I was asked tonight, how many people I had watched die.
This caught me off guard and I got emotional. This is not strange in one way, especially looking at it from some of your perspectives, since many of you, have not seen even one person slip from this world.
It was part of my everyday world to watch people die for 10 years. I was the Patient Representative in the ER and it was I who took care of families of patients involved in trauma’s or life and death events such as strokes, MI’s and the like….or the simple slipping away of a person who’s body had worn out from time or disease.
The answer to the question, "how many", can not be answered by me…..I sometimes saw 2 or 3 at a time through accidents…and older people die every day. Day after day and week after week you become accustomed to this event…..I’m not saying it was easy to be with families when they lost someone…..it certainly was not…but I am comfortable with my beliefs in an afterlife and the cycle of life. The person who dies is beyond any help that I or the family can give them, as far as I know…..
But as this person finished with this question…...How many people have you seen die? I was overwhelmed by visions of people dying…....There are many who have stayed with me for all these years….maybe because it was peaceful…such as an elderly lady who had until a few hours prior to her arrival, been working in her flower bed…..I stood by the bedside with her two daughters, listening to stories they needed to tell of their mother, her kindness, and how much she loved her flowers, while she quietly slipped away..
The very first one was a kid, a teenager who was on the verge of graduation from high school His father, who was an EMR had taken him to pick up the surprise graduation gift, a beautiful used motorcycle…..The kid eagarly jumped on and headed back toward home with his father in the car right behind him…They were anxious to get home and tinker with it the way father and son will…...Somehow, the son didn’t see the logging truck and went under the wheel….......We heard the father on the radio calling for the helicopter to please get there quickly, but it was much much too late….The boy died in his fathers arms while Mother, who was also an EMR listened helplessly to every word on their scanner at home….
Some are so horrifying, as a woman, I can’t wrap my head around it…...I thought the EMTs had brought in a doll…..That’s what she looked like….a beautiful small doll….but that wasn’t it….it was a baby….a mother had been having a party at her house…the baby was crying so she put it in the car seat….in the garage…..with the car running…...then went to sleep…..
Some, are so ….. dramatic….one of the deaths was a young African American man who died of a stroke….he had about 60 friends and family waiting with me in the family rooms…..I was nervous anyway, because there were so many people and I was new…...They were understandably anxious, upset, and demanding information that for the moment no one had….but the Doctor that day was a very matter of fact, no nonsense man who came back to the room and sat down, and simply blurted out to all of these folks…..He’s gone….He’s dead…......... I was totally unprepared for what happened next….Everyone hit the floor…..I mean I looked around and they were dropping like flies........I don’t know how long I stood there, but when I came to my senses, I ran from person to person asking uselessly, are you Ok? I looked back and the Doctor was still sitting on his chair with his legs crossed calmly watching me in my panic, trying to help those with their own panic…..Then he calmly got up, and walked over first one and then another, of the writhing sea of family….leaving me to grab wash cloths and ice and try to calm them as best as I could….
I was there when a woman came in shot in the belly…..as she was dying, she talked to her husband….it became apparent that he was the one who shot her….
An elderly man was dying a very slow death from cancer and decided to end it with a gun…....His wife of over 50 years tried to take it away from him. They struggled, but he succeeded and was mortally wounded when he arrived with us…..His wife, who had loved him for so long, now struggled with an event and an image which would overshadow any and all of her former good memories of her life with him….she would always come back to that moment, as she sat there silently crying, I washed the blood from her face and hands with wash cloths.
The very same night in another part of the ER another husband and wife were holding hands…...as I took her up to intensive care where her husband would die later that night, she told me how he was her first and only love and how hard it was to say goodbye to your whole world…...but I wanted to hug her, which I did, but I couldn’t tell her how lucky she was to be able to sweetly kiss the man you love goodbye and still keep all the wonderful memories without the tarnish. This night always stayed with me because of the tragic contrast…..Maybe because I was meant to tell this story one day.
I could go on and parts of me want to, maybe to release these ghosts forever, but I’ll do it another day…..So to that person who ask me how many….I don’t know….
Hello!!!
