We think of hospitals as sterile environments, a place where you might go to get fixed up after an illness or accident, good as new.

Unfortunately, not all surgeries are actually successful, and medicine isn’t always clean and tidy.

In fact, gross, surprising and downright disturbing things constantly happen in hospitals all over the world, from medical mishaps to unusual maladies.

Here are some of the most insane medical miracles and mishaps from the past year.

A Chinese woman, who was only identified by the local press as Zhang, was 35 weeks pregnant when all of a sudden she started to feel sharp pains in her belly. They were anything but “normal.”

Tim McGrath, 38, used to have boyish good lucks and the type of wavy brown hair that was once synonymous with 1960s California surfer culture. Then the Michigander was diagnosed with synovial sarcoma, a rare form of soft tissue cancer, and a softball-sized tumor grew on his jaw.

It is not uncommon to get a headache after an orgasm, but one woman’s throbbing post-sex complaint turned out to be the first sign that her life was about to change forever.

Back in the old days, people injected their faces with Botox to make wrinkles go away. Now, folks are literally sticking needles up their butts.

Kelly Yeoman says that she went to the doctor for a routine surgery. That’s when her chest cavity started to fill with her own excrement.

A woman woke up with a “tingling, crawling sensation” in her nose. It wasn’t because she needed to sneeze.

It’s one of life’s little pleasures until it’s taken away. Then it’s a sign of a major medical problem that requires immediate surgery.

When a newborn comes into the world it’s great to see their wriggling little limbs. Never in her wildest dreams did one mother imagine that she’d lose all four of her own limbs in the process of giving birth.