I'm feeling morbid. What is the worst death you've seen? I work in a MICU, so we don't get babies or gunshots (or babies with gunshots; they do in our ER, true story.) but we see some pretty dramatic stuff. A patient dying doesn't bother me too much because most of my patients are so sick that it is a relief to send them off to the happy hunting grounds. It is the family they leave behind that holds onto me and won't let go.
We had a teenager sent to us from the hem-onc floor because he was in ARDS. He'd been sick since he was 12, and now he was really sick. He was on the oscillating ventilator all night and his sats just kept dropping; 70, 60, 50. He coded just before change of shift and when he bradied down and half the unit ran in to crack the code cart that had been sitting there all night, his mother started yelling, no no no, and it still makes me cry just to think about. I don't think anyone who was there that night was unaffected; we usually don't get kids, and it hit too close to home for most of us.
I have a lot of respect for those of you that work in peds because I could not deal with something like that more than once in a lifetime. I had one other patient when I was working on a med-surge floor, who had been using crack and ran a stopsign with her baby and her seven-year old. The baby died (we couldn't get ahold of the trauma team all day because they were working on him) and she was my patient with two chest tubes, and the pediatric surgeon came down to ask me if I thought she was stable enough to go say good bye to her baby because they were going to take him off life support. It wasn't a death that I witnessed directly, but I went home crying for three days.
While it was nothing excruciating like some others have seen, I witnessed a woman die of a broken heart in LTC. She and her hubby of 52 years shared a room in the AL wing.He had multiple comorbidities, she had moderate alz. but was still able to care for herself with his prompting.He called her his princess.He went out to dialysis one day, suffered a MI and never returned.We felt it was the families place to discuss his passing with her so we didnt say anything but somehow she knew.That very day she quit eating.quit drinking.she basically became a vegetable shell.3 days later,the family still had not come in to tell her why he hadnt returned,but she never asked, like she knew.On day 4 she gave up and passed peacefully of a broken heart.I hope I have a love like that one day
That is so sad But warming at the same time, that their love was that strong!
I was a student nurse taking care of a man with cancer. He was very talkative, happy and funny. He was a very sweet man. He had a very productive cough so I told him I would be right back to bring him an oral suction. I came back along with my classmate and we began to teach him how to use it. ( My instructor and nurse said this was ok )
Long story short he started to cough up alot of frothy blood and blood clots. We called the nurse and code team. I just remember trying to help him as much as I could until the code team got there. He basically drowned in his on vomit/blood. The look and horror on his face is still in my mind. I will never forget this. The other class mate took this really hard and cried. This was honestly something like out of a film. wow. smh
It wasn't someone I directly coded but I witnessed it. We had a postpartum mom on our floor who'd had a set of micropreemie multiples. One of them started crashing so NICU called us and asked us to please get the parents over there so they could say goodbye.
I wheeled Mom over with Dad walking beside us and watched while they coded the boy. It was horrendous, probably the most painful thing I've seen. Codes can be so violent, and coding a baby that small....words can't be used. They finally stopped and they started to hand him to Mom so he could die in her arms, and she said to Dad, "No, you hold him. He's your only son." That baby died in his daddy's arms and his sibling died a few minutes later, very suddenly. I left the NICU crying and it still makes me tear up today.
Specializes in Medsurg/ICU, Mental Health, Home Health.
He was the only child of older parents, and I still tear up when I remember them coming to fetch his toys. I can still see those two broken people walking down the corridor, clutching an oversized teddy bear.
I'm done. I don't think I can read any more right now. I can't even seen the screen very well through my tears anyhow...
Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
So many years nursing.......So many deaths. Just when I though it could get no worse......it would. Hearbreak, sorrow, sadness and loss. One that lives with me was a co-workers grandchild stood up underneath a circular saw before there were guards on the saws..........
I pray for us to find the strength and courage to do this everyday. That we continue to feel the pain, yet go back tomorrow and do it all again with the same love and skill. To know that what we do gives us a special place in heaven.
While it was nothing excruciating like some others have seen, I witnessed a woman die of a broken heart in LTC. She and her hubby of 52 years shared a room in the AL wing.He had multiple comorbidities, she had moderate alz. but was still able to care for herself with his prompting.He called her his princess.He went out to dialysis one day, suffered a MI and never returned.We felt it was the families place to discuss his passing with her so we didnt say anything but somehow she knew.That very day she quit eating.quit drinking.she basically became a vegetable shell.3 days later,the family still had not come in to tell her why he hadnt returned,but she never asked, like she knew.On day 4 she gave up and passed peacefully of a broken heart.I hope I have a love like that one day
when my grandma died, it took 6 mos for my grandpa to join her.
same w/my mil...it took 9 mos for my fil to be w/his beloved.
i agree with you, that i have no problem when a surviving spouse dies, to be with their beloved.
but 4 days?
that has to be the quickest death i've heard of...
not even dehydrated enough to warrant death.
stories such as yours, absolutely amaze me (and, make me smile.)
while i have witnessed the goriest of deaths (hospice nurse), it is those who have suffered, that have stayed with me.
i've actually had ongoing nightmares over a few of them.
short of pall sedation, sometimes there is very little we can do to abate one's suffering.
as for the person who posted about her pt choking on his own blood (and the look of terror in his eyes), i would have loved to have a heavy dose of an iv sedative on hand, just to obliviate his last few minutes on earth.
there are things we can do in such events...
we just have to be prepared.
kind of like an emergency comfort kit at the end.
would love to see all facilities have these ready and available, with standing orders already in place.
As an EMT, two deaths stick in my mind. One was a 23 year old woman who had flown through the windshield and lay on the asphalt in her blood and broken glass, writhing and saying only, "It hurts, it hurts." I was 23 at the time as well, and shocked by the seeming senselessness and brutality of her death.
A few years later, two boys on a minibike were struck by a Gran Torino doing 55, and were instantly killed, and just a mess, with partial amputations and so forth. Having knelt by one, I got up to find his grey matter smeared over my knee. What broke my heart was that one boy's parents were minutes away. My partner and I hustled to get them packaged up rather than lying as they had been in the road, like so much roadkill.
The deaths I've seen as a nurse have been only the elderly, and peaceful, but one story from a nurse friend in oncology about a young woman dying of kidney cancer made me burst out in tears, recently. She was wracked with pain and arching her back, but whenever she felt herself being carried away by the morphine, she would call out to the nurse, "Back it off!" because she was so afraid of slipping from sleep into a deeper darkness.
I did not witness this death, but it still makes me cry thinking about it. I work psych and we had a 15 year old who had done a stay with us. He was super smart, funny, and we thought of him as a success story. About a year after his stay with us, he hung himself because of bullying from peers about his sexual orientation. It was super hard on us because that was not even an issue when we had seen him. He was a gay young man who was not scared to be who he was, or so we thought.
I think that death and dying are very important aspects of nursing and somewhat neglected or not fully dealt with. I am referring to the training part of it. Of course nothing can prepare you to deal with death until it happens but nurses receive almost no orientation on how to approach death. But this is hardly a problem within the nursing profession and something deeper which runs in our society as a whole. Death will happen for everyone and we don't think too much about it because the hour of our death is something that we rather not think about but it will come as nurses see happening all the time.
omg! im such a teary mess right now.....what a thread. Especially the broken heart story.I have only experienced one death since I've been in nursing school. This happened at clinicals. He was a 32 year old male who was basically a skeleton with acsites. And he was bleeding from almost every orifice and his teeth. Even though he looked to be sooo much suffering, he was still so nice, and would whisper "thank you" and "don't worry, you aren't hurting me" as I cleaned his face. The next week, when we were on the same floor, he passed away. Me and his mother just embraced one another and sobbed together. I even had the honor to prepare him to be seen by his other family and friends. Cleaning him up one last time. I cried the entire time.
Specializes in Trauma Surgery, Nursing Management.
omg! im such a teary mess right now.....what a thread. Especially the broken heart story.I have only experienced one death since I've been in nursing school. This happened at clinicals. He was a 32 year old male who was basically a skeleton with acsites. And he was bleeding from almost every orifice and his teeth. Even though he looked to be sooo much suffering, he was still so nice, and would whisper "thank you" and "don't worry, you aren't hurting me" as I cleaned his face. The next week, when we were on the same floor, he passed away. Me and his mother just embraced one another and sobbed together. I even had the honor to prepare him to be seen by his other family and friends. Cleaning him up one last time. I cried the entire time.
What an amazingly compassionate woman you are. What struck me most in your post was that you used the word "honor". It is an honor and it is something that I hold sacred in my duties. You are going to be an excellent nurse, honey.
PedsAtHeart, LPN
375 Posts
That is so sad
But warming at the same time, that their love was that strong!