There is a terrible urban legend that in fact, during all operations under anesthesia, you are simply paralyzed, but you feel everything and can neither scream nor move at the same time.
And when you come to your senses after the operation, you do not remember anything about what you felt, since special anesthetics block your memory.
All this, of course, is a fiction, but there are real cases when people came to their senses during serious operations, but could not move, while feeling pain and every movement of the surgeon in their body.
After these cases, the psyche of people was traumatized for a long time.
10. Carol Weiner
Before that same operation, Carol Weiner suffered from severe pain in one eye for several years. The reason was the accidentally scratched cornea. Weiner underwent 17 (!) Operations on this eye, but after each one she felt no better, but worse. Finally, her doctor said that there was nothing to help the eye, and the only way to get rid of the pain was by removing it. Weiner agreed to the operation.
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The operation was performed under general anesthesia and it started successfully, the woman was given anesthesia and she fell asleep. When she woke up, she thought she was already in the ward after the operation, but instead heard the surgeon's voice above her, "Make an incision deeper and pull it out."
Carol was horrified, not even from the pain that she did not feel, but from the sensation of every extraneous movement in her eye socket. At the same time, she could neither scream nor move and she could only lie and hear the surgeons and nurses talking.
She heard the surgeon reassuring her trainee “Don't be afraid, use as much force as you see fit. You just need to extract it. After that, Carol felt her eye being pulled out of the socket and from this she lost consciousness.
The survivor haunts Carol to this day, and after the operation, she practically could not sleep, as soon as she closed her eyes, everything again popped up in her head. And when she learned to fall asleep, she began to have nightmares. Then Carol visited a psychologist for a long time.
9. Donna Penner
Donna was prescribed abdominal surgery, was brought to the operating room, given anesthesia, and she fell asleep. Then she woke up and felt how they rubbed her stomach. Donna decided that the operation had already ended, but in fact it had not yet begun and Donna realized with horror when she heard the surgeon's request for a scalpel.
Donna experienced the entire operation from start to finish. There was no pain, but she felt every touch to her insides, how her organs were touched and moved. She tried to let know that she did not fall asleep and managed to jerk her leg several times, but no one paid attention to this.
The operation lasted 90 minutes and if at first Donna did not feel pain, then later she felt it and the pain grew stronger. At some point, she began to choke with horror and shock, but she was simply hooked up to a breathing apparatus, again not noticing that the patient was awake. After that Donna felt even more, in her words, "The lungs were on fire."
Only when the operation was completed and the last stitches were applied, did one of the nurses notice that the patient was jerking her legs. But she was just injected with some kind of medicine, and the nurse muttered that this sometimes happens. And that's all.
Due to the subsequent severe stress from the experience, Donna Penner lost her job and almost divorced her husband. And when she needed a new operation, she would never agree to it. Only the psychotherapy sessions helped Donna a little.
8. Sidney L. Williams
Austin resident (USA) Sidney L. Williams was looking forward to heart surgery. Doctors immediately warned him that there was a 50% chance for him to die during surgery, but the man was ready for anything. The operation was on an open heart, Williams was brought to the operating room, given anesthesia, and he fell asleep.
He woke up from a strange sound, it was his sternum being opened. He understood immediately. what was happening and wanted to scream and move, but could not do either one or the other. Out of fear, he wanted to cry, but the medicines blocked even tears.
Wilms lay there and heard the doctors discussing his open heart, and then he felt a burning pain - it was the doctors who temporarily stopped his heartbeat for surgery. Then Wilms recalled that for him this was the worst day of his life and even worse if he was buried alive.
With some incredible effort, he endured the entire operation, feeling pain in his chest and then tormented by nightmares for many years. Once he had such a terrible dream that he gritted his teeth tightly and broke several of them.
7. Jenny Smith
When the gynecologist discovered a cyst in Jenny's ovaries, he said that she needed major surgery and that her ovaries would probably have to be removed. Jenny was taken to the operating room, given anesthesia and she fell asleep, but soon woke up due to the bright light hitting her eyes.
She could not move her body, even move a finger, could not speak, but felt pain in FULL VOLUME. The operation lasted 45 minutes and later Jenny wondered how she didn't go crazy during it.
She described that she felt every movement in her body, every seam and prayed to God that she had only two ovaries, and not more. She compared the pain she experienced to a bomb exploding in her stomach.
Jenny Smith filed a lawsuit against the hospital and the investigation found that the reason was the negligence of the anesthesiologist, who did not notice that the machine that supplied anesthesia to the patient's body had broken. Jenny won the case and received $ 150,000 in moral damages.
6. Caroline Coote
Caroline was scheduled to undergo surgery to remove her gallbladder. She was laid on the table, given anesthesia, but the tube through which it was supplied began to leak. At the same time, muscle relaxants (immobilizing drugs) worked perfectly and Caroline soon regained consciousness, but was completely unable to move.
Caroline was in great pain and tried with all her might to let know that she was awake and feeling everything. But she only managed to cry and move her head slightly. Fortunately, this was enough and the surgeon noticed this movement.
Also, Caroline's blood pressure began to drop from fear and shock, and this was noticed by the nurse. The nurse checked the anesthesia and saw that the tube was leaking. She replaced her and administered anesthesia again. This time Caroline fell asleep for real.
After Caroline woke up from the operation, she had a tantrum as she remembered everything she felt and what happened to her. In the following months, Caroline developed a full-fledged post-traumatic syndrome, panic attacks began, and anxiety developed strongly.
5. Hector Alonso
Alonso was scheduled to undergo cataract surgery on his right eye. He was given anesthesia and fell asleep, but woke up in the middle of the operation. With his sore eye, he perfectly saw the surgeon who was digging into his eye.
Alonso could speak and he began to ask to interrupt the operation, but this was not done, instead they fixed him with belts so that he did not move, and they put something in his mouth so that he would not speak. The shock and fear of the patient was so strong that at some point he bit the thing so hard that he broke one tooth and swallowed it.
Worst of all, the operation was unsuccessful anyway, and Alonso went blind in one eye shortly after. He also sued the doctor and the hospital, comparing the experience to medieval torture.
4. Diana Todd
Diana Todd underwent abdominal hysterectomy - removal of the uterus. She woke up from anesthesia in the middle of the operation and began to hear everything the surgeon and nurses were saying. And then she felt her stomach being cut. There were several cuts, at first not strong, then another stronger. then another - there were five cuts in total, and then a wave of severe pain covered Diana.
These pain waves rolled over more than one after the other according to the way the surgeon made the incisions in her body. Diana later said that no words could describe this agony. She couldn't move, she couldn't scream, but she felt everything.
After the operation, Diana began to scold the surgeons, but the nurses answered her that this could not be and that she invented everything and she dreamed it all. She was unable to get compensation and still has nightmares. At some point, she even thought about suicide.
3. Mrs. Ay
A woman named Ay was scheduled to undergo a double operation, during which she would have her appendicitis removed and an obscure ovarian abnormality checked. Ai was given anesthesia and she fell asleep, and when she woke up, she heard voices above her and then felt a cut and how her hands were digging in the lower abdomen.
She could not open her eyes and could not move and was so terrified that when she heard the words of the nurse, "How much blood, take pictures soon," she fainted.
Ai later complained about the hospital, and when she received no comment, she filed a lawsuit against her. The investigation revealed a malfunction of the anesthesia machine, which did not apply anesthesia to the patient's body for 25 minutes. Only by the middle of the operation, the doctor noticed that the woman's abdominal muscle was somehow not twitching and ordered to increase the dose of anesthesia.
The anesthesiologist was eventually suspended from work for a period of 2 years. Whether Ai received any compensation was not reported.
2. Alexandra Bitchell
Alexandra woke up from anesthesia before the operation and at first did not even understand what was happening. There were breathing tubes in her throat, she could not open her eyes and could not move, could not breathe on her own. She even decided she was dying.
Then she felt how she was being touched, feeling the incision site, discussing her weight, height and other details. Fortunately. Alexandra was lucky, even before they started cutting her, one nurse apparently noticed an anesthesia leak and corrected the obstacle. Alexandra fell asleep again and woke up after the operation.
However, she remembered everything and tried to ask the nurses what had happened. But she was told that she most likely dreamed everything. Later, Alexandra began to threaten them with a trial, and only then did they admit that one of the nurses had not followed the dose of anesthesia.
Despite the fact that Alexandra did not have time to feel pain and digging in her body, she damaged her psyche. She developed depression, stress, nightmares, anxiety problems.
1. Sherman Sizemore
For some time, Shaymor suffered from vague abdominal pain in the stomach area and as a result, he was recommended to undergo abdominal surgery. When they put him on the operating table, they were given only immobilizing agents, and they simply forgot about another anesthesia. Sherman thus did not fall asleep at all and for the first half hour of the operation felt EVERYTHING that was done to him.
During this time, the surgeon cut open his stomach and began to examine it, and only then he suspected that the patient MAYBE was not sleeping and was feeling everything. Only after that Sherman was given a dose of anesthesia and he passed out. What the man experienced during this time, he himself barely remembered, everything was so shocking and terrible.
When Sherman woke up from the operation, he did not know what he was going through, whether it was a nightmare during a dream or reality. Therefore, he did not tell anything and did not make claims to the doctors.
But when he recovered, problems began in his life. He stopped sleeping peacefully; he had terrible nightmares of being gutted and dismembered alive or buried alive. He tried to tell others about what happened to him, but not everyone believed him.
All this eventually became so shocking for him that one day he could not stand it and shot himself with a pistol. It happened in 2006, a month after the operation. Only after that they began to check the doctor's records and found out that Sherman really, because of the negligence of the anesthesiologists, felt everything for the first half hour of the operation.