first dead person
 

I had my first experience with human death this morning. 70 something guy had a heart attack while slowblowing his driveway and we just got there too late. Worked him the whole way to the hospital (about 30 minutes on slushy roads) but he was pronounced shortly after we got him there. It seems like it should be this huge profound thing, but it's not having a huge effect on me. Has anyone else seen someone they didn't know die?

:( Sorry to hear that, Insoluable.

I've seen a number of people being worked on that didn't make it and, having lived in downtown Atlanta for a number of years, I saw my share of people on the street that were no longer alive for one reason or another. It is oddly surreal -- I had a tough time making the connection that the person that was there was no longer alive, or that they had, just moments before, been alive and have family, friends, etc.

I once attended a lecture from a photo journalist on 9/11 and listened to him speak about the stresses and mental issues he suffered from seeing the incident first hand. "Sleepless nights, substance addiction, family problems, thoughts of suicide", he read off his list of problems that his shrink spoke with him about, "doesn't this read like our resumes?" I looked around the room to see most of the crowd nodding -- the lecture, it turned out, was for photo journalists from the area. He indicated that being a journalist is one of the more difficult jobs, mentally, because you see so many people hurt, suffering, and dieing, but there is absolutely nothing you can do to help them. EMTs, doctors, firefighters, and police don't suffer from these issues because they are actively working to assist.

I decided, after hearing that lecture, that I would never continue with my interests and venture into the world of journalism.

yeah - I was there doing all I could to bring him back, so I don't feel nearly as helpless as it must be to just watch. I kind of feel like it was overall a positive experience.

Yes:( Too many.

Yes, many. But nearly all of them were dying anyway. I have been present at suicides. Difficult at best because of the legal and moral issues. But the dying person asked me to attend because s/he had no friends or family and was afraid to die alone. So I held their hand and watched them slip away. Very hard to do.

I also happened on an auto accident once in which the driver was dead and I was the first person on the scene (happened within a few seconds of my being there as I saw said car ripping down the highway at >100 mph just prior to the crash).

I called police and told them to bring the coroner...there was no saving a person whose head was split open like a....uh...sorry, some of you may be eating. I'll stop now.

Anyway, I've seen more than my share of death, friends, family and complete strangers. And it hasn't really affected me much. The family deaths will haunt me for reasons I shall not share here, but the others were just unpleasant experiences.

I understand that medical personnel have a different take on these experiences because they are in the business of saving lives and I am not, but they also seem to build up an emotional wall to distance themselves from the patient or else they will eventually become consumed by their own humanity and either retire early or go insane. Wolf may know more about this last than I. Too bad Failsafe isn't active here anymore, or he might have been able to provide a physician's point of view.

Brian

Insoluble, you've encountered the emergency services dirty little secret. Probably (hopefully) you were told this at some point ... less than 2% of people who have CPR in the field, whether from a bystander or EMT/paramedic survive.

It's easier with a 70-something guy. The hard ones are the kids.

The more you see it, the easier it doesn't get ... there are going to be good calls and bad calls in your future, and sometimes the good ones will bring up something from one of the bad ones ...

Get educated about Critical Incident Stress Management and stress response now, or as soon as possible. Preincident education is one of the most important aspects of the CISM concept.

Wolf - thank you for the advice. I especially appreciate the proactive approach of CISM, and am fortunately pretty resilient when it comes to stressful situations. (perhaps why I love EMS so much) I had a great teacher with many years of experience and wisdom to share, so our class at least went out with realistic expectations and a definite appreciation of a sense of humor.

Yes I am aware of the high mortality rate of full arrests. Especially children as the arrest is usually caused by another serious problem that is often undiagnosed. The biggest issue I have with the whole thing is my lack of emotional response. I thought for sure it would be at least a little traumatic, but no, everyone felt good. Just the knowledge that we all worked our asses off for the guy seemed to buoy everyones spirits.

insoluble,
Dude you should hold your head high , you and the other medical personel did what could be done , to the best of your abbilitys with what resorses you had available .
In other words you fought the good fight , it was just dudes time to go .
I have seen more than a few nasty sights in my days , car wrecks , car -v- train , car-v- dump truck ( dump truck was doing 80+ crossed the medium head on ) car -v- 200+ft fall from a cliff ( nice porche , 2 VERRRRRRY dead folks , a friend and I were first on the scene) , jeep -v- roll down a mounitn ( a friend ) , various knife and gun fights that resulted in death .
But the hardest was when i was in the USMC , i was a section leader , we had this verry nice verry quiet dude who never went ANY where on liberty , he gets a call from his brother that has been astranged from the family for MANY years , there is a family reunion and bro is on the way to get him , i made arrangements to cover his guard duty that week end ( I took it ) . While dude and his bro were leaveing the bace a drunk driver squached their car like tin foil , being his section leader i had to go claim his personal affects . that messed with my head for a while .

no people, only animals, does that count? when i was a veterinary technician i watched or assisted in the death of 2-6 dogs or cats a day. depressing crappy work.

I have done that too - not even close to the same.But somehow more depressing.

This thread reminded me of the movie Bringing Out the Dead.

"Bring out yer dead!"

"But I'm not dead Yet!"

Not so obscure yet mandatory Monty Python Reference

I feel Happy!!!

Re: first dead person
 

A few times... usually I didn't actually see them die, I saw them just after they died. Which is still somewhat upsetting.

First time really and truly sent me into a spin. I was, at the time, a volunteer fireman on a rescue squad, and we were stationed at the foot of the hill for the Duryea Hill Climb. I was there to see the race, which may have had a lot to do with my reaction...

Anyway, one of the racers hit a tree at the top of the hill, and when we got there a local Doctor had already pronounced him dead, so our job was simply to remove him from the car so the ambulance could take him away and the race could continue.

Well, I was so freaked out that I nearly started the Hurst tool with the hydraulic cables still connected to eachother instead of the tool. Fortunately my Captain saw what I was doing and stopped me. I was, for all intents, completely useless to him.

After that I was present at a couple of accidents where the victims were either dead when we got there, or died shortly after we arrived. I was always amazed that I could do that, remove a dead body from a twisted car... but somehow, I did.

Now the other one I will never forget was fishing a drowning victim out of a creek. I threw up... a lot! I can't imagine anything worse...

However, that was more an issue of gross than anything else.

So, long answer to a short question... I think if you are going to be involved in emergency medicine or rescue work you either already have the personality to deal with things like this, or you develop it rather quickly, or you find another line of work.

The good news is that, as someone else pointed out, we are no longer living under the impression that real men can hack it... there are people out there who can help you to prepare yourself for these things. You would be wise, I think, to take advantage of them.

I would think that it is probably even worse for non-emergency medical folks... but I don't know.

(FWIW, I left the volunteer fire biz when I discovered that I was noticing that everyone else was running out of the burning buildings when I was running in. You can't think that way and do a good job. So my time was up...)