Waking up in a hospital is never a fun time. When you wake up in hospital with no idea how you got there, it can be downright terrifying.
Although it may seem like the opening scene of a horror/thriller movie, it actually happens to more people than you’d expect.
Here are 26 stories from people who shared their experience waking up in a hospital on Reddit (source at the end of the article).
I remember leaving the parking lot at my job and then waking up in the ER. My car had been hit by another, my car ended up hitting a telephone pole on the drivers side front door. Had a concussion and a fractured pelvis. There is about 45 minutes that I will never remember.
watermagequu
I got electrocuted in a recording studio.
I was going to speak into the talkback mic to the control room to tell them I was ready to start a take when I noticed all the lights in the entire building going dark as I got the most unbelievably hard and painful electric shock to my face. I don’t remember anything but I woke up in the hospital 3 hours later not knowing how I got there. Fortunately, I was okay.
I later learned that the building had dodgy electricity and my body happened to complete the connection between two circuits – one with 116 volts in the live room, the other with 124 in the control room. Zapppppppp.
omglolnub
Cycling my bike to work a few weeks ago, car pulls out from a junction too late and stops dead in front of me. Last memory is the rear windshield far too close for comfort. I come to in an ambulance, the paramedics holding my head and face with their hands – first question once I’d got my bearings was “Have I had pain meds?” followed by “… is my bike OK?”. Neither answer inspired confidence and I spent the morning in theatre as the surgeons sewed the bits hanging from my face back together.
ezraburke
I was twelve in 1982. Woke up in a hospital bed feeling fine, no idea what happened. Nobody else in the room.
Last person I remember hanging out with was my friend, Scott, so I call his house. His mom answered, advised me to call my parents. No answer at the home phone.
So I’m sitting in this bed, trying to figure out why I’m even there. I finally discover that the rolling table over the bed opens up, and there’s a mirror under the lid.
Across my forehead and down the whole right side of my face are fresh abrasions. “Ohhh, that’s why.”
Finally get hold of Scott and learn the story (which I still don’t remember).
Was riding my bike down a sidewalk near the grade school. Sidewalk takes a 45 degree left turn, and I cut the corner. Grass is deep, and a little wet, and my front wheel catches on the edge of the sidewalk, flipping me over. I landed on my face, dragged against the other edge of the sidewalk, knocked out cold.
Another neighborhood kid was in the area, hustled back to alert my parents. My Dad took me to the hospital in his car, and I woke up the next day.
Yes, my parents just left me in the hospital by myself.
Cut a guy off while bar tending in college. He wasn’t too happy, grabbed a bottle, and chucked it at the back of my head as I turned around.
Woke up in a hospital bed with my best regular and his wife ensuring me I’d be ok and the guy wouldn’t ‘be a problem.’
Super reassuring other than the fact this was a pretty unsavory biker bar and the regulars, though amazingly kind and loyal to me, weren’t the most savory human beings.
38 stitches, a partially shaved head, and 3 days later I was at lunch with the same regulars.
Woke up in the hospital summer of 2002 cuffed to a hospital bed. Tubes all over me and stitches all over my chest. The night before I was hit by a drunk driver. Had a 6-inch gash down the center of my chest exposing a few ribs.
After I was discharged I spoke with the gas station attendant who told me that he denied the driver a beer sale because he was already wasted. That asshole was never found.
That was pretty bad but apparently I woke up in a daze a few hours earlier. Doctor had me sedated and arms secured to the bed because I was trying to pull my catheter out.
18 year old me got super wasted on Smirnoff Watermelon vodka at some little club in Clearwater, FL. Apparently I fell off of a tall barstool and busted my head.
When I woke up, I wasn’t even sure what state I was in. Accidentally called my friend’s mom in North Dakota trying to get a ride to somewhere other than the hospital.
A decade later and I still can’t drink anything with that watermelon flavor.
Was at the pool. Next thing I know, I wake up in a hospital bed feeling very cold and my throat hurts.
Turns out I had actually drowned, but the lifeguard had pulled me out and reanimated me for about 45 minutes. Then I was flown to the hospital by helicopter, where I lay in a coma for 2 days, during which they kept my body temperature low (to prevent cerebral damage caused by lack of oxygen).
I could go home a week after the accident.
Had a seizure at work and was apparently walking into walls and fell down in the bathroom. My mom came to pick me up, brought me to my place.
I fell down and had another seizure and my mom called an ambulance.
All I remember was going into the bathroom at work after puking in my lesson room. I woke up in an ICU with everyone telling me that I had brain cancer and that I only had two weeks to live.
They started chemo treatment immediately at Cedars and now I’m completely clean of cancer.
KilgoreeTroutWas at school, about 8 years old. It was sports carnival day. I don’t know if they have that everywhere but it’s when the whole school spends the day competing in various sports.
I was watching the other group play tee-ball. Next minute, hospital. I woke up feeling like I’d just had a dream that I was in an ambulance.
Apparently I did briefly wake in the ambulance but not for long. I was thwacked in the forehead with a flying metal bat, had a massive abrasion which turned into the oddest scab you’d ever seen, like a unicorn had his horn lopped off.
Still have a scar there where my skull cracked and healed with a kind of divot in it.
I was shot in the stomach at about two feet away by a guy who had the gun in his backpack.
He was in the process of robbing a store when I walked in, and I didn’t see it happening as he had the gun hidden. A lot of other people in the store didn’t know either.
I asked him if he was in line, because he was kind of to the side, and he turned and fired. I don’t remember anything from after entering the store. The rest I’ve had pieced together.
He shot me three times, hitting mostly muscle, but also one kidney. I’m entirely fine today, but that was a fairly alarming realization of how close I came.
used to…Ordy1990Went out partying with my friends, fished my 5th in about an hour and blacked out. Turns out I was all over the place and the are photos of me just chilling in some bush like they were a recliner. Got back to campus, RA heard my throw up at like 2 am, calls campus security and they call an ambulance. Woke up in the hospital not in my clothes, nurse came in said “oh, you’re awake,” and walked out. Doctor walks in 30 minutes later and tells me I’m good to go and that there is a cab outside waiting for me. No one explained what had happened or if they had done anything to me, very bizarre. Didn’t know what had actually happened until my friends explained later.
notsopopularkidI was riding my motorcycle home from class and woke up in a CT scan. Apparently I had a high side crash and broke my collarbone, punctured my lung, had a severe concussion and a bunch of bad road rash. I don’t really remember getting on my bike to be honest.
OregonRossiWas sick for the last week, woke up feeling dizzy, called mum to tell her I’m not good for school just yet, went to sleep and woke up 5 days after in the hospital. They told me I had some kind of an infection but they didn’t know what and had to put me in a coma. Good thing is my life changed for the better that day and every day since then gets better because now I know how short life is and how lucky I am, as it was a recovery the doctors didn’t expect.
TheAwesomeMidgetFell asleep on a Thursday night and woke up Saturday in ICU. Apparently, Friday morning, I woke up to use the bathroom and my roommate found me collapsed in the hallway and called 911. Turns out my blood sugar level was 780 and I had excessive ammonia in my blood along with my white count being 37.7. Went into Diabetic Ketoacidocis. Am now an insulin dependent type II diabetic.
BigOlHoobaJoobFor me it happened when I was 12. I woke up in the hospital and discovered that I had broken both of my wrists at the same time and had cut up my whole face. It was pretty shocking to see when I went to the bathroom and passed by the mirror.
shanttiI woke up in the hospital one day after bicycling with 4 friends on road racers. I got hit by a woman driving while using her phone, she crossed her side of the road. The driver did not have a driver licence. I cold not remember any of these detail, but they where told by my friend riding just in front of me, avoiding collision by going off the edge of the road. (We were using road racers and I was less than 1 meter behind him.)
I was lucky as I was knocked down in the grass, 5 meters further ahead and I would’ve hit rocks. My body was made of rubber at the time, so I got no fractures just the seat attachment to the bike up my tighs and all of my left side mostly blue.
The lady was fined 1000$ and I got compensation of my the ruined bike.
RohybarnesMy brother and I were outside playing with squirt guns (this was 2001 so I would have been 11).
Next thing I know it’s Easter Sunday, I was in a hospital bed with a massive headache and blurred vision and the last thing I remembered was 4 days ago.
Apparently I fell backwards and smacked my dome on the curb hard enough to fracture my skull and bruise my brain. Got 2 weeks off of school, which was cool back then, and I’ve had to wear glasses ever since.
Apparently, according to my mom, the first sign of consciousness in the hospital was me getting out of bed, taking a piss on the floor, and then going back to sleep for two more days. The whole thing was a weird experience.
very_cool_stuffI hopped into the back of a mate’s pickup after a rugby game, went to sleep and woke up in ICU in traction with no feeling from my waist down.
Turns out we had a head-on collision with a drunk driver and I went through the back of the cab, picking up a host of broken body parts including four compressed vertebrae. A year and a number of surgeries later, I walked out of hospital an inch shorter and with enough metal in me to set off metal detectors at airports.
I was the lucky one, the other three guys in the truck never woke up afterwards. Twenty years and it still gets me.
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