What's the Strangest Thing You've Ever Seen?

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Iwillheal

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http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2...k-the-guy-just-kept-eating-the-other-guy-away This afternoon reading about this naked guy eating another naked guy's face, to which my reaction at first was "that's hilarious" and soon changed to "the horror...the horror...", I started thinking, what's the strangest thing you've ever seen in your professional life?

I've only seen a handful of patients at this point in my career, less than 50, and so far they've been fairly "normal." No cannibals, nobody with "unusually strange" delusions, etc. Which is good because I'm not sure how I would react to something like the case above.
 
Not the strangest but on the "est" list.

A patient I met with dependent traits, and somewhat intrusive to the point of annoyance would be on the unit every few months. He really wasn't mentally ill, just someone with borderline intelligence without good social support, and everytime he needed something he'd go to the hospital thinking we were the solution. He'd end up on the psychiatric unit (shouldn't have been admitted to begin with), was needy (asking for nurses for something trivial every few minutes) and we'd discharge him.

I had a discussion with him, telling him that the hospital wasn't the solution, encouraged him to get a job, his own place, etc. on his last discharge.

I saw him a few months later. There was a georgious woman at work and she needed a place to stay so this guy, IMHO trying to think it'd get him somehwere with her, invited her to his trailer (he was always homeless when we saw him). So he goes to work, she said she'll stay home for the day.

He comes back home, she got a restraining order on him while he's out, so now the police won't let him go into his own trailer. He tells the police the place is his, they don't believe him, and they bring him to the hospital.

While in the hospital, we tell the police the place is his, they tell us they dont' give a damn saying that if he invited her into his place they can't do anything, and now he doesn't know how to get her out of his own place. Meanwhile we find out she let her drug-dealer boyfriend into the place.

We discharged him, and when he tried to go back to his own home, the police arrested him for violating the restraining order.
 
From a lay person's point of view, one of the strangest/funniest displays I've ever seen from a fellow psych patient was when an old acquaintance just stopped dead in the middle of a manic fuelled psychotic rant, and had a sudden moment of clarity, before turning around, calmly walking out the door, and driving himself to hospital. It was weird/funny, because he was just so matter of fact about it - it was like *pace pace, arms waving wildly* "I'm the head of the mafia, the Vatican is after me, because I know the secrets of the second coming, and Priests have tried to exorcise me, because I'm Jesus Christ, and they're controlled by Satan *rant rant, more pacing*, and in the middle of all that he just stops, and very calmly asks 'Do you think I might be psychotic right now?", and then heads off to hospital without waiting for an answer. It was like 'Oh hey, having a psychotic episode, brb'. He also once claimed to own a Ferrari that changed colours depending on what speed he was going, which I actually thought was a pretty cool delusion to have. :laugh: The last time I spoke to him he was trying to organise a prayer circle to protect the Pope from negative energies being sent out by Satanic Buddhists, and of course he was the only one who knew of this evil Buddhist conspiracy to kill the Pope with mind rays, and the fate of the entire world depended on him. I politely declined the invitation to join him by pretending to not be available at a specific time and date - like "Yeah, you know I'd really love to help you protect the head of the Catholic Church from that evil Buddhist conspiracy, but darn, I have a prior engagement'. 😉
 
whopper said:
if he invited her into his place they can't do anything, and now he doesn't know how to get her out of his own place.
Click to expand...

It's funny because a friend of mine basically did exactly this to a guy she once dated. She was dating this rad tech, and caught him cheating on her with a rads resident. So, she went back to "their" (his name was the only one on the lease) apartment and changed the locks.

She managed to keep him locked out of his own house for over a month before he finally wised up and cut off the utilities. The apartment complex wouldn't do anything, and the police never REALLY got involved, although she did get served with papers and they both went to court where she was let off.

She did "steal" his car one day too. He had a regular parking spot at the hospital and she went and moved it into one of the patient parking decks in the middle of the day. Also managed to convince him that he'd had a brain fart and forgotten he'd parked it in the wrong place.

Ah, young love. :laugh: (edit: I should add that he gave her chlamydia during this whole incident too.)
 
Iwillheal said:
God, why did I look at this? Well, that's ruined my day, I've lost focus. Apparently the pics of homeless guy who had his face eaten out (only his goatee remaining) have surfaced. Truly gruesome, be warned.

http://www.nowpublic.com/strange/ar...ck-photos-pics-victims-face-nsfl-2936412.html

Apparently "bath salts" are to blame but since when doing drugs lead to cannibalism?
Click to expand...

I was not fazed, but only because, unfortunately, I've seen such things before.

However, I did get a morbid laugh out of "(only his goatee remaining)". Maybe it's because the perp didn't want a hair in his mouth.
 
It was funnier (in a cynical, evil, and sarcastic way) if you knew the guy. This guy just couldn't get anything right. I felt bad for him. He ended up having to pay rent on his mobile home for months while that woman and her drug-dealer boyfriend lived rent-free in his place, probably having sex on his bed, for months.

Last I heard, by the time I graduated from residency, she was still in his place, and the police were still refusing to assist this guy. I don't know what the hold-up was but no one was helping this guy to get that woman out of his place, all the while he had had to pay his rent on the place. He moved back to the homeless shelter while still working to pay for his rent.

Apparently "bath salts" are to blame but since when doing drugs lead to cannibalism?
Click to expand...

Doing drugs in some people----
One guy I saw put his dog in the freezer, another beheaded someone else, another jumped through someone's window thinking someone was after him (no one was)....

The thought of a guy chewing off another guy's face while on drugs is one of the stranger things I've heard of but it's not as out there as I would think given what else I've seen in this field.
 
I wasn't there to see this but the hospital staff and an attending told me this happened about 1 year before I started residency.

The security in the hospital used to be primarily an old man. A patient got out of line and this guy was about 250 lbs of muscle. He got out of line and when the nurses tried to inject him with Haldol, he wouldn't cooperate, got a chair, and started hitting it against the unit's plexiglass window. The window, despite being shatter-resistant was cracking. The guy was so big and intimidating, no one could get close enough to him to inject him.

Security was called in and when the old-man security guard saw this guy in a psychotic fit told the unit staff members he wasn't going to do anything. A nurse called 9-1-1 and the police showed up about 10 minutes later.

The police came into the unit, armed with their guns (a state violation), and brought in an attack dog. They tell the patient to calm down but he refuses, still hitting the chair against the window. The police let loose the attack dog, named "Chompers" who runs up to the patient, and starts barking.

Right when that patient saw Chompers start barking, he immediately fell to the ground and curled into a ball. The police then cuffed him and Chompers didn't even attack the guy. That dog was so well-trained that when that guy gave up, the dog knew to leave him alone. He even walked back to the officers calmly, while they pet him saying "good boy!"

The hospital got in big-time trouble. The police officers weren't supposed to be let in with guns or the attack dog, and they shouldn't have relied on their security to be simply an old guy especially since there was an involuntary psychiatric unit in the hospital. When I started residency, security was beefed up with several guards in the hospital at all times.
 
whopper said:
I wasn't there to see this but the hospital staff and an attending told me this happened about 1 year before I started residency.

The security in the hospital used to be primarily an old man. A patient got out of line and this guy was about 250 lbs of muscle. He got out of line and when the nurses tried to inject him with Haldol, he wouldn't cooperate, got a chair, and started hitting it against the unit's plexiglass window. The window, despite being shatter-resistant was cracking. The guy was so big and intimidating, no one could get close enough to him to inject him.

Security was called in and when the old-man security guard saw this guy in a psychotic fit told the unit staff members he wasn't going to do anything. A nurse called 9-1-1 and the police showed up about 10 minutes later.

The police came into the unit, armed with their guns (a state violation), and brought in an attack dog. They tell the patient to calm down but he refuses, still hitting the chair against the window. The police let loose the attack dog, named "Chompers" who runs up to the patient, and starts barking.

Right when that patient saw Chompers start barking, he immediately fell to the ground and curled into a ball. The police then cuffed him and Chompers didn't even attack the guy. That dog was so well-trained that when that guy gave up, the dog knew to leave him alone. He even walked back to the officers calmly, while they pet him saying "good boy!"

The hospital got in big-time trouble. The police officers weren't supposed to be let in with guns or the attack dog, and they shouldn't have relied on their security to be simply an old guy especially since there was an involuntary psychiatric unit in the hospital. When I started residency, security was beefed up with several guards in the hospital at all times.
Click to expand...

This is probably a silly question, but just out of curiosity, could they have used a tranquiliser gun on the guy? I mean if they couldn't get close enough to inject him, could they have loaded up a dart with the same medicine, and taken a shot from a safe distance? He'd be getting the same medication, just with a different delivery method.
 
whopper said:
Mother's saying he was a nice kid. Maybe off of bath salts.

I know nothing of the guy in this case but this just reminds me of all those guys I had on my forensic unit with a long rap sheet, and with charges rape, assault, manslaughter, etc, and when I call up the mother, the mother tells me the guy is a good kid.
Click to expand...

His mother's innocent is so endearing. According to ABCnews:

"Eugene had a criminal past and has the notoriety of being the first person ever tasered by the North Miami Police Department after he was arrested for beating and threatening to kill his mother in 2008. Police told ABC affiliate WPLG that they had to taser him three times to subdue him."

"'He wasn't cooperative, wouldn't follow orders, very belligerent,'" said Detective Mike Pons. "He had that thousand-yard stare, staring right into you, not assessing or understanding what the commands were."

I'm still disturbed by this case, by all those cars passing by in that video and nobody bothering to call the police, by the very fact that the victim was a homeless older guy, and the brute viciousness of the attack itself. Reminds me of that mutilated Afghan girl who was in the news though obviously the two don't compare. This case seems much more random.

I've seen the video and seems the homeless guy was pummeled good in the beginning so my hope is he was at least a little out of it and did not suffer as much as I think he may have. Also, to convince myself that the world is at least a little fair, I think the attack was not completely unprovoked. The homeless guy must have said something to Rudy Eugene as he was passing by. He may have psychotic, he may have been high (I don't know anything about the person's mental history), but even animals don't attack someone for no reason at all.
 
For me the strangest story is also one I was told by a doctor I used to work with in the hospital, as a research assistant. It was about an older guy and his family and relatives and his extent of dependence on them from an early age. This was a guy with normal or perhaps even above average intelligence who never learned even the most basic things about taking care of himself or having his needs met. He did not speak English, did not drive, had never taken the bus or a taxi, didn't know how to shop or how to find the address to the closest store nearby, had no friends, did not pay bills, knew nothing about how the world worked except how to keep his relatives and family around and at his service. He had been driven to his relatives home, and that's the only time he ever left home. His doctor was also a relative who came to his home. He had had some kind of a strange skin condition as a kid so he would stay home most days. That and the fact that he inherited a good sum of money lead to a very bizarre lifestyle for him where his relatives took care of everything for him...till the money ran out. Putting him in a home seemed out of question at this age.

The psychiatrist told me he did not want to touch this case because he felt a whole team needed to work with this guy and his family.

I can't think of a good segue but getting back to the case in the news, can anybody recommend some good review articles or books on predicting violence/aggression? This has not been an area of study of mine and we don't have any forensic specialists where I work.
 
This is probably a silly question, but just out of curiosity, could they have used a tranquiliser gun on the guy? I mean if they couldn't get close enough to inject him, could they have loaded up a dart with the same medicine, and taken a shot from a safe distance? He'd be getting the same medication, just with a different delivery method.
Click to expand...

Yes, but do the police carry these? No as far as I know.
 
whopper said:
He ended up having to pay rent on his mobile home for months
Click to expand...
Why?

The strangest I think I've seen so far (only an intern, so haven't seen much) was a guy who came in to the hospital for seizures. Head CT revealed multiple nails that he hammered into his skull to keep us from listening to his thoughts. Probably explains why he always wore a hat. That he did this before, and that he was discharged on the weekend NOT to a psych hospital also struck me as strange.
 
Why?

Because he had a lease on this thing. You just can't get out of paying for that because some lady locked you out of your own home.

According to several laws, if you invited them into the property, there's nothing the police can do about it. I've seen horror stories with that including a father-in-law who's son was living on a second home in the property and refused to leave long after the marriage was for all intents and purposes over, and a guy who rented a second home on his farm to someone who turned out to be a drug dealer, the drug dealer never paid rent, then when the guy tried to get him evicted, the drug dealer turned out to be the legal guardian of his niece (who was never in the place) and the court ordered that until he gets a new place he could stay there for her protection...and guess what? He had no intention of leaving.

I didn't research every single law and it's possible this poor guy could've taken some type of legal action but the cops weren't helping him. I suspect he may have had to have gotten a lawyer, but we're talking a borderline intellect guy here.

Even if he did get a lawyer, I suspect the way the NJ laws were, he might not have been able to still even got rid of her if he invited her in. In which case if I were him, I would've just told the landlord the situation, lose the security deposit and then the landlord could've forced her out.
 
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in ohio, even as a renter, you can formally evict someone through the court system. it is a pain in the arse but very doable without a lawyer. however, his having a limited intellect was probably the main issue. sad someone at the homeless shelter (a case worker, social worker?) wasnt able to help him with this, or help connect him to the local legal aid society or something. i had a friend who let her ex-boyfriend stay on her couch for a few nights b/c he was "strung out" but then he refused to leave. she ended up having to pack up her 3 kids & stay at a homeless shelter for women & kids while she went through the process of legally evicting him (go to the courthouse, file petition for eviction, serve him the eviction papers, he had x amount of days to contest it in court, etc). once the appropriate amount of times goes buy you can have the sherrif's office remove the unwanted "houseguest" forcibly the way landlords do after a formal eviction. it's not quick. but it should only take approx 30-45 days. if he had contested it in court (he didnt) he would have lost, the example of the guy with legal custody of minor thing, i suspect that is not the usual turn out. people with children get evicted & thrown out into the streets by landlords all the time. apparently an ordinary citizen has the same right to evict as formal landlords.
 
The guy I mentioned who had a drug-dealer on a second home on his property,....
One day the drug dealer threw cowpoop on the guy's face. The guy called the police and cleaned the poop off. After the cops showed up, they told the guy they saw no poop on his face so it was his word against the drug dealer's. They cops left and did nothing even though this guy demanded to press charges.

Oh, and this happened in Westchester County, NY in the mid 90s. I don't know what the exact laws are concerning this thing there and then, but I do know this guy kept complaining he couldn't get this drug dealer out of his property and took a few days off to go to court, where he told me what happened when he was back at work.

The guy with the borderline intellect, that event occurred about 7 years ago in Atlantic County NJ.
 
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