Your first experience with a dead person

Nurses General Nursing

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Specializes in critical care.

During my internship, a page came overhead - code blue, ED, 2 minutes. My preceptor said, "you want in?" Well, yeah, of course I did. I'm realizing more and more I'm a trauma, critical care junkie. So I went down.

This frail, elderly woman was there on the table, clothes cut off her, just still. She could have been sleeping. The nurses were working on resuscitative efforts. The MD said stop. She was gone.

And as the group began quietly fixing her body for her husband to be with her, I held her still warm head, perfectly made hair, in my hands. A nurse came crashing in the door shouting in her "call to action" voice, "do you need blood???"

I couldn't help it. I had to giggle. They told her no, and she left. It was quiet and dark in the room. It had felt so full and busy when the woman first arrived, but now it was quiet, still, in peace.

I haven't seen any death in my tenure on this giant ball of rock. I've only been in the room with one deceased person before this. This woman will stay with me as my "first".

Do any of you have a first death experience that stays with you?

I was doing my internship in a rural ER. Paramedics brought pt in who had been in cardiac arrest; collapsed at home, family doing CPR, EMTs doing CPR en route, down about 30 minutes. RT asked me to take over chest compressions. MD had given a set time frame to see if pt was responsive or not. About 3 minutes into my compressions, MD called time. We all stopped--no sinus rhythm. MD called it. My preceptor and I began cleaning the pt for the family. RT came in with pt's name, and it turned out pt had worked at that hospital and had trained my preceptor. Preceptor broke down, then we heard the wailing of the family as they were told the news. It was the first and only time I've done CPR and my first and only death. It sticks with you.

Specializes in Palliative, Onc, Med-Surg, Home Hospice.

I worked LTC and the unit I worked on had a lot of hospice patients. The first hospice patient I cared for came in with orders for sub-q roxinol for respiratory distress and atropine drops for secretions. I went in to check on this pt, and she was starting to have respiratory distress, so I went out to get her Roxanol. I was gone for less then 2 minutes and when I went back in, she had stopped breathing. I checked for an apical pulse and nothing. It happened so fast. She was talking to me 15 minutes before. This was my first death as a nurse and I remember walking out of the room and calling for my co-worker and saying "Um, Nurse, could you come down here and check her pulse for me". I had to have another RN listen for the apical pulse before I could call the funeral home. Everyone commented about how calm I was. I think I was more stunned. The worst experience I had was when I had to go in with a friend of mine to listen for the apical pulse when one our classmates MIL died. We had graduated from nursing school together and our classmates mum was at our facility. K. was at the bedside when her MIL died and S and I had to declare. That was the hardest thing to do. Tell K her beloved MIL had died. Those are the two most memorable experiences I have had.

Specializes in Operating Room.

I had an elderly man on hospice care pass away on my shift. He fractured his femur and then developed pneumonia. I hadn't been off of orientation for very long.

There were elements of this experience that will always stick with me:

-A couple of weeks before he passed, a seasoned nurse accurately predicted to me during report that this patient wouldn't survive his hospital stay. It freaked me out.

-The morning he passed, my Mom came to my house to watch my son so I could leave for work. She randomly brought me my grandmother's old finger Rosary because she knew I had wanted it for years. I took it with me and it was in my pocket during my shift.

-When I walked in to his room, I could smell that sticky sweet "smell of death" I'd heard about people being able to smell it before but never experienced it until that day.

I have to say that having your first patient die while on hospice care is an ideal way to ease into the whole concept of death and post-mortem care. I can't speak for everyone, but I know if I lost my first patient to a code it would've been a tough experience to reconcile.

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.

My first death was a child. He was a victim of a sled/automobile collision and he died on Christmas eve. His family was visiting family in the area but lived in Germany. I will forever remember nuances of that night that I would prefer to forget.

Specializes in M/S, LTC, Corrections, PDN & drug rehab.

My first death was when I was right out of nursing school in LTC. I was coming on for the 2-10 shift & got report that we had a resident pass away. The resident was rather young compared to everyone else there & I had talked to her the day before. I have never been to a funeral, viewing..nothing. I was so shocked & didn't know what to do. Definitely a good lesson

First job, LTC. Nice little lady on hospice. The CNA came and told me she thought the resident passed. I went in to check, and fully in denial said "she's still breathing." Turned out I heard her roommate's breathing and thought it was her. :dead: Heh. I was a little shook up, not sure what I was supposed to do. Thankfully my supervisor was helpful and made the family/doctor calls for me.

Specializes in Inpatient Oncology/Public Health.

I've worked Onc for 7 years so have dealt with many many deaths. The most memorable was a young adult leukemic. His parents climbed into his bed with him and held him as he passed.

I remember a tiny, extremely contracted little lady with very advanced dementia. She was just like a little ball of a woman, arms and legs and back and everything bound up so tightly from strokes and disuse, she had hardly any range at all. When she passed I was just dumbstruck by how all those contractures suddenly just let go. Providing postmortem care to her relaxed and free little body was probably the most unique and profound death experience I've had.

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

I was a student -- first clinical experience. I took care of an old man all day, and when we came back the next day, he passed about an hour into my shift. My instructor made arrangements for me to be able to watch the autopsy. I'm grateful to her for the effort, but it was really weird watching the autopsy. I felt like I knew that old man after talking to him all day, seeing the pictures of his family, talking to his wife on the phone . . . .

The nurses on the unit invited me to help with the post mortem care after he passed, and I still remember one of them warning me that when we turned him, he could gasp, pass flatus, poop or otherwise make noises and/or leak bodily fluids. As it turned out, he didn't. But the NEXT patient I cared for who died did, and that nurse forgot to warn me.

Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

Yes and it haunts me.

I was a student and I was YOUNG! They all forgot about the student in the corner wide eye.... too terrified yet fascinated to speak.

It was in OB.... first pregnancy first baby...threw a amnoitic fluid embolism....emergent C-section...mother died. Baby survived. I have never forgotten

Specializes in Inpatient Oncology/Public Health.
Yes and it haunts me.

I was a student and I was YOUNG! They all forgot about the student in the corner wide eye.... too terrified yet fascinated to speak.

It was in OB.... first pregnancy first baby...threw a amnoitic fluid embolism....emergent C-section...mother died. Baby survived. I have never forgotten

Wow:(

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