So last week I witnessed a suicide. I was getting lunch from a local eatery when I heard a child scream. A man appeared out of no where and lay unresponsive in the street. We found out later that he jumped. There was....no blood. I noticed that his ankles were crossed. I was frozen in shock just staring at his ankles...his head of thick black hair. He was a young guy...couldn't have been over 30. I froze. I am a nurse. I was trained to respond in emergencies but I was planted where I stood as the trauma team ran out and began working on him immediately. The nurse that came out gave the best set of chest compressions I've ever seen. I remember thinking to myself that she deserved some type of award.
They asked me what I saw. They asked me to tell people to move back. But I was frozen you guys. I, too, was unresponsive. Why is there no blood? Why didn't his body make a sound as it hit the concrete? Why is his ankles crossed? He wet himself.
All weekend all I could do was think of him. See his face. His hair. Instead of responding immediately and naturally as nurses are supposed to (right) all I wanted to do was walk over to him and brush the hair out of his face. Stroke his cheek and ask him...why? What happened to you sweetie? What hurt so much...that you needed to do this? I suppose it's a good thing I couldn't move.
I seriously questioned myself and am now...can I do this? Can I nurse? Death of the elderly is expected. Can I accept that it discriminates against no one? I don't know. All I know is that I hurt for him...and I cried on and off this weekend for him. This young black haired stranger. Tomorrow I have to go back there and my stomach is so queasy. I was too cowardly to move to his immediate aid and am feeling so inadequate.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
So last week I witnessed a suicide. I was getting lunch from a local eatery when I heard a child scream. A man appeared out of no where and lay unresponsive in the street. We found out later that he jumped. There was....no blood. I noticed that his ankles were crossed. I was frozen in shock just staring at his ankles...his head of thick black hair. He was a young guy...couldn't have been over 30. I froze. I am a nurse. I was trained to respond in emergencies but I was planted where I stood as the trauma team ran out and began working on him immediately. The nurse that came out gave the best set of chest compressions I've ever seen. I remember thinking to myself that she deserved some type of award.
They asked me what I saw. They asked me to tell people to move back. But I was frozen you guys. I, too, was unresponsive. Why is there no blood? Why didn't his body make a sound as it hit the concrete? Why is his ankles crossed? He wet himself.
All weekend all I could do was think of him. See his face. His hair. Instead of responding immediately and naturally as nurses are supposed to (right) all I wanted to do was walk over to him and brush the hair out of his face. Stroke his cheek and ask him...why? What happened to you sweetie? What hurt so much...that you needed to do this? I suppose it's a good thing I couldn't move.
I seriously questioned myself and am now...can I do this? Can I nurse? Death of the elderly is expected. Can I accept that it discriminates against no one? I don't know. All I know is that I hurt for him...and I cried on and off this weekend for him. This young black haired stranger. Tomorrow I have to go back there and my stomach is so queasy. I was too cowardly to move to his immediate aid and am feeling so inadequate.
Thanks for reading.
Witnessing a suicide is completely different from responding to an emergency at work. You EXPECT emergencies at work -- you've trained for them and you have backup. When you're getting lunch away from work, it's a shocking incident. It's not something you expect at all. Being frozen in shock after witnessing a suicide while you're getting lunch at a local restaurant is no indicator at all that you will not be perfectly find in an emergency at work.
Years ago, I was working night shift with another nurse and because we were sleepy, we had arranged for our colleagues to cover our patients while we went down to the first floor of the hospital and "walked the loop" -- about 1200 steps. Some people climbed the stairs, Isobelle and I walked the loop. We were on the far side of the hospital, closer to where the offices are located than the front entrance, when we saw what we assumed in the dim light to be water leaking out from under a door. Thinking that we needed to alert housekeeping or perhaps maintenance to the problem, we opened the door to check it out. There, inside a tiny bathroom meant public use, a man had shot himself in the head. What we had assumed was water was, when we flipped on the lights, blood. A river of blood. The note said he hadn't wanted his wife to find his body. Instead, he traumatized two strangers.
Isobelle and I had nightmares for years after the incident, and I'm sure that writing this will trigger more nightmares. It's been 20 years or so. The two of us agreed that blood in a chest tube cannister is fine. An open chest with blood everywhere -- also good. But blood leaking out from under a bathroom door is something we weren't equipped to deal with.
A close friend who is an ER physician tells me that he and his colleagues have found several bodies of suicides in and around the ER -- the parking lot, the bathroom, and one memorable "suicide by cop" incident. "People do that so their families won't find them," he said. "They think it makes it easier on their families." I don't know if it does or not, but it is certainly tough on the people who do find them.
Witnessing a suicide is completely different from responding to an emergency at work. You EXPECT emergencies at work -- you've trained for them and you have backup. When you're getting lunch away from work, it's a shocking incident. It's not something you expect at all. Being frozen in shock after witnessing a suicide while you're getting lunch at a local restaurant is no indicator at all that you will not be perfectly find in an emergency at work.
Years ago, I was working night shift with another nurse and because we were sleepy, we had arranged for our colleagues to cover our patients while we went down to the first floor of the hospital and "walked the loop" -- about 1200 steps. Some people climbed the stairs, Isobelle and I walked the loop. We were on the far side of the hospital, closer to where the offices are located than the front entrance, when we saw what we assumed in the dim light to be water leaking out from under a door. Thinking that we needed to alert housekeeping or perhaps maintenance to the problem, we opened the door to check it out. There, inside a tiny bathroom meant public use, a man had shot himself in the head. What we had assumed was water was, when we flipped on the lights, blood. A river of blood. The note said he hadn't wanted his wife to find his body. Instead, he traumatized two strangers.
Isobelle and I had nightmares for years after the incident, and I'm sure that writing this will trigger more nightmares. It's been 20 years or so. The two of us agreed that blood in a chest tube cannister is fine. An open chest with blood everywhere -- also good. But blood leaking out from under a bathroom door is something we weren't equipped to deal with.
A close friend who is an ER physician tells me that he and his colleagues have found several bodies of suicides in and around the ER -- the parking lot, the bathroom, and one memorable "suicide by cop" incident. "People do that so their families won't find them," he said. "They think it makes it easier on their families." I don't know if it does or not, but it is certainly tough on the people who do find them.
This! This speaks volumes and sums up what I couldn't explain.
I teared up reading this. I'll go ahead and echo everyone else and say that I don't think your reaction speaks to the kind of nurse you are. In fact, to me it was telling of the compassion you have. You witnessed a shocking, awful event. And your thoughts were of pushing his hair out of his face and comforting him if you could have. That is what spoke to me about you.
And I hope you are able to speak to someone about this. I can't even imagine how you must have felt, but I hope that in time you are feeling as well as you can about it. (((Hugs)))
I teared up reading this. I'll go ahead and echo everyone else and say that I don't think your reaction speaks to the kind of nurse you are. In fact, to me it was telling of the compassion you have. You witnessed a shocking, awful event. And your thoughts were of pushing his hair out of his face and comforting him if you could have. That is what spoke to me about you.
And I hope you are able to speak to someone about this. I can't even imagine how you must have felt, but I hope that in time you are feeling as well as you can about it. (((Hugs)))
So last week I witnessed a suicide. I was getting lunch from a local eatery when I heard a child scream. A man appeared out of no where and lay unresponsive in the street. We found out later that he jumped. There was....no blood. I noticed that his ankles were crossed. I was frozen in shock just staring at his ankles...his head of thick black hair. He was a young guy...couldn't have been over 30. I froze. I am a nurse. I was trained to respond in emergencies but I was planted where I stood as the trauma team ran out and began working on him immediately. The nurse that came out gave the best set of chest compressions I've ever seen. I remember thinking to myself that she deserved some type of award.
They asked me what I saw. They asked me to tell people to move back. But I was frozen you guys. I, too, was unresponsive. Why is there no blood? Why didn't his body make a sound as it hit the concrete? Why is his ankles crossed? He wet himself.
All weekend all I could do was think of him. See his face. His hair. Instead of responding immediately and naturally as nurses are supposed to (right) all I wanted to do was walk over to him and brush the hair out of his face. Stroke his cheek and ask him...why? What happened to you sweetie? What hurt so much...that you needed to do this? I suppose it's a good thing I couldn't move.
I seriously questioned myself and am now...can I do this? Can I nurse? Death of the elderly is expected. Can I accept that it discriminates against no one? I don't know. All I know is that I hurt for him...and I cried on and off this weekend for him. This young black haired stranger. Tomorrow I have to go back there and my stomach is so queasy. I was too cowardly to move to his immediate aid and am feeling so inadequate.
Thanks for reading.
Fight , flight or freeze. Your adrenaline system picked one. And that's okay.We are nurses, not super heroes. He wanted to die.. and he did.
Death is our enemy.. but we can't always choose how to react. His choice, not yours.
Ruby Vee, BSN
17 Articles; 14,051 Posts
Witnessing a suicide is completely different from responding to an emergency at work. You EXPECT emergencies at work -- you've trained for them and you have backup. When you're getting lunch away from work, it's a shocking incident. It's not something you expect at all. Being frozen in shock after witnessing a suicide while you're getting lunch at a local restaurant is no indicator at all that you will not be perfectly find in an emergency at work.
Years ago, I was working night shift with another nurse and because we were sleepy, we had arranged for our colleagues to cover our patients while we went down to the first floor of the hospital and "walked the loop" -- about 1200 steps. Some people climbed the stairs, Isobelle and I walked the loop. We were on the far side of the hospital, closer to where the offices are located than the front entrance, when we saw what we assumed in the dim light to be water leaking out from under a door. Thinking that we needed to alert housekeeping or perhaps maintenance to the problem, we opened the door to check it out. There, inside a tiny bathroom meant public use, a man had shot himself in the head. What we had assumed was water was, when we flipped on the lights, blood. A river of blood. The note said he hadn't wanted his wife to find his body. Instead, he traumatized two strangers.
Isobelle and I had nightmares for years after the incident, and I'm sure that writing this will trigger more nightmares. It's been 20 years or so. The two of us agreed that blood in a chest tube cannister is fine. An open chest with blood everywhere -- also good. But blood leaking out from under a bathroom door is something we weren't equipped to deal with.
A close friend who is an ER physician tells me that he and his colleagues have found several bodies of suicides in and around the ER -- the parking lot, the bathroom, and one memorable "suicide by cop" incident. "People do that so their families won't find them," he said. "They think it makes it easier on their families." I don't know if it does or not, but it is certainly tough on the people who do find them.