In September 2015 a strange photograph emerged on social media, showing a woman in hospital after a bad hair day.

At some point in your life, you may have to visit the emergency room due to an injury or an illness. For a woman in Eastern Europe, though, a trip to the hospital was prompted by something extremely unusual. In fact, the lady in question went to the ER with a truly terrible case of bad hair.

This particular incident first came to light back in 2015, when a photograph of the mystery woman began to circulate on social media. From there, a number of online news outlets picked up on the story as well, leading to the image going viral. And unsurprisingly, people had a lot to say about the lady’s disastrous predicament.

As for the photo itself, the lady was captured sitting in the waiting area of an ER and sporting a large frown on her face. Given the horrible state of her hair at the time, that expression was entirely understandable. However, there’s still an air of mystery surrounding this image.

While the picture hit the headlines in 2015, we don’t yet know the specifics of precisely what happened on that fateful day. Indeed, all we have to go on is the lone image of the unhappy woman. Due in part to that lack of background information, the story has continued to receive attention on social media in the years since, with people still speculating about the shocking hairdo.

For many of us, hair is among the most important features of our physical appearance. Whether we keep it short or grow it out, our locks require plenty of care throughout a typical week. But despite our best efforts, there may still come a time when we lose control of our mane.

Indeed, bad hair days can sometimes be unavoidable, regardless of what we do to avoid them. In more extreme instances, though, things can simply spiral out of control, leaving unfortunate individuals in difficult situations. One such example emerged in May 2019 when a hairstylist posted a jaw-dropping story on social media.

Jess Dworniczak plies her trade as a hairdresser in Southampton, Pennsylvania, in the Love Salon. And due to her profession, she often posts images of her work on her Instagram page, giving customers the chance to see what she can do. But back in May 2019 Dworniczak felt the need to share a horrific experience.

At that time, Dworniczak posted a short statement that simply read, “I melted a client’s hair off.” Following this, the hair expert then offered up a detailed explanation of what had transpired. And according to her, it marked the lowest point of her time in the industry.

“No, that’s not a euphemism,” Dworniczak wrote on the social media website in May 2019. “It’s a short version of the worst moment of my career, and it happened just the other day.” From there, the hairdresser delved into the specifics of the incident at the Love Salon, starting with when the unfortunate patron arrived.

“My client came in with insanely long brown hair, a change from her usual years of Barbie blonde,” Dworniczak continued. “Living far away, we weren’t able to do a strand test ahead of time, but I knew her personally and had a general knowledge of her hair history. We had discussed the inevitable damage that would occur, [and] she was realistic about expectations.”

After that initial conversation, Dworniczak set to work on the lady’s hair, foiling her locks. However, she noticed something quite troubling during the early stages of the procedure. “It wasn’t just her ends showing that telltale ‘gummy’ look,” the hairstylist revealed. “In many spots, this was starting about four inches from her scalp.”

As a result of that worrying sight, Dworniczak tried her best to fix the problem, but it was all to no avail in the end. Indeed, by the time she was finished, Dworniczak described the result as “an absolute worst-case scenario.” And unsurprisingly, the barber wanted to get to the bottom of what had gone wrong.

“We went down the checklist,” Dworniczak explained. “Was it medication? Treated water? Hormones? Satan? We had no answers. Ten years behind the chair, hundreds and hundreds of happy clients. I never thought this day would come. Believe me when I tell you, nothing will humble your a** quite like this.”

With that in mind, Dworniczak then admitted that she was finding it hard to deal with the aftermath of what had occurred. After all, as she previously stated, nothing like this had happened to her before. Nonetheless, following that fateful appointment at the salon, the hairdresser’s client had left in tears – and with a lot less hair.

And after sharing that unsettling tale, Dworniczak made one final point to conclude her Instagram post. “Clients, please don’t think because the Kardashians appear to be able to jump the color spectrum every damn month, that you can too,” she stated. “This isn’t the E! Network, and not everything you see on TV is real life.”

Of course, there have been countless other bad hair stories, ranging from the bizarre to the embarrassing, in recent years. In fact, Seventeen magazine actually compiled a few examples for a March 2012 article. And each tale left the individuals concerned in a very unfortunate predicament.

For instance, one interviewee looked back on the time when they visited a toy store with their sibling in New York. As they were browsing the aisles, the pair came across a singing stuffed toy that moved its arms to music. The individual’s sister went on to take a closer look at the item, but few could’ve predicted what happened next.

When the girl got close to the stuffed animal, its arms started to move again and soon became tangled up in her hair. Before long, in fact, the toy was so entwined in her locks that it was essentially stuck to her scalp. Thankfully for her, it was removed shortly afterwards, although she lost more than a few strands along the way.

Another Seventeen reader recounted their own bad hair tale in the same article. To help celebrate their birthday, their mother had followed through on a pledge and helped them dye their hair. They’d wanted to try out some blue streaks, and it now seemed that this wish would become a reality.

Unfortunately for the girl in question, though, something went very wrong during the process. For you see, her mother combined the dye with oxide, meaning the color didn’t come out correctly. So the following day, parts of the young lady’s hair had turned gray, much to her horror.

While those stories are troubling in their own way, a more serious case came to light in September 2015. In that instance, the person in question was admitted to hospital, such was the state of their hair. And given how bizarre the situation was, social-media users quickly picked up on it.

Moreover, as the woman was waiting in the ER, someone took a photograph of her hair, and this image eventually ended up on the internet. In the picture, her locks have been covered with a white foamy material hanging off the top of her head. To make matters even worse, the substance also appeared to have hardened by that stage.

Image: Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Michelle Kapica

It’s widely believed that the lady’s follicles somehow came into contact with expanding foam, as opposed to a normal hair care product. That would help explain why the material seemed to grow beyond her scalp, extending to the side of her head. The substance in question is usually brought out for construction jobs, although its purposes don’t end there.

Due to the nature of the foam, DIYers use it to stop leaks in their homes as well, as the material hardens once it expands. So on that note, the woman’s sad demeanor in the picture is completely understandable, with the filler sitting at the top of her cranium. And after making the rounds on social media, the image reached various online news outlets.

Indeed, from the Huffington Post to the Daily Mail website, the media continued to share the bizarre image to more and more people across the web. Alongside that, users posted their reactions on the latter site, too. Since being published in 2015, that particular article has generated in excess of 400 comments.

“[That woman is] now a laughing stock of the world,” read one of the comments on the Daily Mail website. “Poor thing. Funny photo. Such a sad face. I wonder what they will do. I know nothing about this product. Will they have to cut all her hair off I wonder?”

To answer that user’s query, someone shared their knowledge of the material in question. “It has cured, there is no safe solvent that will dissolve it,” they wrote. “I see a wig in her future. When I get it on my hands I just have to let it wear off, if I do not immediately hit it with acetone.”

Despite all of the coverage, though, very little is known about what happened to the woman, either before or after the picture was snapped. The photograph has nonetheless continued to circulate online in the years since it first went viral, even inspiring a scene in a mockumentary. The segment appeared in a Belgian program titled True Stories: Neighborhood Police.

In the sequence, two police officers arrive outside the woman’s hospital room, before entering shortly afterwards. As they approach her, the camera zones in on her head, which is covered in builders’ foam. For the rest of the scene, the pair attempt to hold in their laughter while the lady talks to them from her chair.

That particular scene highlighted the attitude that a lot of people had when they saw the photo for the first time. Yet while some were quick to mock the unfortunate woman in the ER, her bizarre predicament also provoked an interesting discussion on reddit in 2018. It all started when the image in question was posted in the “funny” subreddit.

The photograph subsequently earned more than 7,000 upvotes on the social-media website, as well as generating hundreds of comments. And in this instance, there were a number of messages from users who sympathized with the lady. Many of these people had encountered the foam themselves. So given their experiences, they knew only too well how troublesome it could be.

Image: YouTube/Kev's Lab — Image: YouTube/Kev’s Lab

“[I] got a tiny bit of that stuff stuck in my hair once, and it took like two days to get it all out,” wrote a sympathetic user in the comments section. “It’s an expanding adhesive that hardens fairly quickly. She at least had to get her head shaved, if not also some sort of strange procedure to have it removed from her scalp.”

In response to that comment, another user shared their story on the subreddit. It related to a job they’d needed to do. “I had to crawl under a house I rented to fill holes that a couple of mice chewed through after a hurricane,” the individual wrote. “I ended up getting spray foam all over my hands and in my beard.”

Image: YouTube/DuPont Performance Building Solutions

“[It] took a couple of hours to slowly peel it all off of my hands, like some sort of super skin, and had to shave my beard and start over,” the redditor added. “It’s not easy stuff to use when you’re under a house and on your back. I couldn’t imagine having this crap caked in my hair.”

These weren’t the only stories of people getting the foam in their hair. A further user shared their own tale in the comments section, and it again started with a DIY job. Much like the previous individuals, they’d had an incredibly tough time getting it all out.

“I had to foam under an addition with this stuff once,” wrote the reddit user. “Being the impatient man I am, I just wanted to get out of there as quick as possible regardless of where this stuff dripped. It was rocky and cramped in there. I crawled out of there with about 15 globs in my hair.”

“The only way to get it out is to either cut your hair, or just rip it out,” the user concluded. “I chose the latter that day.” Meanwhile, there were a number of other people in the comments section who couldn’t help but focus on a particular aspect of the picture. By doing so, however, things then took a slightly darker turn.

For you see, the snap also highlighted some leaves and twigs in the foam as well, which suggested that this might not have been a simple mistake. In fact, a few users had their own theories regarding what actually happened to the woman. And on that front, one of the comments really stood out.

“I seriously doubt this woman had anything to do with putting that stuff in her hair,” wrote the user in question. “Look at the leaves and vegetation in it. Most likely this is a homeless woman who was sleeping somewhere and had this done to her while she was asleep. Some people are incredible a*******.”

Moreover, that particular theory was shared by people in the comments section, provoking a relatable reaction from another user. “Wow, I clicked on this to hear how anyone could be so dumb…but now I feel horrible,” they wrote. “I really do hope it was a mistake on her part [rather] than some cruel prank. That’d just be terrible.”