Have You Ever Watched Someone Die??? (see details)?

Question

This was inspired by the Death Penalty question just a few threads down. HAVE you ever witnessed a death? How did it affect you?

For the record, I was witness to a shotgun suicide. I also abhor the death penalty. That's probably why.

xX_DarkTr.....how well I understand. I lost my fiance.

Answer 1

I have been in on the death vigils for parents and grandparents... It's not fun but it is better to be able to say good by to the beloved one than to have a "Suprise" death. I have grieved both and the peace of having said all that could be said did reduce the most painful part of the grief... Suicides and murders are extra hard to take...
I almost became a hospice worker and I know a few and they say that helping people live their last weeks and days and hours is in a slightly different way like the maternity ward, except it is to make the transition to the other side as pain free and pleasant as possible... I have visited many a friend in the Hospice but was not there at the exact time of death.

my answer says nothing about the death penalty but you asked if I ever watched someone die so I answered truthfully.

Some deaths are harder to face than others... I'm tickled to be alive and beating the diseases that seek to take me before I want to go.
Grief support groups can help if one gets stuck in the loss... and can't get out....

Answer 2

I have never actually watched someone die, but I did give birth to a baby that was dead. The experience and that little girl changed my life forever. It made me want to know for certain what would happen to me after I died--if I'd go to heaven, if I'd ever see my little girl again. It strengthened my faith in God. It made me more empathetic to those who've lost a baby. I think it has made me a more loving and understanding person although my life was only filled with grief and anger for the first year after she died. I can't begin to name all the ways it affected and changed me. At first, I wanted nothing more than to have her back and to be with her, but as time has passed, I realize that I wouldn't change what happened. I'm a different and better person because of it, and even though I don't know why my baby died and did not want her to die, I believe that it was the best thing for her too.

Answer 3

As a death penalty no. As the result of a murder or a natural death yes. I work in nursing and have seen many deaths over the years. All deaths affect me. Many cause one to reflect and consider the important things of life and others leave us diminished in some way. Some to enrich ones life and spirit.

Answer 4

Death and I are old friends. I have seen people die more times than can be easily counted, and in a variety of ways. Of them all, the only one that affected me really was the death of my first wife...she died in my arms after a car wreck just outside of Rangoon. That was 21 years ago and I still wake up shaking and in a cold sweat. There are still moments when somehthing happens and I think "I have to tell Katrine about this" or I turn to say something to her, then I remember that she's gone and I'm back, kneeling on the side of the road, watching the car burn, hearing her voice weaken, feeling her body go limp as her last breath issued forth from her mouth into mine. Having my throat go raw from screaming....

Answer 5

yes and what hit me immediately b4 that person even went slack was something just left, I also thought this is not at all like on TV. also oh it., and how am I going to act. Propbably somethings I do not remember. It waslike a lot of thoughts way faster than one would think possible, never could anyone talk that fast. Should I would i what how if I one thing was for sure there was no need to check I immediately knew it was death.

Answer 6

I have seen a dead body. . . I was during cross country and i wan jogging one day and i noticed on a street corner there was car parts every where eith some guy laying in the curb,as stupid as I was i walk up to the man hoping that he was sleeping as I got closer I saw that his nose was bleading,and his face was all um porportioned right!There was no one else around I cried out in horror...I kept runnig as fast as I could till I reached another runner I went up to him and I was Calm at first and I was like hey um there a dead guy two mile back on the side of the street and the moment i said that I went into tears,I just never saw a dead lifless body ,it was like they were gone and never to come back...later we found out that there was a car accident and the guy got hit,he was supposedly drunk and the guy that hit him did not have a cell phone so hey had to go to a neighbors house about a mile down the street so he basically had to leave the body there....

Answer 7

I see many people die. I never get used to it. If they don't have family around I hold their hand and talk to them.
If they know the are going to die and I'm taking care of them. I'll ask them what their favorite things in life are...........Mostly just little things: a child laughing while playing with a puppy, a sunset on a certain day.
A 99 year old woman told me tin roof sundaes were on of her favorite things. I snuck out of work and went to a restaurant and they made me a triple sized tin roof sundae and refused to take my money. I brought it in for the lady and she ate the whole thing.
She cried and laughed. I made someone smile so it was a good day.

When I see someone young die doing something stupid I get mixed emotions of anger and sorrow.

Answer 8

I'm an ER doctor and I have witnessed many deaths, some peaceful some not so much.

It still affects me, I recognize my own mortality, and no matter how they died or what kind of a person they may have been, there is a connection as fellow human beings when you see them take that last breath.

Answer 9

I sat with my first husband in ICU after he was run over by a drunk driver.
I was with him when he died.
Afterwards, it was like he wasn't there any more. He was gone, and left the physical shell behind.
There is a profound, recognizable difference in a person when the soul leaves the body. They are simply "not there" anymore.

When my mom died in May, I arrived at the house 10 minutes after they called me. I consoled my dad, and sat with him in the living room. Other family members kept asking me if I wanted to go say "goodbye" to my mom, before the funeral home came. They didn't understand that she was gone, and that I had spent the previous two weeks saying goodbye to her before she died. I didn't want to remember her on her death bed, and I have no regrets.

Answer 10

Yes, I have seen people die in the Emergency Room. Some deaths strike you harder when they are children or people who look like loved ones in your life.

What irritates me most is when the person's death was preventable. One man died from complications due to alcoholism. He left his wife and two children (infant and a toddler). The mother stood in the hallway holding her two children as she watched the medical staff pronounce the man. I will never forget the look on her face.