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.
One more really bad one. I still remember his name, and I know whose fault it was. He was HIV+, and in the thirty or so hours that he was with us, no one managed to get ahold of family or friends. The idiot RT suctioned the crap out of him (you can't break the seal on duo pap+ for that long, moron) and he coded. I did cpr, and I knew while I was pushing on his chest that I was pushing on a dead body. The thing that hurt was that no one was there for him.
The other terrible one was a woman in her 40s in remission from a lymphoma when she got pneumonia. She was readmitted and suddenly transferred to MICU, intubated, chest tubes, on 3 pressors with no bp, and her sister kept saying, we were supposed to go to Florida together. We were supposed to go to Florida together. I just kept imagining their trip, one with her bald head, yeah, I had cancer.
My son. I wasn't awake when he passed...but I was sleeping on his bedroom floor. He passed away in his sleep peacefully after a 19 month battle with Marshall Smith Syndrome. I cannot think of a worse thing to wake up to. Once we got to the hospital and they told me he was gone, my husband and I just sat there holding our baby boy...
Specializes in Pediatric Emergency Medicine/Trauma.
Deaths are always hard.... I work in a peds ER/level 1 trauma center so we are faced with it far more often than we'd like. Luckily, it's not all the time but it's frequent. The worst are the most unexpected - SIDS and trauma seem to cause the most gut-wrenching grief. During the codes, I'm ok. I have a job - to try to save this little body. We advocate for parental presence during codes as a "Family Center Care" ER. I can usually tune them out - frankly, they are usually silent during the code itself. It's when they realize we're finished, the child has died, and they let out the blood curdling wails that it all becomes real. Suddenly the "body" is a child - most of us usually cry some. Sometimes, especially after large losses like house fires or multi-vehicle accidents - we go out to eat and drink after the shift. A lot of strength comes from my faith.
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
One of the most awful deaths I've ever witnessed happened when I was working as a CNA on a Med/Surg floor. Patient was a Native American woman in her early 50s who'd been a heavy drinker since junior high school and now was in end-stage liver failure from cirrhosis. She also had esophageal varices that had been repaired one too many times, making her a poor surgical risk.
Her skin was pumpkin-colored and her ancient eyes bright yellow from jaundice, and her ascites was so severe that she looked ten months pregnant. She also had hepatic encephalopathy and could not walk, talk, or ask for anything, so she was on frequent visual checks to keep her safe in bed while the doctors tried to figure out what to do for her.
I'd just rounded the corner and was heading toward her room when I heard a noise that sounded like retching, which was followed by a large SPLASH. I arrived just in time to see this poor lady projectile-vomit a glut of bloody material that was astounding in both its volume and velocity; and it was obvious that she had done it at least once before because the room looked like a slaughterhouse. Blood dripped from the opposite wall, the closet, the privacy curtains......it pooled on the bed and ran down the side as the patient vomited yet again. I think it was also coming out of her nose and from her rectum as well, but she was in such a mess there was really no telling where one area of bleeding ended and another began.
Of course, it takes much longer to tell a story than for events like this to unfold, and in fact it was a matter of seconds before I yanked the call cord out of the wall to signal an emergency and yelled "Code 99, room 218!" as I tried to avoid being splattered. She was still alive and breathing, but even as an aide I knew nobody could hemorrhage like that and live long. It seemed like forever before the code team arrived, but it was probably only half a minute; unfortunately, there was nothing that could be done to stop the process, and she bled out within minutes.
I've never seen anything like it before or since, and hope I never will again. But I think about her now and then, especially on those (thankfully rare) occasions when I'm tempted to hit the bottle after 19 years of sobriety; after all, there but for the grace of God go I.
I have seen many,many deaths but the one that was so hard for me was my younger brother.
He had esophageal cancer. He had it for less than a year before he died.We took care of him at home,he lived 4 months after diagnosis.We rotated family members doing his care.We had hospice as well. The day he died I held his hand encouraging him to go toward the light and telling him how much we all loved him.I held his hand and while telling him I loved him his heart
stopped never to beat again.I did clean him up and prepare his body for the funeral home. I was in "nurse mode",comforting family,making calls etc.Later in the afternoon the tears started for me and I cried it all out.
Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
My son. I wasn't awake when he passed...but I was sleeping on his bedroom floor. He passed away in his sleep peacefully after a 19 month battle with Marshall Smith Syndrome. I cannot think of a worse thing to wake up to. Once we got to the hospital and they told me he was gone, my husband and I just sat there holding our baby boy...
OMG.......I am so sorry for your loss........I pray that you find peace. :redbeathe
The first was an elderly lady, prominent businesswoman in the community earlier in life, active in church, etc. Kept getting pleurisy, getting sicker, finally put her out in the hall in a recliner (this was LTC) because she was crying and screaming.
She stayed by the desk for over 24 hours because any time she was left alone, she began screaming, "The devil is coming for me, I'm going to die and go to hell."
That was creepy. And she eventually died there in the hallway, still screaming the devil was coming for her.
The other was in hospital step down unit, a gentleman around 60 ish, A&O x3, had newly discovered large triple A, planning for surgery the next day. Wife in room, CNA had just helped him sit on the bed, and BAM! He fell right over on the bed and immediately "looked" dead. I was right there, hit the code light, but he was gone. I never heard for certain, but assume his triple A dissected. It was so startlingly sudden!!! The wife saw it, the code, the whole thing and was inconsolable. It was just the fastes, no-warning at all death I have ever witnessed.
The first was an elderly lady, prominent businesswoman in the community earlier in life, active in church, etc. Kept getting pleurisy, getting sicker, finally put her out in the hall in a recliner (this was LTC) because she was crying and screaming.
She stayed by the desk for over 24 hours because any time she was left alone, she began screaming, "The devil is coming for me, I'm going to die and go to hell."
That was creepy. And she eventually died there in the hallway, still screaming the devil was coming for her.
The other was in hospital step down unit, a gentleman around 60 ish, A&O x3, had newly discovered large triple A, planning for surgery the next day. Wife in room, CNA had just helped him sit on the bed, and BAM! He fell right over on the bed and immediately "looked" dead. I was right there, hit the code light, but he was gone. I never heard for certain, but assume his triple A dissected. It was so startlingly sudden!!! The wife saw it, the code, the whole thing and was inconsolable. It was just the fastes, no-warning at all death I have ever witnessed.
the first example, is horrible.
i've seen sev'l dying pts, petrified of going to hell...and dying with that horrified look on their face.
On my one year anniversary of being an RN (1 week ago), I had my very first code. I work in a post acute care pediatric rehab facility, so we hardly ever have codes. It was so awful, he was in a veil bed, so I ended up on top of him to do the compressions because the veil bed made it difficult. He was vomiting the entire time, I had it all over me and I just had to stare at his face. Three of the four nurses there had never been in a code before, the mom was there the whole time. It was just terrible. I am trying very hard to get it out of my mind.
Specializes in Oncology, Rehab, Public Health, Med Surg.
Worst I ever saw was over 20 years ago. It still haunts me.
13 yo girl came in to ED on Halloween night. Mom and Dad let older sister go to Halloween party but not her. So during day she OD'd on allergy medicine--I think Primatene. Of course, only best friend knew and both were scared to tell.
Eventually she got sick enough and told. She was already in renal failure when she came in. She was crying and holding her mom and saying please, I don't want to die. She coded within 10 minutes and couldn't recover.
I tell this story as often as I can when appropiate to kids. Drugs-any drugs- are not to be messed with.
Darkfield
50 Posts
One more really bad one. I still remember his name, and I know whose fault it was. He was HIV+, and in the thirty or so hours that he was with us, no one managed to get ahold of family or friends. The idiot RT suctioned the crap out of him (you can't break the seal on duo pap+ for that long, moron) and he coded. I did cpr, and I knew while I was pushing on his chest that I was pushing on a dead body. The thing that hurt was that no one was there for him.
The other terrible one was a woman in her 40s in remission from a lymphoma when she got pneumonia. She was readmitted and suddenly transferred to MICU, intubated, chest tubes, on 3 pressors with no bp, and her sister kept saying, we were supposed to go to Florida together. We were supposed to go to Florida together. I just kept imagining their trip, one with her bald head, yeah, I had cancer.