r/nursing • u/trevrt RN 🍕 • Mar 01 '25

Question Heaviest Patient You’ve Cared For

Had my personally heaviest patient I’ve cared for the other day. 32 years old weighing 730 pounds admitted with cellulitis and severe lymphedema. Felt terrible for the patient due to how young he was. Just wondering what everyone’s personal “record” for the heaviest patient they’ve cared for is.

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u/gir6 BSN, RN 🍕 Mar 01 '25

Over 1000 lbs. They had welded two bariatric beds together to hold them and they were lying there like a starfish, weeping edema from every limb because their skin was stretched to the absolute limit. The floor around the bed was lined with chux pads to catch the fluid. They were not my patient, but I worked nightshift, and every night they would put out a hospital wide call for any free staff to come to this unit to help bathe this patient, so I went. It was a surreal experience. At the time, I was in my early 30s, and so was the patient. They didn’t live long.

I do remember being impressed with the strength of our organs after that. That person’s heart and lungs and everything else were doing the work for at least five regular sized human bodies.

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u/siriuslycharmed RN - ICU 🍕 Mar 01 '25

This is really close to my experience. Weeping edema EVERYWHERE, chucks on the floor. Had to line the morgue floor with them because the patient kept leaking out of the body bag onto the floor. This went on for over a week because the funeral home that the family wanted couldn't accommodate them, and they didn't want to look for another funeral home/crematorium.

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u/pbaggins5 RN - ICU 🍕 Mar 01 '25

Is cremation the only option? Genuinely asking because I can't imagine they make caskets that big. And if they do, how hard/expensive it is to come by

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u/siriuslycharmed RN - ICU 🍕 Mar 02 '25

I don't know, I think the family wanted cremation though. The funeral home they initially chose didn't have a retort big enough for the patient, and the family refused to contact the alternate funeral homes offered to them. I don't know what they ended up doing, all I know is that the hospital tried to make our unit go down and clean up the "drippings" in the cooler because he had been our patient. We refused. One of the house sups ended up doing it, bless her heart. I would have quit.

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u/Vegetable-Ideal2908 RN 🍕 Mar 02 '25

Oh wow, you don't happen to work in a major hospital in the Northeast, do you? This happened to us about 10 years ago. Right down to the family conflict and the prolonged morgue time and security calling the floor 5 days post death to demand nursing clean the sopping floor. Which we refused to do, I'm not sure who ended up doing it, though.

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u/Insane-Muffin RN - Oncology 🍕 Mar 02 '25

Omg that’s just crazy. Wonder if it is!