If you've ever had the opportunity to speak in depth with a medical professional, you'll know they've got some pretty amazing stories to tell. While the rest of us just go about our lives, they're out there saving people - sometimes in more extreme ways than we can imagine.
One Reddit thread last week posed the question, "Doctors of Reddit, what made you say 'how are you still alive'?", and some of the responses are unbelievable.
1. Heading for disaster
"A patient I took care of had a car fall on his face," wrote user xGiaMariex. No, it didn't just fall from the sky - the man had been working underneath it when the jack gave way. The doctor went on to explain that, "The only reason [the patient] survived was because he broke every bone in his face ... which allowed for his brain to swell." So, essentially, one horrific set of injuries prevented an even worse injury.
2. The operation went swimmingly
I've heard stories of surgeons leaving objects in patients before, but this is some next-level stuff. User raybarks gives an account of a man who came in complaining of chest pain. "His records showed his last visit was two years prior when he got drunk and fell into a fish tank, breaking it. ER stitched him up and sent him home," he wrote. Thing is, the surgeons missed a bit: "a 12 inch long piece of fish tank glass" was left lodged beneath his aorta.
3. Just a flesh wound
This next account comes from user auraseer, who had the delight of meeting a Darwin-award candidate that "[hit] himself in the throat with a chainsaw". And this was no small graze, either. The nurse went on to say that, "I could see his trachea and his right jugular vein. If he had cut in just a tiny bit deeper, he would have sliced right into both."
4. What a numbskull
User madkeepz had a short and not-so-sweet story to tell about the worst injury they'd ever seen. "Saw a guy with a machete lodged up into his skull," they wrote. "Asked him if he was ok (not sarcastically, just threw a generic question to check his ability to respond), he said 'yup!'"
5. Everyone deserves a second shot at life
Even after reading all this, you'd expect that a bullet to the head would kill someone, right? Not always. User grevans1429 recounts the story of a woman who was shot point blank by her boyfriend: "Bullet entered one of her eye sockets and exited above her and ear on the same side," they wrote. "She called 911 on her own and survived, was in ICU for weeks, and testified against the b*****d who is now thankfully in prison!"
6. I can heart-ly believe this one
Now you may have heard of a heart attack before, but probably not one like this. "I had a guy with a Bowie knife sticking out of his chest," wrote user ShowerPig. "The knife was pulsating. I could literally count his pulse from across the room." As unlikely as it sounds, it's possible that the knife actually prevented the man from bleeding out.
7. He liver-ed to tell the tale
The stories of afflicted vital organs don't end there, I'm afraid. Paramedic unicyclemaverick recalls one patient he encountered as a student: "A guy came in happily complaining about a sore on his belly that wouldn't heal," he wrote. "He was really pleasant and didn't seem to be in much pain. When he lifted his shirt, we could see his liver."
8. I thought only cats had nine lives
This final medical miracle comes from Creepingwind, who isn't a doctor, but has a grandma who has suffered seven strokes. According to the reddit user, the old woman "couldn't help but laugh at the 7th one". They then went on to say that, "She's a very tough lady, she runs a garden and eats her in vegetables."
While it's terrifying to think that these things have happened to people, it's also comforting to know that there are people trained to deal with it.
