[BrianR]

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