Have you ever seen someone die?

35 years in the emergency room of a level 1 trauma hospital. More than I could count.

I have a few times...mostly family members. Some say they can "see" the soul leave the body when the last breath is taken. I will definitely admit there is a definite "presence" when the passing occurs. Very surreal moment, for sure.

Share your experiences.

watched myself die following my second heart surgery

exited through the sun , was given a tour, sent back

overall an interesting experience

More than a few times...

The one that sticks with me was while jet skiing on a lake in my early teens. I saw a ski boat run over the teenage girl water skier they had been pulling. As they cut the throttle the water started going red and people started screaming, I pounded the throttle on my jet ski to get there fast...

As I got up close to the boat I was hitting my life jacket buckles and I dive off my jet ski after hitting the kill switch.

I popped up in the water right next to her, the lake water tasted slightly of blood, and got an arm around her under her armpits as I barked to the hysterical family members on the boat that I was going to hand her up to them.

She was still semi conscious and moaning in pain when I lifted and held her up high enough for two of the men in the boat to pull her up onto the stern deck. (I remember saying I'm sorry quietly over and over as I handed her up because I knew it had to hurt)

Scrambling up the swim ladder as they pulled her up and just let her lay on the swim step I could see I wasn't going to get any more help and I couldn't see her pulse in her neck anymore.

I moved up next to her and said I'm going to start cpr you need to start moving us towards the marina and ranger station!

... I'll never forget the first two compressions I did on her chest...I pumped once and the people on the boats horrified sounds were distant to me like they were far away but getting louder .... On the second compression I felt something hot and kinda sticky all over my hands and arms (I was locked in, adrenaline fear and everything else giving me tunnel vision etc)

I looked down after the second compression and just sort of stopped... Blood was everywhere and there were splash marks from each chest compression... I was so lost and horrified and felt so powerless, I crumpled down sorta kneeling next to her and just held her hand because I could see her eyes still moving but we both knew there wasn't anything I could do.

I stayed like that for the entire boat ride back to the marina gently laying a towel over her face as the boat throttled down to come up to the dock...

The harbor patrol guys came and started taking statements while an ambulance came for the girl. I waited right there on the dock holding her hand until one of the harbor patrol guys came to get me so the medics could get the body.

The harbor patrol guy took me up to his shack let me wash off with the hose and handed 14 year old me a towel, a pen, a statement form and a beer.

We just sat there for awhile and then he told me that he heard I had done everything right out there.

I broke down and cried and said no I didn't if I did everything right she'd be alive! (It was one of the times I've felt the most broken in my life)

He let me cry for awhile and then simply told me that sometimes you can do everything right and it won't fix things because they're too far gone to fix but that doesn't change that you did what you should do.

He got me to look at him and he told me I did a good job, that no one else could have done what I did any different or any better and we just sat for awhile.

When I had calmed down and drank half of my first beer, he handed me another beer and a sweatshirt and got one of his patrol guys to take me on their boat back to my jet ski which they hooked up to tow back to where my family was camped... The mother of the girl hugged me and the dad shook my hand before we left.

That experience left a mark on me.

I don't think I fully grasped what the old harbor patrol guy told me in his shack until fairly recently. (I'm almost 40 now)

The idea that you can do everything right and it's still not enough to keep someone alive alone is hard enough for someone to understand.

But the idea that you can and should hold your head up because you did the right thing after anyway?

That's huge!

Death is coming for all of us one day. It's not something we can avoid. When I think back on all this now I can be grateful that I was there for that scared and dying teenage girl, that at least she knew someone was right there next to her doing everything they could, and that I could be there for the poor girls family and do the hard things for them.

Yes, several, the worst was my Brother who died in my arms when he was 7 i was 9, we were crossing the road and he was struck by a Dump Truck, i tried to carry him off the side of the road but kept slipping in all the blood, i didn't know what else to do, not being able to help him has haunted me for the last 51 years, he was my only Biological sibling, it has left an awful void in my life.

At what point did you first enter the sun?

Yes I was a hospice nurse for 5 years. A few times, my patients @saw” someone coming to get them. The first man I saw die was an older gentleman, mean spirited, I came in to turn him, he grabbed my arm and said watch out behind you with terror in his eyes, and then he passed I believe it was demons coming to get him. I got chills up and down my body, very surreal

before i reply,
why do you ask?

I've spoken to several WW2 / Korea / 'Nam VETS who were terrified of what would happen to them when they died based on what they did during the war(s).

I have no proof - of course - but I do get a very strong impression that what people do during a war is VERY VERY different from what one does on their own. I do not believe that the guy who pulled the bombs-away trigger on the Enola Gay that morning has 90,000 souls to answer to or would be seen as evil like maybe the commandant of Auschwitz.

Again NOTHING anybody says, especially based on religious doctrine or teachings by people who claim they "KNOW" is or can be accurate. Until we hit the other side none of us KNOW and I feel sorry for all the religious fanatics who have been taught that killing people will get them a seat beside God. I really don't think that's how it works.

But I could be wrong.

My2¢

Because death is a subject that no one truly knows.

I read long ago a Doctor who studied death told of a person being on a scale who was passing it was purposeful planned part of his study. He said when the person passed the persons body immediately lost 15 pounds. He felt that was the weight of the deceased persons soul.


found it interesting

Suicide by 1000’s of volts when I was a kid.

Guy mad at his girl at the beach. Straight from the surf to a electric panel feed on a building. We were pretty close. Glad I didn’t smell the burning guy. Might come back when grilling.

Watched my Dad draw his last breathe.

Actually I read something similar about 20 years ago; but it was a clinical study of the terminally ill, calibrated scales and all. But they didn't lose 15lbs.! It was barely measurable but they claimed it was still significant.

Might be the Goodbye to Gravity one in Romania, or The Station nightclub fire.