death from a ruptured artery.

My personal scariest incident was when a customer waited outside for me to get off work, then followed me and attempted to run my car off the road.

 

[UncleMike101]

Let's see now................
I was first at a fatal car vs pedestrian accident where the victim was a seven year old boy. (This was my first day on the job.)
I was stabbed by a drunk with an ice pick.
He went to jail.
I had my thumb torn from the socket by another drunk.
He went to jail.
I broke a finger responding to a burglary in progress. (It was a squirrel in the guys garage.)
I was first at a suicide where a young man evacuated his skull with a .357 Magnum.
I was first at a suicide where a young man cut his throat from ear to ear with a tile knife.
I was first at a murder where a guy shot his friend in the back of the head over a girl.
I was first at an electrocution where a young man took 64,000 volts and expired instantly and another young man took a hit from the first young man but survived.
I was first at a home explosion where the renter tried to commit arson but set himself on fire before the house went up.
I interviewed him as his flesh fell off onto the neighbors floor. He expired a few weeks later.
I pulled a wounded felon from the bed of a pickup truck after he'd been shot in a gunfight with my Boss.
There's more but it would take too long to write it all down...............
Take your pick, I can't decide which is the worst.

 

[ronandannette]

The mass shooting is the first thing that came to mind.

Working in veterinary medicine lent itself to many emotionally difficult days, one of the worst being the day I held a dog while he bled to death from a ruptured artery.

My personal scariest incident was when a customer waited outside for me to get off work, then followed me and attempted to run my car off the road.

Oh good Lord - what exactly happened? What mass shooting? Why on earth would a customer do something so terrible to you? I'm quaking just thinking about it.

 

[TipsyTraveler]

Oh good Lord - what exactly happened? What mass shooting? Why on earth would a customer do something so terrible to you? I'm quaking just thinking about it.

I have no idea what the deal was with the guy who tried to ram my car into a ditch. I had no issue with him prior to that as far as I knew.

The shooting was.... well, a shooting. Disgruntled customer with a gun. Seven injured, one killed. 'Merica.

 

[Tuffcookie]

I got a call from Hospice that my mom had passed away. I was glad she was out of her pain but sis and I so wanted to be with her.

TC

 

[RangerPooh]

In my early 20's I worked for the Forest Service as a fire lookout. My primary tower was 100' tall (and old). One evening I clipped a step coming down from the tower and fell from the bottom of the 9th flight of stairs to the bottom of the 8th flight of stairs. Thankfully I caught myself as there was no safety nets or anything. Broke a few ribs. A year earlier I was in a car accident driving home from the same job and damaged my lower spine. I also had gunfire aimed at my tower by idiot hunters who thought it was unstaffed.

While teaching I was physically hit on a daily basis by a special needs student. I was pregnant at the time. Admin said it was part of the job.

 

[lovesmurfs]

As hotel manager-on-duty, I got in the middle of an altercation between two guests, one of which called the conservative Texan's son gay. The security guard got offended somehow, and walked off the job. I nearly got thrown off the balcony. I tried to call the hotel manager, but apparently he was celebrating his 30th birthday and didn't respond to my call. Wound up calling the police.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

Worst thing that has happened to me on the job...I sliced my leg open when I was 16/17 while working at McDonalds. The front/control panel on the front of the fryer was open when I walked past it I ran into it. It tore my pants and sliced my leg. I am sure that I sure I should have gotten stitches but they never even sent me to the ER to get it checked out.

The worst I have done...well that is something I am not going to get into...

Oh come on. You can tell us what you did to the fryer, and the guy that left the door open.

 

[gotomu212]

Mine isn’t death and destruction, but it has to be one of the grossest. I worked at a large old complex. It was having major renovation work done which stirred up critters. I was in the restroom at the sinks when a ceiling tile fell on a coworker across the bathroom and HUNDREDS of HUGE roaches fell from the ceiling onto her. We all just screamed and she went running out the door down the hall while roaches just fell from her.

I went to my desk, grabbed my purse, and went home for the longest shower of my life.

 

[RangerPooh]

Mine isn’t death and destruction, but it has to be one of the grossest. I worked at a large old complex. It was having major renovation work done which stirred up critters. I was in the restroom at the sinks when a ceiling tile fell on a coworker across the bathroom and HUNDREDS of HUGE roaches fell from the ceiling onto her. We all just screamed and she went running out the door down the hall while roaches just fell from her.

I went to my desk, grabbed my purse, and went home for the longest shower of my life.

I had a similar experience with mice. I was teaching at a school that was near a wildland area/open field and we had a known about mice problem. It was bad. We would find feces and urine in our classroom, closets, everywhere. We would see mice run across the dry erase tray at the white board, across our back counters, and once even across my foot while in the restroom. One in service day my coworkers (there were 4 of us in an inclusive classroom) and I cleaned the closet in our classroom. We found 18 live mice and a few that were dead. Admin gave us a roll of duct tape to patch the ceiling tiles in our classroom.

 

[MillauFr]

I was almost killed when working construction. My coworker and I were monitoring a pile driving operation. We were standing about 5 to 10 feet apart from each other when the pile stared going sideways. On the next hit a corner of the pile driving hammer broke off from the machine and shot out right between my coworker and myself. We found it buried 5 feet inside a pile of dirt 50 feet behind us. I would have been surely killed if it hit me.

 

[Shanoops]

Scary Worst: A few months ago, I had a man come into my office asking about rentals. When I explained that I don't handle rentals, just the management of the condos, he sat down and proceeded to continuously rant about how he was going to kill himself right there. My landline phone was out of reach and I didn't want to alarm him so I dialed our maintenance contractor on my cell under my desk and left the line open, so he'd know to come to the office. In the 10 minutes it took for him to get to the office, the man vacillated wildly between threatening to take his own life and saying things that just didn't make sense. Once my contractor came in, the guy got up, wandered around the clubhouse for a few minutes and left.

Funny Worst: When I worked at a steakhouse where the servers had fake names, I ended up with a name tag that said I was Lester. During a lunch shift one day, a woman proceeded to call me "Lester the Molester" while reaching up and jiggling my breast. I was so stunned that I didn't know how to react. She was asked to leave and banned.

 

[Liberty Belle]

I was repeatedly and almost daily groped (chest and between legs), by an 11 year old boy, but he was as tall as I was. He also gouged my hands and arms several times. Another child scratched me, spit on me, and pulled my hair. Another child slapped me hard on the face.

I think the worst/scariest thing, though, was when I was called at work from my son's day care saying he fell from the top of the jungle gym and hit his head on a metal leg of the gym that was not buried under the mulch on the ground. He'd been taken to the hospital. I was scared to death as a drove there. He ended up being ok - had a mild concussion and a bruised arm.

 

[Liberty Belle]

Today while unpacking some boxes to set up for an event nobody had a box cutter. I was using pens, keys, whatever to get the tape off. At one point I angrily used my hands and stared ripping.
I got a cardboard paper cut. It’s so much worse then a regular paper cut. Really, I didn’t know that could happen.

I've had those. They hurt like the devil!

 

[bushdianee]

A student planned to kill me. Another student came to me after lunch and said so and so has a knife in her pants. I thought about trying to get it from her but decided I'd better not. A counselor happened to be walking past the room so I got her to come in. The student refused to give her the knife so she got the principal who was also unsuccessful in getting the knife but the student went with him and finally gave it him. Not actually seeing the knife I had no idea if it was a toy, plastic or real so I went on teaching for the rest of the day. After school when I saw the written report I lost it. The knife was a long boning knife. Her plan was to wait until I was sitting down helping someone then she was going to stab me in the back and then kill everyone in the school she didn't like. The worst part- she was a 7 year old first grader. She didn't return to our school and I didn't press charges because I felt she needed to be in the mental health system, not the criminal system. I did hear that her mother did eventually get her help but not right away. this happened about 20 years ago.

 

[lynxstch]

Not to me, but to my husband. He was in a meeting at work, when all of a sudden he stopped breathing. For some unknown reason, the agency nurse was at the meeting sitting next to him and saw him start to turn blue. She started CPR and got him going till the EMT's got there. His pacemaker had stopped working. EMTs got him to hospital, after more CPR and shocking him (which fried what was left of the pacemaker). After a week in CCU, in a medically induced coma, and on a vent, they brought him out of it, and the pacemaker was replaced. He was then put in the hospital rehab unit to recover and get some strength back, when it happened all over again 2 weeks later. He literally died 2x within a month. All because the idiot Dr who replaced the pacemaker , never bothered check the leads. before replacing it. After the second time he 'died'- someone finally figured out that one of the leads was fractured, which was what caused it all in the first place. It was a long 4 months after that ---traveling to another hospital to have the lead replaced, then an infection in the new pacemaker pocket, so they had to go back in and fully remove the pacemaker and all leads, waiting for that hole to close up, and finally 2 months after that,having a new one placed on the other side of his chest. It will be 2 years in May, and I thank God and that nurse every single day!

 

[Lilacs4Me]

I've had a few, but this one was the worst/scariest of all, and 14 years later I still shake and cry when retell the story:

I had to rescue a choking 4 year old. I was a preschool teacher for DS17's class when they were 3/4 years old. They ate lunch at school, and then some stayed and laid down for a PM nap during the daycare portion of the school day. I was puttering around the 3 tables, helping the kids with opening up fruit cups, drink boxes, etc and chit-chatting to the little ones. I didn't realize it for a minute, but all the sudden I was aware of a shadow behind me. I turned around and saw one of my little boys following me. He was a quiet, sweet kid normally, so I wasn't alarmed that he wasn't making a sound, at first. I said "hey L, if you are done with your lunch, go potty and then lay down on your mat, ok?" He didn't answer, so I looked again, and saw tears in his eyes. I asked if he was OK, and then all the sudden it dawned on me (to this day, I have no idea why or how my thought went to that and not something else) that he could be choking. I asked him "are you choking? Is there something in your mouth?" He just stared at me with huge tears. I went into emergency mode - I yelled to DS and a little girl to run upstairs and tell Ms. K that L was choking and that I needed her, then took the little boy back to the kitchen area where there was an utility sink. I popped him up on my knee, put my hands under his ribcage, leaned him over the sink and pushed up. Thank god - out popped a whole grape and vomit. He took a huge breath and just started to cry. I hugged him for dear life and cried with him lol It only took a matter of about 10 seconds from start to finish, so by the time the other teacher had run down the stairs, it was over and all she saw was the two of us surrounded by the rest of my class, crying our eyes out. I was completely calm during the incident and did what I was trained to do, but as soon as it was over, and for the past 14 years since when I think about it, I was shaky and scared of all the different scenarios that could have happened to make the outcome much, much different.

And I made sure to doublecheck the kids' lunches everyday after that before they ate to make sure there were no choking hazards. We were always telling the parents to be mindful about this, and for the most part everyone packed safe foods, but that day, the mom said the big sister helped and must have put the grapes into his lunchbox!

But the good news is, he was totally fine - and will be graduating high school this June I still keep in touch with his family.

 

[Christine]

A shooting. 12 people killed.

 

[snoodledoo]

Yeah, after reading some of these, mine is so minor.
I was hugely pregnant and sitting in an office chair. The chair had several legs at the bottom connected to the wheels. I dropped my pen and bent over to pick it up. I leaned too far forward and the chair rolled out from under me. I landed on the end of one of the legs, right on my tailbone. I can't even describe the pain.