Man looks outside hospital window and sees something that leaves chill down spine

A man was stunned by the unexpected scene outside the window of the hospital he works at and decided to share an image of the sight online. Pedro, who works at the Base Hospital in Brasilia, Brazil, posted a photo to Reddit under the username u/drpedrico, showing what he spotted during a shift: two vultures perched at the window.

He explained in his post: “Today, a couple of vultures appeared at the window of the surgical center where I work. A patient said he was scared. It was like they were waiting for him to die.” Speaking to Newsweek, Pedro admitted he found the encounter amusing more than anything else.

The hospital worker said: “I thought it was funny. I was impressed by the size of the birds, it's not common, at least for me, to see wild animals so close."

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While Pedro was fascinated, not everyone reacted the same way. In fact, it left a chill down the spine of one nearby patient. Pedro added: “Some nurses were scared. The patient got a bit anxious too but was mostly joking about the situation."

His Reddit post has garnered 6,300 upvotes and more than 250 comments. Several users shared this feeling of unease.

One said: “I’m not gonna lie, that would creep me out as well.” Another agreed: “That would scare me too if I saw that right before surgery, I would not be convinced that I was gonna be OK after seeing that.”

A third commented: “I'm not superstitious... but that's an omen for sure.” However, some saw the humour in the situation.

A different user joked: “They were just hoping you’d toss a scrap when you were done!”

A second pointed out: "Yesterday was International Vulture Awareness Day. They're just coming by to spread awareness. For the record, I love vultures.”

Someone else remarked: “They were just trying to reach you concerning your car’s extended warranty.”

Vultures have long been linked with death, like in the Bible, where in Luke 17:37 Jesus is quoted as saying: "Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather."

However, science provides a clear reason for their behaviour. These birds are equipped with a powerful sense of smell that allows them to detect decaying flesh from great distances.

Paul Wolterbeek, volunteer program coordinator at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Arizona, told Live Science: "They smell the unique sulfurous chemical compounds of decaying meat from high in the sky, then will circle around downwards until they find the aroma's origin.”

Pedro emphasised to Newsweek that the patient wasn’t overly alarmed after seeing the vultures.

He explained: “The patient was not really scared, he just got a bit more anxious. By the end he was joking about the whole thing.”

A number of commenters on the Reddit post asked how the patient is and if he is still alive. In response to one comment, Pedro replied: “He's ok. The birds were just curious.”

Although the sight was unusual, he was still keen to share it on social media and said he had seen more vultures in the city recently.

He added: “I had never seen them there. But I've been seeing many of them in Brasília last month. I think they are migrating and just happened to find a good place to rest in the hospital.

“There are lots of caracaras and owls here too so they have to hide their nests from predators.”

Fortunately, the birds didn’t linger. Pedro said they had disappeared within a day.