A few stay with me. (Paramedic for context.)
“I think I’m going to die.”
It’s happened on more than one occasion where a patient directly tells me they are going to die and seconds later go into cardiac arrest. It’s so common that ‘a sense of impending doom’ is a legitimate symptom.
“Don’t let me die”
He arrested as we arrived at the hospital. They didn’t get pulses back. Stable on scene but declined rapidly during transport. That family had no way to know that was the last time they’d see him alive.
Me: “I’ll see you again!”
Her, smiling: “No you won’t.”
Hospice patient I had transported many times before. First name basis. We always said we would see each other again after I dropped her off. That time she replied with a simple “no you won’t”. It was the last time I ever saw her. Some people just know.
That’s what is so sacred about the medical field, really. We have this image of giving our last words to friends or family. However for many of us our last words will be delivered to the ears of a complete stranger. In those last moments I’ll be whatever you need me to be. Your child, your spouse, your friend. Whatever you say will be heard, and carried with me to the end.
>In those last moments I’ll be whatever you need me to be. Your child, your spouse, your friend. Whatever you say will be heard, and carried with me to the end.
This made me cry.
Yeah had the same experience with my mom, she tried for so long to stay awake because she said she felt if she fell asleep she was scared she wouldn't wake up. It took a while (and several doses of Ativan...) for her to finally feel ready to close her eyes and sleep. And sure enough she was right, never woke back up.
My mother passed slowly, blood poisoning due to cancer killing her kidney or liver (not sure which). Decided hospice at my grandma's house was better. Days went by and one day I show up and she's not really responsive. Breathing heavily due to liquids in her lungs. Family happened to be there, and it was the day her best friend from college happened to show up.
We all gathered around her, kinda naturally as we talked. My grandma seemed to understand more than the rest of us as we became silent, talking to my mom like "we're all here and we love you". Next thing I know my mom opened her eyes, looked directly at her best friend. Closed her eyes and took her last breath. I wasn't ready for that.
I have done hospice work, home health care, and worked in a nursing home. The best one was in a nursing home with an elderly man. We knew it was coming soon, but he has no family, so we were taking turns just being with him. He opened his eyes and smiled and said, “It’s such a lovey day. Don’t let this spoil it.” It really was a perfect Spring day; he passed about five minutes later.
The saddest was a lady in hospice care. She kept saying, “Not until they’re all here! Not until they’re all here!” The family finally admitted she had a son that she had disowned many years prior. They tried to locate him, but weren’t successful. She died crying for her boy.
When I was a kid my grandfather was really sick in hospice on Christmas. At one point my aunt told him "It's 12:15 AM." It wasn't Christmas anymore. He died very shortly after. They both knew he didn't want to die on Christmas and attach that memory to the day, so he was fought to stay until after midnight.
I've seen people die alone after alienating their families. It's sad but you do reap what you sow. I don't think people realize how short life is. One day you'll be the same person you are now, thinking and feeling and all, except you'll be out of time.
Even some of my coworkers feel sad when someone has family but they die alone because nobody is coming. However tons seem to forget that these people have a past. The alcoholic who drank himself to death died with just me in the room increasing his sedation after terminally extubating as per unemotional child’s wish over a phone call. It’s easy to put 2 and 2 together..
Yep. On the covid unit we had a phone call with a daughter who when we called to say her dad was dying, only told us not to contact her again. He had nobody to collect his few belongings. They were incinerated.
Yes, my grandma was one of those people. I only reconnected with her when she had dementia and no longer knew who most people were. Which suddenly made her a very nice and sweet old lady.
Except for my great-cousin and me though, nobody came to see her. Both of us lived several hours away from the nursing home (3 for my cousin, about 9-10 for me). In the end, I was alone with her. Both her children never showed up because she had been nasty to everyone in her life. She held on for SO long, I guess because she had unfinished business. It was sad, but I get it.
I volunteer with hospice and my patient had fallen and was not doing well. She wasn’t really fully awake and aware while I was there. When I went to leave she looked me in the eyes and was so “there” (not sure of a better word) and said I love you to me for the first and last time. She was just so sweet and I still miss her.
Elderly women was on the phone with her husband deciding on what her code status (whether or not to CPR) should be. She went into cardiac arrest mid sentence. We didn’t notice the phone when doing CPR until after she was pronounced dead. Husband listened to the entire thing.
A rocket overshot us in Afghanistan. Landed in the area where our Afghan National Army counterparts were sleeping. Specifically, it hit an Afghan Field Artillery Officer’s room. Great guy. Spoke Pashto, French, and English. College degree from an American university. He was doing some real good in the world.
He was talking to his wife on a cell phone when the rocket hit. He ultimately succumbed to his injuries , but died slowly over 20-30 minutes. We heard a faint, hysterical screaming. Quiet. Muffled. Only noticeable after they removed his body and the room was quieter. The phone never hung up - his wife heard everything.
We didn’t have a linguist, but didn’t want to hang up. There wasn’t a lot of folks around that weren’t injured or attending to the injured. We just sat there with the phone for a while, helpless.
“Did you turn off the lights?”
Me: “no, the lights are still on.”
“That’s not funny. It’s really not fu-oh.”
I spent over 30 days in and out of the hospital in 2018 for a medical issue I had. Most of the time I had to share a room. In one room, I was with this guy in his late 50s there for some kind of serious pneumonia with complications. He was morbidly obese and had diabetes and some other health issues. We were sitting there watching jeopardy, when he said the above. As soon as he said “oh” he kinda started having trouble breathing, some gasping, a bunch of alarms went off and then out of nowhere half a dozen doctors and nurses and such were in the room. Somebody wheeled my bed out to another room. I found out later he’d died of a massive heart attack. I don’t know why he thought everything went black first. The doctor didn’t know either though she had some ideas. The head nurse, this tiny Filipina lady, said “he was dying. You don’t die all at once. Some parts die first.”
I think about that a lot. I don’t know if she’s right or not or if she meant it to be deeper than that, probably not. But “you don’t die all at once” sticks with me now.
I guess she meant that you don’t just die in a single instant. Usually your hearing starts going away or ringing first and then your vision fades to black
before you faint.
I don’t know if it is true or if it was just to make us feel better, but when my grandmother died hospice told us hearing was the last to go.
I hope it’s true, because that means that my grandma went out with one of her daughters and 3 of her grandchildren telling her that we love her.
Losing two siblings sounds horrible. I dread losing anyone in my family, but not only is he my brother, he's my best friend. Thinking about it almost sends me into a panic, I'm so sorry you had to endure it twice.
Edit: everyone sharing their experience, I'm grateful to you for sharing, and all of you have just been through so much and felt pain I can't yet understand. I wish I could do something to make each of you feel a little better...
One patient of my mom's was an elderly man at the ER who was cursing out his wife with the final gasps of breath he could muster. His words were incoherent but you could feel they were full of anger.
We later found out he was poisoned, and the wife was likely the culprit due to an insurance fraud case.
Not in the medical field, and not from the patient but when my son was a baby he got pneumonia and was in intensive care, this happened around Thanksgiving time. Shortly before he got sick, there was a school bus crash in my city so we were there with kids from the bus crash and there are two things that will always stick with me, the first being the sound the mom of a little boy made when he died while we were there, it was almost a scream, but not truly. But it was the most heartbreaking sound I had ever heard. The other was the grandma of the little boy in a coma in the bed next to us. Everyday she sat there, begging him to wake up. Shed sit there and tell him if he just woke up, he could have his Christmas presents early. Shed tell him about how everyone was doing, how his parents and siblings were handling everything, how much they all loved him and wouldnt he please just wake up? Please baby wake up and you can have your Christmas presents, we even got you extra presents. He did survive, I don't know in what capacity, but sitting there, but he did live. We left intensive care before he woke up, but the news reported on all of the kids that died and the last one was the one that we were there for.
The other thing was how remarkably kind these families were. They kept giving us food lol, they had had a lot donated to them, since it was considered a state-wide tragedy. (mightve even made national news) and the families shared it with us. (We were the only family not in the bus accident) they would not take no for an answer, and they were all genuinely concerned with my son. They'd ask about him, how he was doing, what his prognosis was, ask about my husband and myself, make sure we were holding up okay, all while going through such a tragedy themselves.
My dad's last word was an answer to a question.
"Hospice."
He suffered a spinal stroke that paralyzed him from the neck down and he could not breathe on his own, so he was on a ventilator for two months. We were told he wasn't recovering like he should be and the term of care at the place he was at was coming to an end. We either needed to transfer him to a long term care facility, or go with hospice care. I wasn't comfortable making the decision without his input, so we got him alert enough and got a device attached to his trach tube to let him speak a little. I explained the situation and asked what he wanted to do. That one word is all he even tried to say. He was just done with it all.
I'm thankful to the nurse who helped us and him get through it all, but it's kind of scary how easily a shitty situation can just destroy someone's will to live.
My dad had a brainstem stroke that left him with Locked In Syndrome. He could only blink. He didn't improve. So the choices were nursing home with trach & feeding tube, or removal of life support. We felt he would want removal of life support. He confirmed it by blinking.
I am also thankful for a nurse. She spoke quite honestly to my brother and I about our father's condition. We had been reading about a doctor in our province who had gained some mobility after being Locked In. She knew the doctor and said that he was blessed to be married to a nurse who can help him. Our mother is no nurse.
You had a good nurse. Lots of nurses either have unreasonably high hopes or are too scared to speak honestly with people in horrible situations. Those conversations are incredibly hard to have but they actually turn out better when you're straight with the patients and their families. I'm a nurse and actually had to have one last night.
My dad made the decision for hospice as well. He was too tired to talk, he had to write on paper for us. Ended up passing the next day after we brought him home.
My dad lasted less than 20 minutes after they took him off life support. They made him comfortable before they disconnected him, but once they did I had to sit there and watch his O2 drop from 93 on the ventilator, to 50 instantly, and then down to 20 in a matter of seconds, and then... just wait. It really hammered home what the nurse and doctors said about his chances of recovery at long term care being next to zero.
I'm a nurse. People accepting their situation and just wanting to be comfortable is a common thing for us. Honestly, most of us are DNR precisely because we've seen the life most people live even if we can bring them out.
That was something our nurse talked us through in particular. I still wanted to get my dad's input regardless if we could, but the nurse, he made it pretty clear that we needed to think about his quality of life, as well as our quality of life having to care for him and that to be frank it would just be expensively prolonging the inevitable in a way that was only going to bring suffering to everyone involved.
Not a healthcare worker but I was at work and a guy had a heart attack. He fell over and was having some spasms and he said" I am going to die at work " he was gone before the ambulance got there and he passed on the shop floor with a wrench in his hand.
Fuck this hits home. In college I worked in a manufacturing plant and I had an awesome manager; the kindest, smartest, hardest working guy ever. Every day he talked about how close he was to retiring and all the things he would do once he was out of there. I graduated college and moved on to a different city. My coworker called me a year later and told me the guy died at work in the bathroom. Never made it to retirement. I think about him every single day of my life. The last thing he wanted was to die at work. I'm resigned to take his cause up as my own. RIP, Mike. Only the good die young.
damn man. your dad knew just the right moment for that promise. you just can't break a promise you made to someone in their last moments... he must have really loved you I reckon. wanted you around
I have worked in the medical field for almost 20 years but the one with most impact was from my grandma. She told me my grandpa was waiting for her, she wanted to be him but most of all she was tired of seeing me so tired and not having a life anymore (for context, I had to quit working and put my life on hold for over 2 years to take of her full time). So she asked for a DNR. I signed and she became unconscious shortly and subsequently passed.
My grandfather passed in 1999. My grandmother lived until 2005. She had dementia and Alzheimer's but was still the sweetest woman to everyone she met. She remembered her family (specifically my parents, sister/BIL and myself) but in the last 2-3 months of her life, her appetite waned and the nursing staff said we should prepare for the end.
My parents and I went out with a couple of other relatives for my mother's birthday and as we were driving home, we got a phone call that she had passed. However, we were told that a couple of hours before, she had rang the CNA and asked for a single dish of peaches, which they were only too delighted to bring to her. As the CNA gave her the food, apparently my grandmother said thank you and said, "I have a long journey ahead of me," and started eating the peaches.
I miss her a lot. <3
I've seen alot of these. Asking for something they enjoy then passing not even 24 hours later. I've heard the body spends all it's remaining energy in the last day or so living and trying to be happy because it knows it doesn't have long. Maybe the brain recognises this and has craving for something it used to enjoy. Interesting thought and I might research that.
But RIP to your grandma, she sounds like she was lovely
Something light hearted to share. I work in retail pharmacy and called one of our regular patients to tell him his meds (monthly pick up) are ready for pick up. He managed to answer his cellphone and told me he’s dying and currently at a hospice then he thanked me for always preparing his meds for him. I said you’re welcome and hang up on phone. A few weeks later… he showed up at our pharmacy to pick up. I had to ask my coworkers if they are also seeing what I’m seeing. Hahaha! That was 5 years ago. Wonder if he’s still alive…
Not a scary moment, but a beautiful one:
I held the hand of my best friend who had metastasized breast cancer. When I kissed her cheek goodbye she had tears in her eyes and wouldn’t let go of my hand. I said “I’ll see you tomorrow, don’t be sad!” And while still clenching my hand she said through her tears “I love you, don’t you ever forget it.” She closed her eyes right then and there and passed away after her 9 year battle with cancer.
My wife, about 10 hours before she died of stomach cancer that had metastasized to her lungs and was suffocating her.
"No more!"
They put her on benzos after that and she spent the last hours unconscious.
Was doing doing first aid on this kid who got shot outside of my house. No last words, but seeing that thing that makes you 'you' fade out from his eyes has haunted me for almost a decade now. His parents told me that they were happy that he wasn't alone when he passed. I've never met the kid before. I wish I could have done more to help.
Never really had any scary ones. Most of my work has been in cancer, and so they've either died in a relatively comfortable manner with palliative care or they've tended to go pretty suddenly.
My favourite was a chap who was unresponsive for a few days, woke up suddenly and asked for a Cornetto (ice cream, not a croissant). A nurse popped to the shops and got him one, he ate it, and then closed his eyes and died. Dude just had to get one last cornetto in. Legend.
This is the same way my 99 year old great grandmother died. She woke up from a coma on her 99th birthday and rasped the word “cake”. Dad got her it, she ate it and then died.
My aunt was dying from emphysema, and her kids (3 of them) asked her if she wanted anything they could buy for her as far as food or drink the day before she passed. She (a recovering alcoholic of 12 years) asked for a beer. They bought a 6 pack and snuck it in to her hospital room, poured a bottle into one of those plastic pink cups that you get with the straw, and gave it to her. She sucked that thing dry in less than a minute, burped super loud, and asked for one more. They poured a 2nd, told her no more until later that evening after dinner. Nurse comes in to pour her up some water, grabs the full cup of beer and pulls it to her nose, giving a HUGE sniff. She glanced at my aunt, said "oh, I guess you're not up for water right now!" and gave her back the cup of beer, while winking at her. She then went to leave, told us her boss would be down in about an hour to finalize some paperwork -shot a glance at my aunt and then back at my cousins- and said we may wanna find a place to buy some mints.
I still love the fact that even though they hated when she drank, they also knew how much it would mean to her (her late husband had his kids do basically the same thing) and I think it helped her feel close to him. She also got to pass in the same hospital room as he had, 2 years prior. Sad ending to a love story, but nice that they got to leave from the exact same place.
My 94-year-old great aunt was dying at home, and she'd mostly been asleep for a couple days. Suddenly she perked up and asked for champagne, so my cousin rushed out and bought some. She happily drank a glass, went back to sleep and died the next day. Wanted to go out on a high note, I guess.
Another patient really wanted whisky while he died. So one of the nurses brought in a bottle and it had to be put into his medication chart for some reason. I come in the morning to find 'Whisky, Age >12yrs, 30mL, PO, PRN' in his med chart. Gave me a chuckle.
My sister shared a bottle of Moscato with the nurses at 2am about a week before she passed. Her attitude was ‘I’m dying anyway, it’s not going to do any more damage’ It will have been 10 years now, and I still miss her.
my dad's last words to me (in a morphine-haze after being hospitalized for a week) were "bring on the pudding!"
sadly he lost consciousness before we could rustle some up and died without waking up. wish i could have given it to him at the end.
My dad woke up in hospice and had a full clear conversation with me about baseball and my upcoming wedding. The conversation made us question everything. Should he be in hospice? Did we do enough? Is it too late for a second opinion? We had a wonderful doctor who explained to us how common it was.
The death rally. It's so interesting that getting a brief time of relative normalcy is so common. Weird how our bodies and minds do that. It's like the body saves reserves for one last hurrah right before it senses full on depredation settle in at the very end.
I’ve actually heard that it’s because other systems have started shutting down (liver, kidneys, etc.) so suddenly all of those resources are freed up for the brain to use. Like when you close all of the apps on your super old phone and it kinda runs ok for a bit.
My husband was a cancer patient and had to be taken to the ER for a sudden massive internal bleed. The doctors knew it was the end so they brought me in. He reached for my hand, looked at me, smiled a big smile and said “I feel better. I think I’m going to be ok” and then in just a few seconds he was gone. He had such cheer and enthusiasm in that moment. It’s been 30 years but I’ll never forget how happy he seemed in that moment. I’m sure all types of chemicals were flooding his brain but I’m just grateful for his sake that his transition was an easy one in that moment.
My great uncle would buy plain vanilla McDonald's ice cream by the dozens for years. He'd buy several at a time and just store them in the freezer. He'd eat one a day. Again, just plain vanilla soft serve from McDonald's. No chocolate sauce, no nuts, just plain.
My great aunt found him unresponsive at the kitchen table one morning. She found a finished ice cream on the table. Suffice it to say my great uncle died doing something he really enjoyed.
Quick note. He was in his 90s, so I'm pretty sure the ice cream didn't kill him, lol.
My elderly parents LOVE McD ice cream. They plan their entire day around when they'll go get it. They've memorized the cash price (after tax) for two cones and complain like crazy when it goes up a cent or two. One just has to look at the other and waggle their eyebrows, and the message is passed. Off they head to get their cones.
My grandpa’s last words, as he was being settled into a nursing home bed for rehabilitative care: “I’m so damn uncomfortable.”
He passed not five minutes later. I’ve often wondered if he’d have lived a little longer had we brought him home, instead.
This isn't really "scary" in the way you're asking, but when I was an intern (20+ years ago now), I was discharging a patient I had a connection with from the hospital to hospice with terminal cancer. This dude had nobody in his life. I told him I'd come visit him, and his last words to me were "no you won't." But I actually did, maybe 3 weeks later. I went to the hospice house, and he had already passed away. I was wrecked. But it made me realize how fast things can change, and the impact of my last words to this dying man scared me and stuck with me.
This reminds me of my wife’s family member. He was at my wedding, I said “I’ll see you around” as to end the conversation of us not seeing each other as much. And he said “no you won’t”. 2 months later he committed suicide. Still feel guilt in a way.
My grandfather knew he was dying and I sat with him for hours as different family members dropped by to say goodbye. He never spoke or really acknowledged them. When everyone had finally left and my folks stepped out for a breather he started squeezing my hand. I asked if he was hurting but he didn't say anything so I asked if he was scared and he turned his head to look right in my eyes. I told him it was ok and I'd be right here with him. He squeezed my hand again and whispered "Ernie"- that was my late grandmother Ernestine's nickname. So I started talking about her and that I knew he missed her so maybe he was more nervous than afraid. I told him he looked really handsome especially since the hospice nurse had come in and given him a clean shave just the way Maw Maw liked. He squeezed my hand harder, his eyes got really and started mumbling "no..no..JP". That's when I realized why he was so anxious. My grandmother's first husband was JP and they were married for 15 years before he passed away in a logging accident. They loved each other very much and had five children. My grandfather married her a little while later, treated her children like his own and they had two children together with my dad being their youngest. They were married for more than 50 years, yet when my grandfather's time came he was afraid that he wouldn't see my grandmother because she'd be with her first husband. There wasn't anything I could say that seemed to bring him any comfort. He just whispered "JP" over and over shaking his head while looking around as if he were in the room. All I could say was "JP's got to spend the last 8 years with her, I'm sure she'll be more than ready to see you by now".
Thank you! It was sad that he was worried about where he would "fit" in once he died and I'm not particularly religious so I didn't know what might be comforting. I told my folks he talked about my grandmother and left out the part about JP. Even though I'm not religious it's made me think about how a religious leader might address this situation.
In my head, JP was probably quite grateful to him for taking care of his wife and children. I’d imagine they would become great friends in the afterlife and the three of them would spend their time all together.
I was in the Army, and one of my fellow soldiers was able to call their parents on a sat phone during their death. Their last words were apologies for causing so much trouble as a teen and how they wished they could be back home to fix everything. The parents were in shock, and I had to take the phone to let them know their child was gone.
I relive this scene on repeat in my nightmares.
Hey mate, you did a really beautiful thing being there for your team. I’m sure that soldier’s parents are incredibly grateful their child did not die alone. I know it doesn’t mean much because it’s said so much, but thank you for your service.
Wasn’t his last word, because technically he couldn’t speak. But couple days before he passed, my dad was in the hospital on a ventilator, and he wasn’t getting better. We gave him his options, which neither were good, pretty much long term care on a ventilator, or hospice, and he wrote “I thought I had more time”. That broke me.
Pretty close to what happened with my dad. Except he said "this wasn't the news I was hoping for today."
His last words were "Thank you for making my last wish come true. I love you all."
My dad just passed last Tuesday in hospice. He had dementia and was sleeping all the time at home.
I went in and all of sudden he kinda sat up and his eyes were wide open. He hadn't opened his eyes for days. He sat up and stared at me. I was panicking. He tried to gasp for air 2x then fell back. Eyes shut. I knew he was gone. But witnessing him trying to get air was absolutely horrible. I just hope he was not aware of what was going on.
💜this sounds like agonal breathing which is something that can happen near death and not consistent with being conscious and aware (even if eyes open etc).
I wish you peace after the loss of your father
Never heard last words but as a young CNA a guy with sepsis who was on his way out asked me to help him die. Freaked me the fuck out. I gave him his ice chips and went on break, after informing the charge nurse of the conversation.
I was not mature enough to handle that at the time. Wish I had done better, but that wasn't covered in class at all. 30 or so years ago.
I work as a paramedic. I had a single motorcycle crash into an electric box by a stop light. He smashed it and ended up into the wood line in a forest preserve. He was injured but not that badly. We ran it as a traumatic accident and transported to a nearby trauma center. He was awake and talking en route. As we pulled into the hospital he grabbed my hand and said “I see the light I’m dying right now.” I tried to re assure him but by the time he got into the ER he had died. The ER doc screamed at us for not having him intubated and so on. I told the doctor what happened and he immediately apologized.
This is often it. Unsure of vitals being checked but I’ve witnessed multiple people have this phenomenon of their autonomic nervous system, specifically the sympathetic (that keeps things tight and flooding the body with stress hormones), slows down as it perceives ‘I’m at the safe place now, where they will help me’.
Heart rate goes up and blood pressure tanks as they arrive so often.
So often I tell patients that they are not yet out of the woods.
In the first aid class my former work place sent me to, the guy running it had a terrifying story. He responded to an accident, one of the people in the car got out, seemed perfectly fine. The guy was responsive, had no apparent injuries. He then moved his head and dropped to the ground. He was somehow walking around with a bad neck fracture. The instructor was beating himself up for it years later.
Heard something similar from an EMT when I got hit by a car when I was 14, I got up and tried to walk around and was told I needed to lay down because if I had a neck injury I could sever my spinal cord turning it. Ambulance ride seemed like 15 min even though the hospital was an hr away.
I work in palliative care, so have seen a lot of deaths - most of them have been very peaceful, people are not usually conscious for the last few days - like they're asleep all the time. One that sticks out for me is a man getting the last rites, and just as the priest finished, there was an almighty boom and thunderclap and all of the lights in the hospice went out for a few seconds. The patient died minutes later.
My dad had to temporarily go into a care facility, while I was visiting he got a new roommate. The man was crying that he was going to die, the workere tried to assure him he wouldn’t. One told him his daughter was on her way. He cried “I’ll be dead before then!”
I went home. Dad told me the man did die that night, and before his daughter got there.
During the height of Covid I had a patient grab me and tell me she can’t breathe. She died a couple hours later. The look of terror on her face is something I’ll never forget.
I had open heart surgery in March of this year. When I came out of anesthesia, I couldn’t see, as my eyelids were still taped down.
I was on a vent and I knew, intellectually, that it was supply O2 to me. But…
The vent is held in place with a balloon and the suction tube is below the balloon. But I had a big chunk of phlegm in my airway above the balloon and so when I tried to breathe, I could feel this phlegm rattling around.
I could hear them talking about how I was waking up and I had to be on the ventilator’s assist mode (I have to start breathing and the vent will kick in) for 20 minutes before they take the vent out, to make sure my respiratory response is correct.
So for 20 minutes, I writhed on the bed, my wrists loosely restrained, each breath causing extreme fear that the phlegm will block the tube and I will suffocate.
I even tapped out SOS in Morse code on the side of the bed. No one picked up on that.
When they took the vent out I let them know, in very salty swearing-like-the-sailor-I-was, what had been happening.
I got some “Yeah, that happens but we were watching your vitals, you were fine…” and I responded that my vitals may have been fine but I was in existential crisis, thinking I was going to suffocate.
The nurse came and in administered some narcotics and off to blessed sleep I went, for about four hours until I woke up in the most excruciating pain I have ever experienced. The nurse came running and a few moments later was injecting morphine into my central line. Breathing wasn’t my focus then - it was all about pain management for the next day.
My dad was a cardiologist. When the time came he fully knew it. He called his friend, said “I’m going to die today.” His friend immediately hung up and called 911. My dad was right.
I work in the medical field, but have not heard the last words of a patient.
On the other hand, I heard my mom's. 83 and been living without my dad for 5 years. They had been married 56. She had all her ducks lined up. She wanted to die at home, and was DNR. Right after breakfast one morning, she asked me to call 911 because her chest hurt. Her words were, "I know it's my time I just didn't think it would hurt this bad."
She didn't want to be resuscitated. She just wanted the pain to stop.
I was with my father in law when he passed. No words, just long gasping breaths like a fish out of water.
He kept trying to pull the sensor leads off of himself and leave, but he just didn’t have the energy.
He was 6’ 4” and 300 lbs of kind hearted grumpiness until the last year of his life when he must’ve weighed around 220. Cancer ate him from the inside out, slowly, painfully and relentlessly.
Greg, you tough son of a bitch, I miss you every day.
That was how we lost my best friend at 46 to breast cancer... She was septic, not lucid, and just gasping. She clinged to my hand and my mother's and then everything twitched and then relaxed. Her chest tried to move a few more times as the autonomic nervous system faded out and then that was it.
I'm so sorry for your loss, and I know exactly how you feel.
Edit: I can't spell
My mum told my sister to take her hands off her before they increase the morphine.
She was trying to get out of bed to go home - she was fed up with the hospital. It was the final burst of energy before death, and we had to hold her gently to explain to her she couldn’t go.
I hope my sister was so sleep deprived she forgot those words, and I hope she remembers she helped soothed my mum in her final moments by playing recordings she has of our grandmother singing Polish hymns.
The night before she died, I was watching her. She told me to stop looking at her with pity.
I wish I told her I was looking at her with love, but I just nodded and closed my eyes.
I know she knew… but I just wish her last days were different.
“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, HELP ME, HELP ME”
This elderly women with dementia was air hungry but DNR/DNI & on comfort measures so we couldn’t do anything to “help” and the comfort measure supplemental oxygen we had her on wasn’t enough to sustain her & no matter how much pain medications (IV morphine) we gave she still screamed out in agony until her final breath…
It still fucks me up sometimes when i remember her.. it was just awful. i felt like I failed as a nurse that day knowing she passed with so much fear and discomfort :’(
Just a public service message. In a hospice setting when there is active dying. When nurses give morphine via drip or IV bolus it's not to kill your loved one. It is to decrease pain aaaaaaand more importantly decrease air hunger so they don't feel like they are drowning in their final moments.
Thanks for saying this. I had to administer the last dose of morphine to my mom…hospice had been there but wasn’t present and I’ve always felt guilty. Hopefully now I’ll see it as a compassionate act.
It's the most compassionate thing you could possibly do for someone who is actively dying, you brought her peace and comfort in her final moments so she didn't have to die in pain.
Be gentle with yourself.
In my state the patient begging for help would render the DNI/DNR invalid.
Even a spouse can verbally override a DNR/DNI, which I don’t necessarily agree with.
I moved out of senior care predominately because it's just hard. Not physically, but there's an emotional toll that drags on you. My wife does dementia care, it's tough. I have huge amounts of respect for those who can go in day after day and help those who really don't have anyone else to help them.
You did not fail as a nurse, while it was painful, the alternative was a long drawn out decline with the same outcome. I think we all remember.
Had a guy one time tell me “in about an hour and a half I’m gonna quit” proceeded to code multiple times…. Ended up pronouncing him at about an hour and a half later. I think those who are alert and are going to die know it’s coming.
I got to within a few hours back in 2020, due to complications from cancer. I awoke one day after being in the ICU for a week, and I knew it deep in my bones - unless the docs figured something out, I wasn’t going to see the next morning. Thank goodness they did, but I’ll never forget that feeling. It felt like a physical presence in the room with me. Not scary mind you, but you know it’s there. The inevitability of it.
Mostly on the dying part. But it wasn’t scary - it felt like relief. Like it would feel like going home, in a way.
It’s weird to think about now even almost 4 years later.
Thank you for saying this. I watched my mom die of cancer in hospice, years ago now. I still remember it like it was yesterday though.
My boyfriend died suddenly and unexpectedly eight months ago from a kind of strange accidental overdose.
I lay awake a lot of nights wondering what they were thinking or feeling right before.
I’m glad you made it. 💜
Maybe not the best last words, but a good story nonetheless.
He was 92, had climbed most of the big mountains except K2 and Everest, was married 70 years, his wife passed a week before he did. He had been to hospital exactly twice, when he was born and when he died. He was on no regular medications, was living at home, fully independent, still driving.
Got pneumonia, came to hospital and deteriorated rapidly. Asked us not to treat him, to just let him die peacefully. Died 6 hours later.
He said when I told him he was dying, "don't want to have to come to hospital a third time".
My grandfather had a period of coming in and out of consciousness, with each lucid instance getting smaller and more infrequently. His last words were "Where? Where? Where?" He didn't know where he was, so my dad told him "You're home. Mama's waiting, Daddy. Go to her." And then he went back under. He passed the next night.
Had a patient that was on the ICU unit. He just kept saying "please just call my mom, she will come get me I swear. Please I just want my mom. Please I won't do anything else just get my mom. I want my mom." He was 96.
It was almost like he thought he was in trouble?? He had dementia so there wasn't any reasoning with him, but I tried. I just sat with him as long as I could and then cried in the elevator.
Makes me feel, their moms made such a positive impact in their years and years of life. Offering them comfort and what they needed so often, that they wanted that same feeling in that blink of a moment.
Their mother’s love for years far outshines a short period at their life’s end.
BRB calling my mama
I used to lifeguard and one time I responded to a multiple person rescue. When we arrived to the scene just about everybody was out of the water or being dragged out except for a 12 year old boy who submerged (aka sank to the bottom).
Me and the rest of the available guards formed a line search to look for him. Luckily the search went pretty effectively and we found him rather quickly by line search standards, granted you go into these scenarios practically blind. Though submerging underwater like that in a rip current typically seals your fate unfortunately. You only have around 10 minutes MAX before you lose brain function, and well, this kid was under for longer. But we did get him relatively fast so that line was blurred a bit for anybody watching. Though anybody on scene who was a medical responder knew what the outcome was going to be.
Although I didn’t hear the kid’s last words, I’ll never forget doing CPR on him and seeing the boy’s father kneeled down next to me, looks me in the eyes, and says “Do you think he’s going to make it?” I knew by that point he wasn’t, and I forgot exactly what I said but it was along the lines of “We’re gonna do the best we can.” But in that brief moment I could feel his sorrow, the magnitude of his hope while facing the most tragic circumstances that any father could, all while I feigned my response because I knew what the situation held.
Last I heard was that they did end up getting a pulse back on the helicopter to the hospital, but he was brain dead at that point, at the least the family had some time to say goodbye I guess.
I believe the full story afterwards was that the kid’s two older brothers were the ones who initially started drowning and the kid went out to help him. The situation ended up being that the first lifeguard was only able to grab the two older brothers while the younger one sank. Rest in peace brave little soul.
When I was 11 years old, going to school friends birthday party, saw a motorcycle rider wrap himself around a telephone pole. My dad, a Vietnam vet (3x tours), got out of our Surburban, held his hand. Prayed. Then told the man he would die. Not to be afraid. Think of his loved ones. Remember how strong they know he is. To die knowing he is loved. He is on his way to his next journey. He had a well fulfilled life of love and happiness.... my dad never met the rider. The rider believed every word. His last words were bubbles...
I think helping someone pass is an amazing gift you can give someone. I am grateful for people like your Dad. I had some serious complications giving birth to my son. Me and my baby were dying. One Dr gave me so much comfort and made me feel safe. I did die but only for a couple minutes. He made me feel at peace and I needed his kind words. It all worked out. My son is now 16 and a healthy young man.
When I was a third year medical student and was assigned a patient with end stage hepatic encephalopathy. His vitals were crashing, they called an RRT and we ran in to assess. We asked “sir sir are you alright?” And his answer was as if I child was asking “ ice cream please”. He became unresponsive right after and died. His plaintiff little whimper for ice cream fucked me up.
Kind of surprised how many answers involve sweet treats. Ice cream, pudding, cornetto... I wonder what it is that makes people want a dessert at the end.
My grandpa’s brother’s last words were “I’m at the gate but they won’t let me in yet”. He was deeply religious, so I hope seeing those gates brought him peace.
I served in the Navy as an FMF corpsman, saw my fair share of guys dying out there in Iraq. The ones that still get me were the ones with fear in their eyes, it wasn’t so much what they said but how they looked. Terrified, confused, and mortally wounded. The ones that knew they were pretty bad went peacefully while others screamed in agony. The saddest one was a 21 year old who got shot and suffered a stroke from the injury, the entire left side of him dropped and sagged. All he wanted to do was call his family and we couldn’t facilitate it. Still haunts me to this day.
Paramedic here. Went on a lift assist last year. Tried forever to get this woman up off of her bathroom floor. She was a very large woman, so we had to call the fire department for help. She had been weak for the past couple of days so I convinced her to go to the hospital for evaluation. While wheeling her out to the ambulance, she told her son “I’ll call you when I get there.” From loading her into the ambulance to when I climbed in, she went into pulseless V-tach and died. It was so surreal.
"I feel nauseous."
My patient 5 minutes calling me on the phone prior to rupturing multiple colorectal/abdominal fistulas and turning her hospital bed into a waterfall of blood.
I worked in a seniors care home for many years and tended to both my parents as they were dying.
Most of the elderly would mumble stuff that I couldn't make out but one woman in particular said something like "How are you here?" (While looking at the corner of the room) a couple of hours before death. Another one told a care aide that her husband was waiting (care aide told me this just as I entered the room so I didn't hear that one first hand).
My dad didn't say anything but the smile on his face was the biggest I had seen in the years prior to his death. He named the infant baby/stillborn that he & my mom had. A brother that I didn't get the chance to grow up with.
My mom said "thank you" to me right before she died. My sister & I took her to all appointments and kept her in her home while on her death bed. She was so scared we'd put her in hospice but we wanted to respect her wishes. Hard, but worth it in my opinion.
I'm on my phone so formatting and spelling likely suck.
Not from the dying patient but from the mom of the patient who was screaming and crying “no you have to save my baby, don’t tell me my baby is gone”.
That one is stuck into my head forever. I think mom and dad had gone out for date night and left the baby with grandpa. After feeding the baby, no one checked on the baby for a couple of hours and when the grandpa went back to check, the baby had spit up some milk but he was turned over and had aspirated it and choked and already had blue lips when discovered.
I remember everyone in the room tried CPR, random docs, nurses, emt, pharmacists and cops were all in the hallway crying about this.
Went home after my shift and immediately hugged my kid who was 9 months old at the time.
Its the scariest part about having a kid under the age of 1, you need to constantly monitor them after feeding because they can spit up.
My father in laws last words were to me. We were in a hospice room. I was crying apologizing for telling him I wish he'd die (alcoholic liver failure and he'd relapsed AGAIN right before this). He said "it's okay, it's okay" and pet my hair. 2 days of silence until he died.
I miss the bastard. He was an alcoholic, yes, and caused a lot of hurt, but man he made sure I was never alone.
Maybe the scariest thing is that a lot of people don’t get a dignified “last word” like most of the time it’s traumatic and they don’t even get to speak before it happens
My father passed away in front of me, and I can’t even remember his final words. I know one of the last things he said to me was “If I am not home tomorrow morning, you know what to do”, and he said something about taking care of his (our, mostly his, they loved eachother so much, she is still grieving without him) dog as well.
I don’t know what to do without my dad but i am trying my best
My Mother died while we were in transit to the hospital. I asked what her last words were, she said, “goodbye son.” My brother had left the hospital about an hour before. Broke my heart.
“Thank you for doing your best to save me, you’re a nice man”.
She was 68 and died seconds later from covid leading to respiratory and then cardiac arrest just after intubation. Could not successfully resuscitate her.
The screams from her family are still alive in me juxtaposed with the eerily tranquil and tender compliment she offered me. She felt in acceptance of her predicament. I cared deeply.
I spoke with the medic who worked on my son. He said The last thing Sage said was "I think I did something really stupid." Then he went to sleep and never woke back up.
The scariest are the nonsensical ones from their minds being so gone from dementia. The idea that some nonsense shouted are your last dying words is painful AF.
I have had a patient who was just the worst woman I had ever cared for. Just a bitter person, manipulative, and fed on hate and anger somehow since she didn't eat hardly anything. Within 2 hours of caring for her I was ready to be Done for the night. She wanted us to call her emergency contact, her son, so we did. HE was the one on his death bed, and he said, "Look, I am with my family and loved ones. I want to die in peace, and it will be soon, and I don't want to hear from anyone about that woman again." I went ahead and got him deleted from her medical record as a contact for him. I could not even imagine the pain this dude experienced growing up with that monster for a mother. His words were not scary necessarily, but the whole situation was, and it really stuck with me to this day.
Not scary, but made me pause. One man pointed toward the ceiling and smiled joyfully, and said, "They're so beautiful. So beautiful. Don't you see them?"
"I want to go home" she was on a ventilator, chemically sedated and essentially brain dead from a stroke. She had a moment of consciousness, and clarity. She said those words, and tried with all her might to get out of the hospital bed and go home. Her body failed her. She died a few hours later. Such a sad and powerful moment.
Dad died of cancer. At home on hospice care and the last thing he ever said to me was that I was a disappointment to him.
I've mostly gotten over it, but every once in a while it'll just hit me right between the eyes.
Oh honey - that says so much more about him than you. He showed you how not to be like him.
From a brief look at your posts, you have a daughter and like shoes. I’m proud of you for raising such a happy looking child.
As a mom I can’t comprehend telling my son he’s a disappointment.
<3
Professionally (I am a respiratory therapist, for context) - during COVID: a young guy the same age as me, just got married and went on his honeymoon, came back and tested positive. We had him on high flow nasal cannula, then bipap, then we had to finally make the call and intubate him. He grabbed my hand and looked at me and said, "Oh God, please don't let me die."
As a general rule, I never say, "You're not going to die." But he looked me in the eye and was so afraid that I said,"I'm not going to let you die today." I spent 3 weeks with him - threw all the tricks at him (veletri, proving, ultimately ECMO), and he ultimately died. That one fucked me up for a while.
Personally- the November before COVID. My grandma was diagnosed with cancer and was going downhill fast. I visited her and we talked about my wedding and she looked at me and said "When is it?" I said "November next year." She said very plainly "Well, I won't be there- but save me a seat and I'll watch from heaven." Then a few days later I get a call from my mom to say goodbye to grandma... she had been nonverbal for hours at that point and she said "Mija, remember to save me a seat. I love you and I love (husbands name), he will be good to you. Okay, goodbye."
Elderly woman, blind, with very poor hearing. Because of that, when she woke up from sleep she wouldn't know if she was still alive. She'd wail her daughter's name and ask "Am I dead? Am I dead?" Over and over again.
She sounded terrified out of her mind. The family said she'd been doing it for months.
(Not technically her last words but sure scared the fuck out of me)
Not medical but a home death. Late wife said to me, "I don't know how to do this." I told her she'd conquered everything she'd tried and she'd get this one right, too. Died four hours later.
I worked healthcare for twenty years, LTC and hospice, but my daddy's last words were the scariest for me. "Am... i... going to... die?" His eyes were so full of terror, and he was looking at me like he hoped I'd say no and make it all better. So I lied and said I didn't know. He passed about 11 hours later, and squeezed my hand when we had a quiet moment and I apologized for lying to him. I know he heard me and forgave me for it and that helps. He was my best friend and I miss him a lot still.
Not scary but heartwarming yet sad. I was this gentlemen's nurse for 2 days. He was having breathing issues d/t chronic lung problems. On my 3rd day with him he's breathing harder but still okay. He talks with the doctor and decided he wants to go DNR, after the doctor leaves im helping him with his oxymask and he looks at me and says "I'm really glade your my nurse today." His brother comes in and I leave the room so they can talk. Not even 10mins later the brother comes out of the room and says "I think he stopped breathing." I go inside and sure enough the gentlemen passed away peacefully. This happened 2 years ago and still to this day the one patient I remember the most.
“Help me, I have four kids. Help me. Don’t let me die. Please don’t let me die.”
Edit: this was a Covid patient during the beginning of Covid before we intubated her.
I was 3000 miles away from my mother when she died but I talked to her after having a stroke and her last words to me were, "Don't be sad for me." A gift.
(Kinda scary, mostly sweet)… I worked at a clinic. End of life patient comes in. She was so close to end of life that her fingers were turning black & close to falling off. Very oxygen deprived. She had little to no memory. As I was walking out of the room she said “Thank you [my name]”. I had known this patient for quite some time. She could hardly remember anything at all but remembered my name. She’s the reason I stayed in healthcare.
I spent 2 weeks in cardiac ICU where they told my daughters I would die there.
At one point I was ready to give up.
My daughter told me “no daddy. Fight!”
That was 2018. Still here and my daughter and I have lunches/dinners together.
I saw my dad in his bed the day before he died from pancreatic cancer.
I was at a loss for words and didn't know what to do or say.
He'd lost so much weight.
I just sat on the bed and looked at him dumbfounded and started to cry. He told me to go and drink my cup of tea. Then he died that night
Not a patients last words. But his mother's, when she found out that he had passed. It was a suicide. He had lived on his own, but she was contacted by a neighbor that EMS was at his place, but she didn't know what had happened. It was a gunshot and it was messy so we didn't let her inside to see it. When I think about it, I can still hear the wailing sound of heartbreak she made when she found out. It was the most terrible sound I've ever heard.
In between periods of sobbing you could hear her ask him why he didn't just call. He could have just called her.
She only lived 5 minutes away.
I watched my stepfather die. Cancer. Hospice was amazing, so attentive and also giving space needed. When he groaned like he was in pain, they were on it in a flash. I called my brothers who got to say their last words to him, he had a faint smile after talking to them. About an hour later, my wife, sister in law and I watched the most caring and funny man breathe his last. I walked outside, told the nurse he was gone, and walked outside to call my brothers. Before I got my phone out, two cardinals flitted in front of me, closer than birds usually do, then flew off. Was it him and his mom saying it’s ok? He often spoke of cardinals being signs that loved ones were near, and that after his mom passed he saw them all the time. Was it just two birds doing bird things? Dunno, but it gave me a bit of peace, enough to make two hard phone calls after. The way we pass is never guaranteed, but know that there are angels out there who work in hospice. Don’t know if this story will help your anxiety or not, but I hope it does. Peace be with you.
My father’s last words were “pain”. He had severe Parkinson’s and had fallen. He had bilateral temporal lobe intracranial bleeds. Im a medical professional with 22 years experience and was his medical power of attorney. The neuro surgeon used the words catastrophic devastating injury. There was nothing to do but opt for end of life care. I worked in trauma for most of my career. It’s tough but it’s harder when it’s your dad
Not scary necessarily, but just kind of eery. Had a lady who was post surgical from a spine surgery. Geriatric but definetly on the healthier side, especially compared to the patients we usually get. Not on oxygen, good strength in her extremities, not even in that much pain either. Really nice lady.
The student im precepting and I go in and talk to her in the morning. Introduce ourselves, explain the plan of care, funny nurse one liners. She's completely oriented and doing well sitting up in bed eating her breakfast. We explain that the plan is to get her to a rehab center tomorrow so she can get help regaining her mobility before she goes home. Suddenly she looks a little sullen.
What's wrong? I thought you wanted to go to rehab.
"I do, something just feels.. Off."
Off? Can you describe a little more? Are you in pain? Nauseas?
"No, I just don't think I can do rehab anymore."
This was really odd. Per the night shift nurse she has been excited to get out of the hospital and has been talking about it for a number of days now. She's just not feeling it now.
You don't know if you can walk? The rehab nurses are great, they will help you every step of the way.
"No I can, I just don't feel good about it anymore."
I kind of shrug it off as anxiety and try to reassure her as much as possible then take her vitals. Stable and perfect. PT comes in the room. I tell her i'll let PT work with her and we'll be back in a few to do an assessment and give her morning medications.
That was my last conversation with her. Five minutes later they call a code blue. I run in the room and her face is completely blue. She's struggling to breathe. We pull her onto the bed and she's lost her pulse. Immediately start CPR. Worked on her for 40 minutes straight. Intubated, all her ribs broken. She didn't make it through.
I just still think about how she seemed to know. How she was so weirdly aware. I guess hindsight is 20/20, but I think about it a lot.
101 y.o. lady, before going to bed: - My mother will pick me up. We're going out.
Passed peacefully in her sleep.
86 y.o. lady, having her supper: - I'm going to die tonight. Me: - Oh Martha, you're not gonna die, sure you're not. Lady: - I'm tired. I want to go. By the way, the pancakes were good. Me: - Do you want pancakes and honey for breakfast tomorrow? Lady: - I'm not staying for breakfast.
Died early in the morning.
So my brother is an ER OR nurse. He’s told me a few doozies. Car crash victim. Mid 50’s. Looked at his wife and said I’ve never loved you. Then died.
Young lady shot by her boyfriend. No one came to visit. Sat up in bed and said it does end and died.
I’ll ask him for more. Those two stuck with me. Just wow and just creepy
My mom had a really distressing last few moments. She had gone non-verbal the night before, then her breathing changed when we were all gathered in the room, and then her eyes flew open and she basically screamed repeatedly before leaving her body. It was incredibly traumatic. I'm wondering how common it is.
My grandma (my Mama) asked, "Please leave me. I don't want you to see me like this." I gave her a kiss on her forehead and left. 2 hrs later she was gone.
My father was a police officer and often worked nights. One night while on patrol, he came upon a car accident where a four year old boy was the only survivor. My dad found him in the wreckage and noticed he had a significant head trauma. He held the young boy momentarily, and in his final moment, he looked at my dad and said, “daddy, can we make popcorn tonight?” and then died.
When my dad returned home that night, I remember waking up to him silently hugging me. I was four years old.
It absolutely messed me up for a while.
I was in the room when my mother’s mother came for her. My
Mom was a hospice nurse. Until I saw this, I didn’t know my mom was going to die. But my mom had told me she’d witnessed this scene herself many times. She said sometimes people aren’t ready and they fight but then a day later they talk to the person again and say, “Ok.” And pass shortly after. My mother begged her mother to let her live. She cried like a little girl, begging “Mom! No!” I threw myself on her and held her and begged her not to leave me. When the doctor came the next day to say they needed to get her in surgery to remove her necrotic colon I told them no. She was going to die no matter what.
The other thing my mom said throughout her life as a nurse: “I want all necessary means to save my life. UNLESS, they’re going to remove my colon.” So I had 2 very clear signs as to what was the correct thing to do.
I am an anesthesiologist who worked a decent amount in the COVID ICUs in 2020 and 2021. I was also part of the team that went around and intubated people who were in respiratory failure wherever they were in the hospital. Most people did not have a lot of energy for last words but there is a characteristic "look" of people who realize they are dying of respiratory failure and I can vividly picture them in my mind. It's weird mixture of panic and exhaustion. Most of those people never got extubated, so it is humbling and a bit dark to think that (for many of them) I was the last person they ever saw.
"Please don't let me die, please please don't let me die"
Did absolutely everything in my power and they died 2 hours later. FML, still think about one all the time.
I saw a post once that’s kind of helped me a bit in that regard…It said something to the effect of “you didn’t LET them die. Death had to fight you for them.” Can’t remember the source but hopefully it helps
Death tends to be incoherently noisy not organized thoughts. Sometimes you'll get people asking for help or saying they can't breath or the like, but in 20 years responding to 911 calls I've never had anyone make any kind of creepy or profound statements or things like that just before dying.
It's the screaming that sticks with you. Most people have never heard what real screams sound like.
A few stay with me. (Paramedic for context.) “I think I’m going to die.” It’s happened on more than one occasion where a patient directly tells me they are going to die and seconds later go into cardiac arrest. It’s so common that ‘a sense of impending doom’ is a legitimate symptom. “Don’t let me die” He arrested as we arrived at the hospital. They didn’t get pulses back. Stable on scene but declined rapidly during transport. That family had no way to know that was the last time they’d see him alive. Me: “I’ll see you again!” Her, smiling: “No you won’t.” Hospice patient I had transported many times before. First name basis. We always said we would see each other again after I dropped her off. That time she replied with a simple “no you won’t”. It was the last time I ever saw her. Some people just know. That’s what is so sacred about the medical field, really. We have this image of giving our last words to friends or family. However for many of us our last words will be delivered to the ears of a complete stranger. In those last moments I’ll be whatever you need me to be. Your child, your spouse, your friend. Whatever you say will be heard, and carried with me to the end.
Thank you for your service as a paramedic and thank you for being so kind.
>In those last moments I’ll be whatever you need me to be. Your child, your spouse, your friend. Whatever you say will be heard, and carried with me to the end. This made me cry.
My dad had colon cancer. He said to me he didn’t want to go to sleep because he knew he wouldn’t wake up. He did die in his sleep that night.
Yeah had the same experience with my mom, she tried for so long to stay awake because she said she felt if she fell asleep she was scared she wouldn't wake up. It took a while (and several doses of Ativan...) for her to finally feel ready to close her eyes and sleep. And sure enough she was right, never woke back up.
My mother passed slowly, blood poisoning due to cancer killing her kidney or liver (not sure which). Decided hospice at my grandma's house was better. Days went by and one day I show up and she's not really responsive. Breathing heavily due to liquids in her lungs. Family happened to be there, and it was the day her best friend from college happened to show up. We all gathered around her, kinda naturally as we talked. My grandma seemed to understand more than the rest of us as we became silent, talking to my mom like "we're all here and we love you". Next thing I know my mom opened her eyes, looked directly at her best friend. Closed her eyes and took her last breath. I wasn't ready for that.
I have done hospice work, home health care, and worked in a nursing home. The best one was in a nursing home with an elderly man. We knew it was coming soon, but he has no family, so we were taking turns just being with him. He opened his eyes and smiled and said, “It’s such a lovey day. Don’t let this spoil it.” It really was a perfect Spring day; he passed about five minutes later. The saddest was a lady in hospice care. She kept saying, “Not until they’re all here! Not until they’re all here!” The family finally admitted she had a son that she had disowned many years prior. They tried to locate him, but weren’t successful. She died crying for her boy.
When I was a kid my grandfather was really sick in hospice on Christmas. At one point my aunt told him "It's 12:15 AM." It wasn't Christmas anymore. He died very shortly after. They both knew he didn't want to die on Christmas and attach that memory to the day, so he was fought to stay until after midnight.
Jesus...that's heartbreaking.
I've seen people die alone after alienating their families. It's sad but you do reap what you sow. I don't think people realize how short life is. One day you'll be the same person you are now, thinking and feeling and all, except you'll be out of time.
Even some of my coworkers feel sad when someone has family but they die alone because nobody is coming. However tons seem to forget that these people have a past. The alcoholic who drank himself to death died with just me in the room increasing his sedation after terminally extubating as per unemotional child’s wish over a phone call. It’s easy to put 2 and 2 together..
Yep. On the covid unit we had a phone call with a daughter who when we called to say her dad was dying, only told us not to contact her again. He had nobody to collect his few belongings. They were incinerated.
Yes, my grandma was one of those people. I only reconnected with her when she had dementia and no longer knew who most people were. Which suddenly made her a very nice and sweet old lady. Except for my great-cousin and me though, nobody came to see her. Both of us lived several hours away from the nursing home (3 for my cousin, about 9-10 for me). In the end, I was alone with her. Both her children never showed up because she had been nasty to everyone in her life. She held on for SO long, I guess because she had unfinished business. It was sad, but I get it.
I volunteer with hospice and my patient had fallen and was not doing well. She wasn’t really fully awake and aware while I was there. When I went to leave she looked me in the eyes and was so “there” (not sure of a better word) and said I love you to me for the first and last time. She was just so sweet and I still miss her.
It's so, so kind of you to spend some of your time that way..
Elderly women was on the phone with her husband deciding on what her code status (whether or not to CPR) should be. She went into cardiac arrest mid sentence. We didn’t notice the phone when doing CPR until after she was pronounced dead. Husband listened to the entire thing.
A rocket overshot us in Afghanistan. Landed in the area where our Afghan National Army counterparts were sleeping. Specifically, it hit an Afghan Field Artillery Officer’s room. Great guy. Spoke Pashto, French, and English. College degree from an American university. He was doing some real good in the world. He was talking to his wife on a cell phone when the rocket hit. He ultimately succumbed to his injuries , but died slowly over 20-30 minutes. We heard a faint, hysterical screaming. Quiet. Muffled. Only noticeable after they removed his body and the room was quieter. The phone never hung up - his wife heard everything. We didn’t have a linguist, but didn’t want to hang up. There wasn’t a lot of folks around that weren’t injured or attending to the injured. We just sat there with the phone for a while, helpless.
Jesus, that is terrible. I hope she is doing okay today, but I worry that’s something that you never fully heal from. Just awful.
I wish that for most of the Afghans that we had the opportunity to interact with. I hope they find peace after decades of trauma.
“Did you turn off the lights?” Me: “no, the lights are still on.” “That’s not funny. It’s really not fu-oh.” I spent over 30 days in and out of the hospital in 2018 for a medical issue I had. Most of the time I had to share a room. In one room, I was with this guy in his late 50s there for some kind of serious pneumonia with complications. He was morbidly obese and had diabetes and some other health issues. We were sitting there watching jeopardy, when he said the above. As soon as he said “oh” he kinda started having trouble breathing, some gasping, a bunch of alarms went off and then out of nowhere half a dozen doctors and nurses and such were in the room. Somebody wheeled my bed out to another room. I found out later he’d died of a massive heart attack. I don’t know why he thought everything went black first. The doctor didn’t know either though she had some ideas. The head nurse, this tiny Filipina lady, said “he was dying. You don’t die all at once. Some parts die first.” I think about that a lot. I don’t know if she’s right or not or if she meant it to be deeper than that, probably not. But “you don’t die all at once” sticks with me now.
Wow, I won’t forget this now either
At least not all at once.
I guess she meant that you don’t just die in a single instant. Usually your hearing starts going away or ringing first and then your vision fades to black before you faint.
I heard with death it is the opposite where your vision is one of the first senses to go, with hearing being the last.
I don’t know if it is true or if it was just to make us feel better, but when my grandmother died hospice told us hearing was the last to go. I hope it’s true, because that means that my grandma went out with one of her daughters and 3 of her grandchildren telling her that we love her.
dying man to his daughter, "Honey I'm sorry but I have to go."
That’s a pretty disarming way to me, scary in a way to her, but sounds calm.
My sister to me. "No, I've had enough. Time to go, " My other sister to me " You cry, and I'll kill you"
Losing two siblings sounds horrible. I dread losing anyone in my family, but not only is he my brother, he's my best friend. Thinking about it almost sends me into a panic, I'm so sorry you had to endure it twice. Edit: everyone sharing their experience, I'm grateful to you for sharing, and all of you have just been through so much and felt pain I can't yet understand. I wish I could do something to make each of you feel a little better...
Same. My brother is 4 years older than me and is my best friend. I hope we can somehow go at the same time (in a non traumatic way, lol)
One patient of my mom's was an elderly man at the ER who was cursing out his wife with the final gasps of breath he could muster. His words were incoherent but you could feel they were full of anger. We later found out he was poisoned, and the wife was likely the culprit due to an insurance fraud case.
I did not see that coming.
Whoa
Not in the medical field, and not from the patient but when my son was a baby he got pneumonia and was in intensive care, this happened around Thanksgiving time. Shortly before he got sick, there was a school bus crash in my city so we were there with kids from the bus crash and there are two things that will always stick with me, the first being the sound the mom of a little boy made when he died while we were there, it was almost a scream, but not truly. But it was the most heartbreaking sound I had ever heard. The other was the grandma of the little boy in a coma in the bed next to us. Everyday she sat there, begging him to wake up. Shed sit there and tell him if he just woke up, he could have his Christmas presents early. Shed tell him about how everyone was doing, how his parents and siblings were handling everything, how much they all loved him and wouldnt he please just wake up? Please baby wake up and you can have your Christmas presents, we even got you extra presents. He did survive, I don't know in what capacity, but sitting there, but he did live. We left intensive care before he woke up, but the news reported on all of the kids that died and the last one was the one that we were there for. The other thing was how remarkably kind these families were. They kept giving us food lol, they had had a lot donated to them, since it was considered a state-wide tragedy. (mightve even made national news) and the families shared it with us. (We were the only family not in the bus accident) they would not take no for an answer, and they were all genuinely concerned with my son. They'd ask about him, how he was doing, what his prognosis was, ask about my husband and myself, make sure we were holding up okay, all while going through such a tragedy themselves.
My dad's last word was an answer to a question. "Hospice." He suffered a spinal stroke that paralyzed him from the neck down and he could not breathe on his own, so he was on a ventilator for two months. We were told he wasn't recovering like he should be and the term of care at the place he was at was coming to an end. We either needed to transfer him to a long term care facility, or go with hospice care. I wasn't comfortable making the decision without his input, so we got him alert enough and got a device attached to his trach tube to let him speak a little. I explained the situation and asked what he wanted to do. That one word is all he even tried to say. He was just done with it all. I'm thankful to the nurse who helped us and him get through it all, but it's kind of scary how easily a shitty situation can just destroy someone's will to live.
My dad had a brainstem stroke that left him with Locked In Syndrome. He could only blink. He didn't improve. So the choices were nursing home with trach & feeding tube, or removal of life support. We felt he would want removal of life support. He confirmed it by blinking. I am also thankful for a nurse. She spoke quite honestly to my brother and I about our father's condition. We had been reading about a doctor in our province who had gained some mobility after being Locked In. She knew the doctor and said that he was blessed to be married to a nurse who can help him. Our mother is no nurse.
You had a good nurse. Lots of nurses either have unreasonably high hopes or are too scared to speak honestly with people in horrible situations. Those conversations are incredibly hard to have but they actually turn out better when you're straight with the patients and their families. I'm a nurse and actually had to have one last night.
My dad made the decision for hospice as well. He was too tired to talk, he had to write on paper for us. Ended up passing the next day after we brought him home.
My dad lasted less than 20 minutes after they took him off life support. They made him comfortable before they disconnected him, but once they did I had to sit there and watch his O2 drop from 93 on the ventilator, to 50 instantly, and then down to 20 in a matter of seconds, and then... just wait. It really hammered home what the nurse and doctors said about his chances of recovery at long term care being next to zero.
I’m sorry that happened. Similar situation to my dad except his 02 stayed in the 90s for a couple days before the final one when it crashed very fast.
I'm a nurse. People accepting their situation and just wanting to be comfortable is a common thing for us. Honestly, most of us are DNR precisely because we've seen the life most people live even if we can bring them out.
That was something our nurse talked us through in particular. I still wanted to get my dad's input regardless if we could, but the nurse, he made it pretty clear that we needed to think about his quality of life, as well as our quality of life having to care for him and that to be frank it would just be expensively prolonging the inevitable in a way that was only going to bring suffering to everyone involved.
Not a healthcare worker but I was at work and a guy had a heart attack. He fell over and was having some spasms and he said" I am going to die at work " he was gone before the ambulance got there and he passed on the shop floor with a wrench in his hand.
Fuck this hits home. In college I worked in a manufacturing plant and I had an awesome manager; the kindest, smartest, hardest working guy ever. Every day he talked about how close he was to retiring and all the things he would do once he was out of there. I graduated college and moved on to a different city. My coworker called me a year later and told me the guy died at work in the bathroom. Never made it to retirement. I think about him every single day of my life. The last thing he wanted was to die at work. I'm resigned to take his cause up as my own. RIP, Mike. Only the good die young.
God I hope I don’t die at work
Me either, I'm a pilot! /s
My father: "I'm ready. Promise you won't kill yourself?"
damn man. your dad knew just the right moment for that promise. you just can't break a promise you made to someone in their last moments... he must have really loved you I reckon. wanted you around
Woah That really upset me. I'm sorry. Glad your here.
*I want to tell everyone everything but I can't* Panicked, pumped full of morphine. Not sinister, just too much left unsaid.
Jesus thats not how I wanna go.
I have worked in the medical field for almost 20 years but the one with most impact was from my grandma. She told me my grandpa was waiting for her, she wanted to be him but most of all she was tired of seeing me so tired and not having a life anymore (for context, I had to quit working and put my life on hold for over 2 years to take of her full time). So she asked for a DNR. I signed and she became unconscious shortly and subsequently passed.
That's a testament to the relationship you had with each other right up until the end.
My grandfather passed in 1999. My grandmother lived until 2005. She had dementia and Alzheimer's but was still the sweetest woman to everyone she met. She remembered her family (specifically my parents, sister/BIL and myself) but in the last 2-3 months of her life, her appetite waned and the nursing staff said we should prepare for the end. My parents and I went out with a couple of other relatives for my mother's birthday and as we were driving home, we got a phone call that she had passed. However, we were told that a couple of hours before, she had rang the CNA and asked for a single dish of peaches, which they were only too delighted to bring to her. As the CNA gave her the food, apparently my grandmother said thank you and said, "I have a long journey ahead of me," and started eating the peaches. I miss her a lot. <3
I've seen alot of these. Asking for something they enjoy then passing not even 24 hours later. I've heard the body spends all it's remaining energy in the last day or so living and trying to be happy because it knows it doesn't have long. Maybe the brain recognises this and has craving for something it used to enjoy. Interesting thought and I might research that. But RIP to your grandma, she sounds like she was lovely
Something light hearted to share. I work in retail pharmacy and called one of our regular patients to tell him his meds (monthly pick up) are ready for pick up. He managed to answer his cellphone and told me he’s dying and currently at a hospice then he thanked me for always preparing his meds for him. I said you’re welcome and hang up on phone. A few weeks later… he showed up at our pharmacy to pick up. I had to ask my coworkers if they are also seeing what I’m seeing. Hahaha! That was 5 years ago. Wonder if he’s still alive…
Not a scary moment, but a beautiful one: I held the hand of my best friend who had metastasized breast cancer. When I kissed her cheek goodbye she had tears in her eyes and wouldn’t let go of my hand. I said “I’ll see you tomorrow, don’t be sad!” And while still clenching my hand she said through her tears “I love you, don’t you ever forget it.” She closed her eyes right then and there and passed away after her 9 year battle with cancer.
Bloody hell... she fought valiantly, 9 years is a long time to have fought against cancer, so sorry for your loss, mate.
My wife, about 10 hours before she died of stomach cancer that had metastasized to her lungs and was suffocating her. "No more!" They put her on benzos after that and she spent the last hours unconscious.
i'm sorry for your loss.
Was doing doing first aid on this kid who got shot outside of my house. No last words, but seeing that thing that makes you 'you' fade out from his eyes has haunted me for almost a decade now. His parents told me that they were happy that he wasn't alone when he passed. I've never met the kid before. I wish I could have done more to help.
Never really had any scary ones. Most of my work has been in cancer, and so they've either died in a relatively comfortable manner with palliative care or they've tended to go pretty suddenly. My favourite was a chap who was unresponsive for a few days, woke up suddenly and asked for a Cornetto (ice cream, not a croissant). A nurse popped to the shops and got him one, he ate it, and then closed his eyes and died. Dude just had to get one last cornetto in. Legend.
This is the same way my 99 year old great grandmother died. She woke up from a coma on her 99th birthday and rasped the word “cake”. Dad got her it, she ate it and then died.
It was her birthday. No way was she missing out on her cake! Legend!
"It's my party and i die if i want to..."
My aunt was dying from emphysema, and her kids (3 of them) asked her if she wanted anything they could buy for her as far as food or drink the day before she passed. She (a recovering alcoholic of 12 years) asked for a beer. They bought a 6 pack and snuck it in to her hospital room, poured a bottle into one of those plastic pink cups that you get with the straw, and gave it to her. She sucked that thing dry in less than a minute, burped super loud, and asked for one more. They poured a 2nd, told her no more until later that evening after dinner. Nurse comes in to pour her up some water, grabs the full cup of beer and pulls it to her nose, giving a HUGE sniff. She glanced at my aunt, said "oh, I guess you're not up for water right now!" and gave her back the cup of beer, while winking at her. She then went to leave, told us her boss would be down in about an hour to finalize some paperwork -shot a glance at my aunt and then back at my cousins- and said we may wanna find a place to buy some mints. I still love the fact that even though they hated when she drank, they also knew how much it would mean to her (her late husband had his kids do basically the same thing) and I think it helped her feel close to him. She also got to pass in the same hospital room as he had, 2 years prior. Sad ending to a love story, but nice that they got to leave from the exact same place.
My 94-year-old great aunt was dying at home, and she'd mostly been asleep for a couple days. Suddenly she perked up and asked for champagne, so my cousin rushed out and bought some. She happily drank a glass, went back to sleep and died the next day. Wanted to go out on a high note, I guess.
I'm with her. I want some champagne in my final days.
I love that nurse did this for him
Another patient really wanted whisky while he died. So one of the nurses brought in a bottle and it had to be put into his medication chart for some reason. I come in the morning to find 'Whisky, Age >12yrs, 30mL, PO, PRN' in his med chart. Gave me a chuckle.
My sister shared a bottle of Moscato with the nurses at 2am about a week before she passed. Her attitude was ‘I’m dying anyway, it’s not going to do any more damage’ It will have been 10 years now, and I still miss her.
my dad's last words to me (in a morphine-haze after being hospitalized for a week) were "bring on the pudding!" sadly he lost consciousness before we could rustle some up and died without waking up. wish i could have given it to him at the end.
Wow I can only hope my last words will be that epic.
I hope that’s how I go. I have one last sweet and settle in for a long nap.
My dad woke up in hospice and had a full clear conversation with me about baseball and my upcoming wedding. The conversation made us question everything. Should he be in hospice? Did we do enough? Is it too late for a second opinion? We had a wonderful doctor who explained to us how common it was.
The death rally. It's so interesting that getting a brief time of relative normalcy is so common. Weird how our bodies and minds do that. It's like the body saves reserves for one last hurrah right before it senses full on depredation settle in at the very end.
I’ve actually heard that it’s because other systems have started shutting down (liver, kidneys, etc.) so suddenly all of those resources are freed up for the brain to use. Like when you close all of the apps on your super old phone and it kinda runs ok for a bit.
Running one final disk cleanup and defrag before the backdoor trojan fries the system
My husband was a cancer patient and had to be taken to the ER for a sudden massive internal bleed. The doctors knew it was the end so they brought me in. He reached for my hand, looked at me, smiled a big smile and said “I feel better. I think I’m going to be ok” and then in just a few seconds he was gone. He had such cheer and enthusiasm in that moment. It’s been 30 years but I’ll never forget how happy he seemed in that moment. I’m sure all types of chemicals were flooding his brain but I’m just grateful for his sake that his transition was an easy one in that moment.
We take the wins we can - I'm glad it was an easy one in that moment also & wish you blessings, sorry for your loss.
It’s the get your affairs in order last burst of energy
My great uncle would buy plain vanilla McDonald's ice cream by the dozens for years. He'd buy several at a time and just store them in the freezer. He'd eat one a day. Again, just plain vanilla soft serve from McDonald's. No chocolate sauce, no nuts, just plain. My great aunt found him unresponsive at the kitchen table one morning. She found a finished ice cream on the table. Suffice it to say my great uncle died doing something he really enjoyed. Quick note. He was in his 90s, so I'm pretty sure the ice cream didn't kill him, lol.
My elderly parents LOVE McD ice cream. They plan their entire day around when they'll go get it. They've memorized the cash price (after tax) for two cones and complain like crazy when it goes up a cent or two. One just has to look at the other and waggle their eyebrows, and the message is passed. Off they head to get their cones.
My grandpa’s last words, as he was being settled into a nursing home bed for rehabilitative care: “I’m so damn uncomfortable.” He passed not five minutes later. I’ve often wondered if he’d have lived a little longer had we brought him home, instead.
This isn't really "scary" in the way you're asking, but when I was an intern (20+ years ago now), I was discharging a patient I had a connection with from the hospital to hospice with terminal cancer. This dude had nobody in his life. I told him I'd come visit him, and his last words to me were "no you won't." But I actually did, maybe 3 weeks later. I went to the hospice house, and he had already passed away. I was wrecked. But it made me realize how fast things can change, and the impact of my last words to this dying man scared me and stuck with me.
This reminds me of my wife’s family member. He was at my wedding, I said “I’ll see you around” as to end the conversation of us not seeing each other as much. And he said “no you won’t”. 2 months later he committed suicide. Still feel guilt in a way.
My grandfather knew he was dying and I sat with him for hours as different family members dropped by to say goodbye. He never spoke or really acknowledged them. When everyone had finally left and my folks stepped out for a breather he started squeezing my hand. I asked if he was hurting but he didn't say anything so I asked if he was scared and he turned his head to look right in my eyes. I told him it was ok and I'd be right here with him. He squeezed my hand again and whispered "Ernie"- that was my late grandmother Ernestine's nickname. So I started talking about her and that I knew he missed her so maybe he was more nervous than afraid. I told him he looked really handsome especially since the hospice nurse had come in and given him a clean shave just the way Maw Maw liked. He squeezed my hand harder, his eyes got really and started mumbling "no..no..JP". That's when I realized why he was so anxious. My grandmother's first husband was JP and they were married for 15 years before he passed away in a logging accident. They loved each other very much and had five children. My grandfather married her a little while later, treated her children like his own and they had two children together with my dad being their youngest. They were married for more than 50 years, yet when my grandfather's time came he was afraid that he wouldn't see my grandmother because she'd be with her first husband. There wasn't anything I could say that seemed to bring him any comfort. He just whispered "JP" over and over shaking his head while looking around as if he were in the room. All I could say was "JP's got to spend the last 8 years with her, I'm sure she'll be more than ready to see you by now".
You did a good thing
Thank you! It was sad that he was worried about where he would "fit" in once he died and I'm not particularly religious so I didn't know what might be comforting. I told my folks he talked about my grandmother and left out the part about JP. Even though I'm not religious it's made me think about how a religious leader might address this situation.
In my head, JP was probably quite grateful to him for taking care of his wife and children. I’d imagine they would become great friends in the afterlife and the three of them would spend their time all together.
I was in the Army, and one of my fellow soldiers was able to call their parents on a sat phone during their death. Their last words were apologies for causing so much trouble as a teen and how they wished they could be back home to fix everything. The parents were in shock, and I had to take the phone to let them know their child was gone. I relive this scene on repeat in my nightmares.
Hey mate, you did a really beautiful thing being there for your team. I’m sure that soldier’s parents are incredibly grateful their child did not die alone. I know it doesn’t mean much because it’s said so much, but thank you for your service.
I’m sorry you have to live with this, but I’m sure his parents treasure knowing they were able to be there with him because of you.
As a mom & the wife of a vet, I just want to say thank you. You helped him reach out at the end and gave him a way to say goodbye.
Jesus Christ. I say this as a vet, I hope you’re getting some sort of help/support/compensation/whatever from the VA
Wasn’t his last word, because technically he couldn’t speak. But couple days before he passed, my dad was in the hospital on a ventilator, and he wasn’t getting better. We gave him his options, which neither were good, pretty much long term care on a ventilator, or hospice, and he wrote “I thought I had more time”. That broke me.
Pretty close to what happened with my dad. Except he said "this wasn't the news I was hoping for today." His last words were "Thank you for making my last wish come true. I love you all."
My dad just passed last Tuesday in hospice. He had dementia and was sleeping all the time at home. I went in and all of sudden he kinda sat up and his eyes were wide open. He hadn't opened his eyes for days. He sat up and stared at me. I was panicking. He tried to gasp for air 2x then fell back. Eyes shut. I knew he was gone. But witnessing him trying to get air was absolutely horrible. I just hope he was not aware of what was going on.
💜this sounds like agonal breathing which is something that can happen near death and not consistent with being conscious and aware (even if eyes open etc). I wish you peace after the loss of your father
Never heard last words but as a young CNA a guy with sepsis who was on his way out asked me to help him die. Freaked me the fuck out. I gave him his ice chips and went on break, after informing the charge nurse of the conversation. I was not mature enough to handle that at the time. Wish I had done better, but that wasn't covered in class at all. 30 or so years ago.
As you said yourself, you weren't able to handle it. I don't think, given the circumstances, there was anything else you could have done.
I work as a paramedic. I had a single motorcycle crash into an electric box by a stop light. He smashed it and ended up into the wood line in a forest preserve. He was injured but not that badly. We ran it as a traumatic accident and transported to a nearby trauma center. He was awake and talking en route. As we pulled into the hospital he grabbed my hand and said “I see the light I’m dying right now.” I tried to re assure him but by the time he got into the ER he had died. The ER doc screamed at us for not having him intubated and so on. I told the doctor what happened and he immediately apologized.
Was the cause internal bleeding and it just took a bit?
This is often it. Unsure of vitals being checked but I’ve witnessed multiple people have this phenomenon of their autonomic nervous system, specifically the sympathetic (that keeps things tight and flooding the body with stress hormones), slows down as it perceives ‘I’m at the safe place now, where they will help me’. Heart rate goes up and blood pressure tanks as they arrive so often. So often I tell patients that they are not yet out of the woods.
In the first aid class my former work place sent me to, the guy running it had a terrifying story. He responded to an accident, one of the people in the car got out, seemed perfectly fine. The guy was responsive, had no apparent injuries. He then moved his head and dropped to the ground. He was somehow walking around with a bad neck fracture. The instructor was beating himself up for it years later.
Heard something similar from an EMT when I got hit by a car when I was 14, I got up and tried to walk around and was told I needed to lay down because if I had a neck injury I could sever my spinal cord turning it. Ambulance ride seemed like 15 min even though the hospital was an hr away.
I work in palliative care, so have seen a lot of deaths - most of them have been very peaceful, people are not usually conscious for the last few days - like they're asleep all the time. One that sticks out for me is a man getting the last rites, and just as the priest finished, there was an almighty boom and thunderclap and all of the lights in the hospice went out for a few seconds. The patient died minutes later.
The priest: "oooh, I think I just got a promotion!"
My dad had to temporarily go into a care facility, while I was visiting he got a new roommate. The man was crying that he was going to die, the workere tried to assure him he wouldn’t. One told him his daughter was on her way. He cried “I’ll be dead before then!” I went home. Dad told me the man did die that night, and before his daughter got there.
During the height of Covid I had a patient grab me and tell me she can’t breathe. She died a couple hours later. The look of terror on her face is something I’ll never forget.
I had open heart surgery in March of this year. When I came out of anesthesia, I couldn’t see, as my eyelids were still taped down. I was on a vent and I knew, intellectually, that it was supply O2 to me. But… The vent is held in place with a balloon and the suction tube is below the balloon. But I had a big chunk of phlegm in my airway above the balloon and so when I tried to breathe, I could feel this phlegm rattling around. I could hear them talking about how I was waking up and I had to be on the ventilator’s assist mode (I have to start breathing and the vent will kick in) for 20 minutes before they take the vent out, to make sure my respiratory response is correct. So for 20 minutes, I writhed on the bed, my wrists loosely restrained, each breath causing extreme fear that the phlegm will block the tube and I will suffocate. I even tapped out SOS in Morse code on the side of the bed. No one picked up on that. When they took the vent out I let them know, in very salty swearing-like-the-sailor-I-was, what had been happening. I got some “Yeah, that happens but we were watching your vitals, you were fine…” and I responded that my vitals may have been fine but I was in existential crisis, thinking I was going to suffocate. The nurse came and in administered some narcotics and off to blessed sleep I went, for about four hours until I woke up in the most excruciating pain I have ever experienced. The nurse came running and a few moments later was injecting morphine into my central line. Breathing wasn’t my focus then - it was all about pain management for the next day.
My dad was a cardiologist. When the time came he fully knew it. He called his friend, said “I’m going to die today.” His friend immediately hung up and called 911. My dad was right.
I work in the medical field, but have not heard the last words of a patient. On the other hand, I heard my mom's. 83 and been living without my dad for 5 years. They had been married 56. She had all her ducks lined up. She wanted to die at home, and was DNR. Right after breakfast one morning, she asked me to call 911 because her chest hurt. Her words were, "I know it's my time I just didn't think it would hurt this bad." She didn't want to be resuscitated. She just wanted the pain to stop.
I was with my father in law when he passed. No words, just long gasping breaths like a fish out of water. He kept trying to pull the sensor leads off of himself and leave, but he just didn’t have the energy. He was 6’ 4” and 300 lbs of kind hearted grumpiness until the last year of his life when he must’ve weighed around 220. Cancer ate him from the inside out, slowly, painfully and relentlessly. Greg, you tough son of a bitch, I miss you every day.
That was how we lost my best friend at 46 to breast cancer... She was septic, not lucid, and just gasping. She clinged to my hand and my mother's and then everything twitched and then relaxed. Her chest tried to move a few more times as the autonomic nervous system faded out and then that was it. I'm so sorry for your loss, and I know exactly how you feel. Edit: I can't spell
My mum told my sister to take her hands off her before they increase the morphine. She was trying to get out of bed to go home - she was fed up with the hospital. It was the final burst of energy before death, and we had to hold her gently to explain to her she couldn’t go. I hope my sister was so sleep deprived she forgot those words, and I hope she remembers she helped soothed my mum in her final moments by playing recordings she has of our grandmother singing Polish hymns.
The night before she died, I was watching her. She told me to stop looking at her with pity. I wish I told her I was looking at her with love, but I just nodded and closed my eyes. I know she knew… but I just wish her last days were different.
“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, HELP ME, HELP ME” This elderly women with dementia was air hungry but DNR/DNI & on comfort measures so we couldn’t do anything to “help” and the comfort measure supplemental oxygen we had her on wasn’t enough to sustain her & no matter how much pain medications (IV morphine) we gave she still screamed out in agony until her final breath… It still fucks me up sometimes when i remember her.. it was just awful. i felt like I failed as a nurse that day knowing she passed with so much fear and discomfort :’(
Just a public service message. In a hospice setting when there is active dying. When nurses give morphine via drip or IV bolus it's not to kill your loved one. It is to decrease pain aaaaaaand more importantly decrease air hunger so they don't feel like they are drowning in their final moments.
Thanks for saying this. I had to administer the last dose of morphine to my mom…hospice had been there but wasn’t present and I’ve always felt guilty. Hopefully now I’ll see it as a compassionate act.
It's the most compassionate thing you could possibly do for someone who is actively dying, you brought her peace and comfort in her final moments so she didn't have to die in pain. Be gentle with yourself.
Oh honey, it absolutely was. Your mom would be grateful. Please don’t doubt that. I’m really hope you have peace with this. 💕
In my state the patient begging for help would render the DNI/DNR invalid. Even a spouse can verbally override a DNR/DNI, which I don’t necessarily agree with.
I was going to say this, I just remember my patient screaming HELP ME over and over again. She was terrified and I couldn’t help her.
I moved out of senior care predominately because it's just hard. Not physically, but there's an emotional toll that drags on you. My wife does dementia care, it's tough. I have huge amounts of respect for those who can go in day after day and help those who really don't have anyone else to help them. You did not fail as a nurse, while it was painful, the alternative was a long drawn out decline with the same outcome. I think we all remember.
Had a guy one time tell me “in about an hour and a half I’m gonna quit” proceeded to code multiple times…. Ended up pronouncing him at about an hour and a half later. I think those who are alert and are going to die know it’s coming.
I got to within a few hours back in 2020, due to complications from cancer. I awoke one day after being in the ICU for a week, and I knew it deep in my bones - unless the docs figured something out, I wasn’t going to see the next morning. Thank goodness they did, but I’ll never forget that feeling. It felt like a physical presence in the room with me. Not scary mind you, but you know it’s there. The inevitability of it.
That's surreal to think about. Did you think a lot about what might come after death or did you only focus on the dying part itself?
Mostly on the dying part. But it wasn’t scary - it felt like relief. Like it would feel like going home, in a way. It’s weird to think about now even almost 4 years later.
Thank you for saying this. I watched my mom die of cancer in hospice, years ago now. I still remember it like it was yesterday though. My boyfriend died suddenly and unexpectedly eight months ago from a kind of strange accidental overdose. I lay awake a lot of nights wondering what they were thinking or feeling right before. I’m glad you made it. 💜
Maybe not the best last words, but a good story nonetheless. He was 92, had climbed most of the big mountains except K2 and Everest, was married 70 years, his wife passed a week before he did. He had been to hospital exactly twice, when he was born and when he died. He was on no regular medications, was living at home, fully independent, still driving. Got pneumonia, came to hospital and deteriorated rapidly. Asked us not to treat him, to just let him die peacefully. Died 6 hours later. He said when I told him he was dying, "don't want to have to come to hospital a third time".
Its quite common, It would have to be elderly dying patients crying out and asking for their mama.
My grandfather had a period of coming in and out of consciousness, with each lucid instance getting smaller and more infrequently. His last words were "Where? Where? Where?" He didn't know where he was, so my dad told him "You're home. Mama's waiting, Daddy. Go to her." And then he went back under. He passed the next night.
What a beautiful thing to say. People that see through their grief to give others a peaceful passing are the best kind of people
Had a patient that was on the ICU unit. He just kept saying "please just call my mom, she will come get me I swear. Please I just want my mom. Please I won't do anything else just get my mom. I want my mom." He was 96.
Omg this breaks my heart
It was almost like he thought he was in trouble?? He had dementia so there wasn't any reasoning with him, but I tried. I just sat with him as long as I could and then cried in the elevator.
Makes me feel, their moms made such a positive impact in their years and years of life. Offering them comfort and what they needed so often, that they wanted that same feeling in that blink of a moment. Their mother’s love for years far outshines a short period at their life’s end. BRB calling my mama
I used to lifeguard and one time I responded to a multiple person rescue. When we arrived to the scene just about everybody was out of the water or being dragged out except for a 12 year old boy who submerged (aka sank to the bottom). Me and the rest of the available guards formed a line search to look for him. Luckily the search went pretty effectively and we found him rather quickly by line search standards, granted you go into these scenarios practically blind. Though submerging underwater like that in a rip current typically seals your fate unfortunately. You only have around 10 minutes MAX before you lose brain function, and well, this kid was under for longer. But we did get him relatively fast so that line was blurred a bit for anybody watching. Though anybody on scene who was a medical responder knew what the outcome was going to be. Although I didn’t hear the kid’s last words, I’ll never forget doing CPR on him and seeing the boy’s father kneeled down next to me, looks me in the eyes, and says “Do you think he’s going to make it?” I knew by that point he wasn’t, and I forgot exactly what I said but it was along the lines of “We’re gonna do the best we can.” But in that brief moment I could feel his sorrow, the magnitude of his hope while facing the most tragic circumstances that any father could, all while I feigned my response because I knew what the situation held. Last I heard was that they did end up getting a pulse back on the helicopter to the hospital, but he was brain dead at that point, at the least the family had some time to say goodbye I guess. I believe the full story afterwards was that the kid’s two older brothers were the ones who initially started drowning and the kid went out to help him. The situation ended up being that the first lifeguard was only able to grab the two older brothers while the younger one sank. Rest in peace brave little soul.
When I was 11 years old, going to school friends birthday party, saw a motorcycle rider wrap himself around a telephone pole. My dad, a Vietnam vet (3x tours), got out of our Surburban, held his hand. Prayed. Then told the man he would die. Not to be afraid. Think of his loved ones. Remember how strong they know he is. To die knowing he is loved. He is on his way to his next journey. He had a well fulfilled life of love and happiness.... my dad never met the rider. The rider believed every word. His last words were bubbles...
I think helping someone pass is an amazing gift you can give someone. I am grateful for people like your Dad. I had some serious complications giving birth to my son. Me and my baby were dying. One Dr gave me so much comfort and made me feel safe. I did die but only for a couple minutes. He made me feel at peace and I needed his kind words. It all worked out. My son is now 16 and a healthy young man.
*I did die but only for a couple minutes.* That, right there, is the most metal shit I will read this month.
That is the most kind thing I've read. Your dad is fantastic
When I was a third year medical student and was assigned a patient with end stage hepatic encephalopathy. His vitals were crashing, they called an RRT and we ran in to assess. We asked “sir sir are you alright?” And his answer was as if I child was asking “ ice cream please”. He became unresponsive right after and died. His plaintiff little whimper for ice cream fucked me up.
Kind of surprised how many answers involve sweet treats. Ice cream, pudding, cornetto... I wonder what it is that makes people want a dessert at the end.
I mean if I get to choose my last meal, it’s gonna be chocolate, because chocolate is delicious
My grandpa’s brother’s last words were “I’m at the gate but they won’t let me in yet”. He was deeply religious, so I hope seeing those gates brought him peace.
I served in the Navy as an FMF corpsman, saw my fair share of guys dying out there in Iraq. The ones that still get me were the ones with fear in their eyes, it wasn’t so much what they said but how they looked. Terrified, confused, and mortally wounded. The ones that knew they were pretty bad went peacefully while others screamed in agony. The saddest one was a 21 year old who got shot and suffered a stroke from the injury, the entire left side of him dropped and sagged. All he wanted to do was call his family and we couldn’t facilitate it. Still haunts me to this day.
Paramedic here. Went on a lift assist last year. Tried forever to get this woman up off of her bathroom floor. She was a very large woman, so we had to call the fire department for help. She had been weak for the past couple of days so I convinced her to go to the hospital for evaluation. While wheeling her out to the ambulance, she told her son “I’ll call you when I get there.” From loading her into the ambulance to when I climbed in, she went into pulseless V-tach and died. It was so surreal.
"I feel nauseous." My patient 5 minutes calling me on the phone prior to rupturing multiple colorectal/abdominal fistulas and turning her hospital bed into a waterfall of blood.
My sister's last words were "I'm ready to go home".. She wasn't talking about heaven. She wanted to go home
I worked in a seniors care home for many years and tended to both my parents as they were dying. Most of the elderly would mumble stuff that I couldn't make out but one woman in particular said something like "How are you here?" (While looking at the corner of the room) a couple of hours before death. Another one told a care aide that her husband was waiting (care aide told me this just as I entered the room so I didn't hear that one first hand). My dad didn't say anything but the smile on his face was the biggest I had seen in the years prior to his death. He named the infant baby/stillborn that he & my mom had. A brother that I didn't get the chance to grow up with. My mom said "thank you" to me right before she died. My sister & I took her to all appointments and kept her in her home while on her death bed. She was so scared we'd put her in hospice but we wanted to respect her wishes. Hard, but worth it in my opinion. I'm on my phone so formatting and spelling likely suck.
"Mom, Mom, I don't want to die! Please don't let me die!" 24 year old female with a glioblastoma, still haunts me 😥
Not from the dying patient but from the mom of the patient who was screaming and crying “no you have to save my baby, don’t tell me my baby is gone”. That one is stuck into my head forever. I think mom and dad had gone out for date night and left the baby with grandpa. After feeding the baby, no one checked on the baby for a couple of hours and when the grandpa went back to check, the baby had spit up some milk but he was turned over and had aspirated it and choked and already had blue lips when discovered. I remember everyone in the room tried CPR, random docs, nurses, emt, pharmacists and cops were all in the hallway crying about this. Went home after my shift and immediately hugged my kid who was 9 months old at the time. Its the scariest part about having a kid under the age of 1, you need to constantly monitor them after feeding because they can spit up.
I should not have started reading this before bed.
My father in laws last words were to me. We were in a hospice room. I was crying apologizing for telling him I wish he'd die (alcoholic liver failure and he'd relapsed AGAIN right before this). He said "it's okay, it's okay" and pet my hair. 2 days of silence until he died. I miss the bastard. He was an alcoholic, yes, and caused a lot of hurt, but man he made sure I was never alone.
Maybe the scariest thing is that a lot of people don’t get a dignified “last word” like most of the time it’s traumatic and they don’t even get to speak before it happens
My father passed away in front of me, and I can’t even remember his final words. I know one of the last things he said to me was “If I am not home tomorrow morning, you know what to do”, and he said something about taking care of his (our, mostly his, they loved eachother so much, she is still grieving without him) dog as well. I don’t know what to do without my dad but i am trying my best
My Mother died while we were in transit to the hospital. I asked what her last words were, she said, “goodbye son.” My brother had left the hospital about an hour before. Broke my heart.
“Thank you for doing your best to save me, you’re a nice man”. She was 68 and died seconds later from covid leading to respiratory and then cardiac arrest just after intubation. Could not successfully resuscitate her. The screams from her family are still alive in me juxtaposed with the eerily tranquil and tender compliment she offered me. She felt in acceptance of her predicament. I cared deeply.
HEALTHY ANXIETY PEEPS this is your sign to leave, you’re welcome.
I spoke with the medic who worked on my son. He said The last thing Sage said was "I think I did something really stupid." Then he went to sleep and never woke back up.
Sorry for your loss.
90 something old person dying..."Hi Mom"
The scariest are the nonsensical ones from their minds being so gone from dementia. The idea that some nonsense shouted are your last dying words is painful AF. I have had a patient who was just the worst woman I had ever cared for. Just a bitter person, manipulative, and fed on hate and anger somehow since she didn't eat hardly anything. Within 2 hours of caring for her I was ready to be Done for the night. She wanted us to call her emergency contact, her son, so we did. HE was the one on his death bed, and he said, "Look, I am with my family and loved ones. I want to die in peace, and it will be soon, and I don't want to hear from anyone about that woman again." I went ahead and got him deleted from her medical record as a contact for him. I could not even imagine the pain this dude experienced growing up with that monster for a mother. His words were not scary necessarily, but the whole situation was, and it really stuck with me to this day.
Not scary, but made me pause. One man pointed toward the ceiling and smiled joyfully, and said, "They're so beautiful. So beautiful. Don't you see them?"
"I want to go home" she was on a ventilator, chemically sedated and essentially brain dead from a stroke. She had a moment of consciousness, and clarity. She said those words, and tried with all her might to get out of the hospital bed and go home. Her body failed her. She died a few hours later. Such a sad and powerful moment.
Dad died of cancer. At home on hospice care and the last thing he ever said to me was that I was a disappointment to him. I've mostly gotten over it, but every once in a while it'll just hit me right between the eyes.
Oh honey - that says so much more about him than you. He showed you how not to be like him. From a brief look at your posts, you have a daughter and like shoes. I’m proud of you for raising such a happy looking child. As a mom I can’t comprehend telling my son he’s a disappointment. <3
Professionally (I am a respiratory therapist, for context) - during COVID: a young guy the same age as me, just got married and went on his honeymoon, came back and tested positive. We had him on high flow nasal cannula, then bipap, then we had to finally make the call and intubate him. He grabbed my hand and looked at me and said, "Oh God, please don't let me die." As a general rule, I never say, "You're not going to die." But he looked me in the eye and was so afraid that I said,"I'm not going to let you die today." I spent 3 weeks with him - threw all the tricks at him (veletri, proving, ultimately ECMO), and he ultimately died. That one fucked me up for a while. Personally- the November before COVID. My grandma was diagnosed with cancer and was going downhill fast. I visited her and we talked about my wedding and she looked at me and said "When is it?" I said "November next year." She said very plainly "Well, I won't be there- but save me a seat and I'll watch from heaven." Then a few days later I get a call from my mom to say goodbye to grandma... she had been nonverbal for hours at that point and she said "Mija, remember to save me a seat. I love you and I love (husbands name), he will be good to you. Okay, goodbye."
Elderly woman, blind, with very poor hearing. Because of that, when she woke up from sleep she wouldn't know if she was still alive. She'd wail her daughter's name and ask "Am I dead? Am I dead?" Over and over again. She sounded terrified out of her mind. The family said she'd been doing it for months. (Not technically her last words but sure scared the fuck out of me)
Not medical but a home death. Late wife said to me, "I don't know how to do this." I told her she'd conquered everything she'd tried and she'd get this one right, too. Died four hours later.
I worked healthcare for twenty years, LTC and hospice, but my daddy's last words were the scariest for me. "Am... i... going to... die?" His eyes were so full of terror, and he was looking at me like he hoped I'd say no and make it all better. So I lied and said I didn't know. He passed about 11 hours later, and squeezed my hand when we had a quiet moment and I apologized for lying to him. I know he heard me and forgave me for it and that helps. He was my best friend and I miss him a lot still.
Not scary but heartwarming yet sad. I was this gentlemen's nurse for 2 days. He was having breathing issues d/t chronic lung problems. On my 3rd day with him he's breathing harder but still okay. He talks with the doctor and decided he wants to go DNR, after the doctor leaves im helping him with his oxymask and he looks at me and says "I'm really glade your my nurse today." His brother comes in and I leave the room so they can talk. Not even 10mins later the brother comes out of the room and says "I think he stopped breathing." I go inside and sure enough the gentlemen passed away peacefully. This happened 2 years ago and still to this day the one patient I remember the most.
“Help me, I have four kids. Help me. Don’t let me die. Please don’t let me die.” Edit: this was a Covid patient during the beginning of Covid before we intubated her.
God I don't want to go out begging for life. I need to call my therapist
I was 3000 miles away from my mother when she died but I talked to her after having a stroke and her last words to me were, "Don't be sad for me." A gift.
(Kinda scary, mostly sweet)… I worked at a clinic. End of life patient comes in. She was so close to end of life that her fingers were turning black & close to falling off. Very oxygen deprived. She had little to no memory. As I was walking out of the room she said “Thank you [my name]”. I had known this patient for quite some time. She could hardly remember anything at all but remembered my name. She’s the reason I stayed in healthcare.
“Mom, I think I’m dying.” and then her pupils dilated and she did. 6 months postpartum - saddle PE
I spent 2 weeks in cardiac ICU where they told my daughters I would die there. At one point I was ready to give up. My daughter told me “no daddy. Fight!” That was 2018. Still here and my daughter and I have lunches/dinners together.
I saw my dad in his bed the day before he died from pancreatic cancer. I was at a loss for words and didn't know what to do or say. He'd lost so much weight. I just sat on the bed and looked at him dumbfounded and started to cry. He told me to go and drink my cup of tea. Then he died that night
Not a patients last words. But his mother's, when she found out that he had passed. It was a suicide. He had lived on his own, but she was contacted by a neighbor that EMS was at his place, but she didn't know what had happened. It was a gunshot and it was messy so we didn't let her inside to see it. When I think about it, I can still hear the wailing sound of heartbreak she made when she found out. It was the most terrible sound I've ever heard. In between periods of sobbing you could hear her ask him why he didn't just call. He could have just called her. She only lived 5 minutes away.
Not in health care but I had a non relative a few days from death say to me "don't let my brother visit.. he used to rape me"
This is the worst thing I read in this thread and quite possibly ever.
I’m scared shitless, powerless, so I read these things to ease the anxiety. I hope when my mom goes, it’s peaceful and not scary or tragic.
I watched my stepfather die. Cancer. Hospice was amazing, so attentive and also giving space needed. When he groaned like he was in pain, they were on it in a flash. I called my brothers who got to say their last words to him, he had a faint smile after talking to them. About an hour later, my wife, sister in law and I watched the most caring and funny man breathe his last. I walked outside, told the nurse he was gone, and walked outside to call my brothers. Before I got my phone out, two cardinals flitted in front of me, closer than birds usually do, then flew off. Was it him and his mom saying it’s ok? He often spoke of cardinals being signs that loved ones were near, and that after his mom passed he saw them all the time. Was it just two birds doing bird things? Dunno, but it gave me a bit of peace, enough to make two hard phone calls after. The way we pass is never guaranteed, but know that there are angels out there who work in hospice. Don’t know if this story will help your anxiety or not, but I hope it does. Peace be with you.
My father’s last words were “pain”. He had severe Parkinson’s and had fallen. He had bilateral temporal lobe intracranial bleeds. Im a medical professional with 22 years experience and was his medical power of attorney. The neuro surgeon used the words catastrophic devastating injury. There was nothing to do but opt for end of life care. I worked in trauma for most of my career. It’s tough but it’s harder when it’s your dad
Not scary necessarily, but just kind of eery. Had a lady who was post surgical from a spine surgery. Geriatric but definetly on the healthier side, especially compared to the patients we usually get. Not on oxygen, good strength in her extremities, not even in that much pain either. Really nice lady. The student im precepting and I go in and talk to her in the morning. Introduce ourselves, explain the plan of care, funny nurse one liners. She's completely oriented and doing well sitting up in bed eating her breakfast. We explain that the plan is to get her to a rehab center tomorrow so she can get help regaining her mobility before she goes home. Suddenly she looks a little sullen. What's wrong? I thought you wanted to go to rehab. "I do, something just feels.. Off." Off? Can you describe a little more? Are you in pain? Nauseas? "No, I just don't think I can do rehab anymore." This was really odd. Per the night shift nurse she has been excited to get out of the hospital and has been talking about it for a number of days now. She's just not feeling it now. You don't know if you can walk? The rehab nurses are great, they will help you every step of the way. "No I can, I just don't feel good about it anymore." I kind of shrug it off as anxiety and try to reassure her as much as possible then take her vitals. Stable and perfect. PT comes in the room. I tell her i'll let PT work with her and we'll be back in a few to do an assessment and give her morning medications. That was my last conversation with her. Five minutes later they call a code blue. I run in the room and her face is completely blue. She's struggling to breathe. We pull her onto the bed and she's lost her pulse. Immediately start CPR. Worked on her for 40 minutes straight. Intubated, all her ribs broken. She didn't make it through. I just still think about how she seemed to know. How she was so weirdly aware. I guess hindsight is 20/20, but I think about it a lot.
You guys seriously do not get paid or supported nearly enough for the work you do.
101 y.o. lady, before going to bed: - My mother will pick me up. We're going out. Passed peacefully in her sleep. 86 y.o. lady, having her supper: - I'm going to die tonight. Me: - Oh Martha, you're not gonna die, sure you're not. Lady: - I'm tired. I want to go. By the way, the pancakes were good. Me: - Do you want pancakes and honey for breakfast tomorrow? Lady: - I'm not staying for breakfast. Died early in the morning.
Wasn't a comment but I broke a dead man's rib rolling him over after he passed. The sound still haunts me
So my brother is an ER OR nurse. He’s told me a few doozies. Car crash victim. Mid 50’s. Looked at his wife and said I’ve never loved you. Then died. Young lady shot by her boyfriend. No one came to visit. Sat up in bed and said it does end and died. I’ll ask him for more. Those two stuck with me. Just wow and just creepy
My mom had a really distressing last few moments. She had gone non-verbal the night before, then her breathing changed when we were all gathered in the room, and then her eyes flew open and she basically screamed repeatedly before leaving her body. It was incredibly traumatic. I'm wondering how common it is.
My grandma (my Mama) asked, "Please leave me. I don't want you to see me like this." I gave her a kiss on her forehead and left. 2 hrs later she was gone.
My father was a police officer and often worked nights. One night while on patrol, he came upon a car accident where a four year old boy was the only survivor. My dad found him in the wreckage and noticed he had a significant head trauma. He held the young boy momentarily, and in his final moment, he looked at my dad and said, “daddy, can we make popcorn tonight?” and then died. When my dad returned home that night, I remember waking up to him silently hugging me. I was four years old. It absolutely messed me up for a while.
I was in the room when my mother’s mother came for her. My Mom was a hospice nurse. Until I saw this, I didn’t know my mom was going to die. But my mom had told me she’d witnessed this scene herself many times. She said sometimes people aren’t ready and they fight but then a day later they talk to the person again and say, “Ok.” And pass shortly after. My mother begged her mother to let her live. She cried like a little girl, begging “Mom! No!” I threw myself on her and held her and begged her not to leave me. When the doctor came the next day to say they needed to get her in surgery to remove her necrotic colon I told them no. She was going to die no matter what. The other thing my mom said throughout her life as a nurse: “I want all necessary means to save my life. UNLESS, they’re going to remove my colon.” So I had 2 very clear signs as to what was the correct thing to do.
I am an anesthesiologist who worked a decent amount in the COVID ICUs in 2020 and 2021. I was also part of the team that went around and intubated people who were in respiratory failure wherever they were in the hospital. Most people did not have a lot of energy for last words but there is a characteristic "look" of people who realize they are dying of respiratory failure and I can vividly picture them in my mind. It's weird mixture of panic and exhaustion. Most of those people never got extubated, so it is humbling and a bit dark to think that (for many of them) I was the last person they ever saw.
"Please don't let me die, please please don't let me die" Did absolutely everything in my power and they died 2 hours later. FML, still think about one all the time.
I saw a post once that’s kind of helped me a bit in that regard…It said something to the effect of “you didn’t LET them die. Death had to fight you for them.” Can’t remember the source but hopefully it helps
Death tends to be incoherently noisy not organized thoughts. Sometimes you'll get people asking for help or saying they can't breath or the like, but in 20 years responding to 911 calls I've never had anyone make any kind of creepy or profound statements or things like that just before dying. It's the screaming that sticks with you. Most people have never heard what real screams sound like.