Just saw another post about someone having seen their first dead body… It got me thinking. I haven’t seen a dead body. One caveat — I’m not including bodies seen at funerals, of which I’ve seen my fair share. A body embalmed and presented for viewing is very, very different than seeing a dead body “in the wild”.
Life for me is generally vibrant and fulfilling, always moving forward. I don’t think I fear death per se… but finding a loved one passed away in their sleep or collapsed in the kitchen from a heart attack, or running to the scene of a brutal car crash to find a passenger dead, something like that… I think that would shake me to my core.
It would snuff the light of life out, in my soul a bit. I dread that day.
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Well it depends, do you mean a dead body in the case of a family member or a friend at a funeral? Or do you mean stumble upon one?
Because I’ve been to many funerals with open caskets and I also found my mom’s boyfriend dead in the bathroom from a OD
I’ve never seen a dead person, and that includes funerals–never been to one.
[deleted]
Only at funerals.
Anatomy labs – cadavers
Funerals – cadavers
Plenty of dead animals.
Never just stumbled on a dead human
Used to be a cop – I have seen probably around 10 in the wild, 2 very badly decomposed, a murder, and a couple s*icides, couple car crashes, couple ODs, couple medical emergencies
Too many.
I went to South Africa in 1996 for business. This was two years after Apartheid was over. I was in Capetown and Johannesburg, which are large cities with major highways around them.
For the most part, the native people didn’t have access to their own vehicles, riding in the back of pickup trucks. When someone hits the brakes, bad things happen. What a waste.
2 in a funeral and 1 very close to death. I came home to my roommate practically almost dead in bed, pale, unresponsive and in a coma due to medication she was taking at home from an IV. Very very traumatizing. Thankfully I called an ambulance and she survived
Two-my Grannie and Grandpa in hospital and then in the chapel of rest.
My dad , my grandmother and my Aunt
3 so far
I saw my FIL right after he passed, prior to going to the funeral home. And I found someone dead once. It’s a very weird experience that you’ll never forget.
I saw a skull once, does that count? Used to live near a crematory that had the habit of burrying body parts that didn’t burn in the nearby park but at some point city hall had to dig for some pipes and they uncovered a skull and a few bones. They were promptly swept near a pile of garbage by the cleaning ladies.
Lots. Was an RN in a nursing home for decades. Night shift, too. Most deaths occurred then.
Outside of funerals : 1, when my grandma died with our family present in her hospital room.
None in the wild. Maybe half a dozen at funerals. I have a friend who is a mortician who picks up bodies probably every day. Our society pays for others to deal with the dead.
At a funeral or in the real world? Covered or not covered? Entire body or just a foot implying the rest of the body is still attached?
Too many to remember, last month was probably my last one I saw so far
Maybe a dozen or so, not counting funerals. I was a crime reporter, and usually the scene had been cleared or the body(ies) covered by the time I got there. If you count the ones covered in a sheet, the number would jump significantly.
At a funeral? 6. Altogether? 11.
One – step grandma at her wake.
And a severed leg – school trip.
I’ve lost count.
6 😔
Cadaver while walking past a college lab shook me a little bit. Not as bad as truly in the wild, but not quite as clinical like at a funeral.
Upwards of 5, because open casket funerals were all the rage in the South until recently.
Most people getting cremated these days since it’s so much cheaper.
I think five. Four who died instantly in a car crash I was in when I was 13. One who was a homeless guy I tried to give CPR to when I was 20 or so.
Are we counting wholes or parts?
Hundreds if not thousands. I grew up in a funeral home
I absolutely love how every second comment here mentions funerals, even though you’ve clearly mentioned excluding funerals in the second sentence lmao
I’ve seen a handful at accident sites. Really makes you appreciate what you have, seeing how quickly it can end in gruesome ways. It is traumatic, in a weirdly special kind of way.
???the normal amount?? 10
100s. I used to work in a morgue for a few years.
Quite a few. I used to review police evidence and camera footage.
Several bodies at a funeral. Probably 10. One in the wild which I found and called in. It sparked a murder trial that I got to testify at. Yipeeee
I saw my uncle when he passed and was embalmed. I had such a morbid curiosity that I kept touching his cold hand. I was about 16. Then years later I saw two different bodies in the road, on two separate occasions, when motorcycle drivers had been killed.
Not counting funerals, I have only seen one dead person. My mother-in-law passed away at home after a long battle with cancer. My wife and I arrived at my in-laws’ house shortly after we received the news, before the funeral director could come to take her.
And you’re right; it definitely is much different than viewing a prepared body.
My grandmother’s was an open casket funeral, so her, but every other funeral I’ve been to was closed casket, so I’ve only seen the one
My high school friend found a body in a trash can.
It was not prepared for funeral, it was however skeletonized and prepared for medical schools. Like…some medical school had a real human skeleton for training and when they were done with it? Dumped it in a dumpster.
Found a close friend dead on his bed 3 years ago. Completely unexpected. He was cold when I found him. I have also seen two drowning victims taken out of the water.
I’ve seen my great grandmother within hours of her passing. It’s cultural in my family for older or ill relatives to live at home and pass away at home if possible. In the case of my great grandma, my mom got me from afterschool daycare and told us GG had passed and we were going to see her. She lived with my grandmother, her daughter. She was in her bed and seemed peaceful.
Looking back on it, it wasn’t creepy or weird. Her husband had passed similarly at home on hospice, but I was too young to remember but knew the stories. My granddad and dad both got cancer and were on hospice when I was an adult. They both passed away at home. I didn’t live close enough to visit immediately after, but would have if I could. It gave us a chance to grieve in a different way than at the funeral or hospital. I hope to pass peacefully at home one day too, if I’m lucky.
That said, I hope I never come across a dead body “in the wild”. It’s one thing if you know the person and that they are on the way out with hospice support….totally different if it’s unexpected or by suicide/homicide. That is some traumatic shit.
One at the cadaver lab
Do patients count? If so, 4 in 7 years.
For an anatomy and physiology class we visit a campus. We had a tour of their lab room. They had many specimen, a human head, heart and brain, as well as I think a goats heart?
Saw a human head in half, interesting, exactly what I kinda thought it would be lol. I’ve never seen a full dead person unless a funeral counts.
I was raised Jewish and was very unaware of what my first non Jewish funeral would be like, that being said that’s the only time I’ve seen bodies.
That I can think of? Six probably. Grandparents, an aunt, an uncle, a brother of an uncle related by marriage, and a childhood friend who died when I was 16.
My dad (cancer)
A farmhand on my ex’s grandfather’s farm (brain aneurysm)
A baby born prematurely to a couple that was staying at a Ronald McDonald house where I was staying while my premature son was in the NICU.
Many. Detective for almost 14 years.
Around 13-15. All at funerals.
Oh, quite a few.
We aren’t only talking about human bodies, right?
RN here. Couldn’t count the amount of dead bodies I’ve seen!
My great aunt I barely remember, when she was in the casket, when I was about 8. My great grandma half a day after she’d died when I was 4, I only remember it vaguely. And my grandpa only hours after we passed away, a year ago.
But it depends on what you mean. I’ve been to this museum kind of thing where they had lots of bodies cut up to show the anatomy, that would be like 50-100 (I don’t remember exactly because I was 13/14 I think? 17 now) but that’s not really what you mean I think, because those were people where the skin or flesh or muscle had been completely removed for educational purposes.
Two. One in a hospital, and one on the side of the road. The second one I found out was a murder victim and, as far as I can tell, the police officer that was there was first on scene and that’s why the body wasn’t covered up.
Not in real life, in a way. I’ve seen plenty in videos and pictures. The closest I’ve ever come to watching something die and feeling the heat in their body disappear and their bodies go limp are my cats.
I’ve seen a lot. 37M. I saw 2 this past month. One was a car crash victim on the side of the road, another was one of my close friend’s funeral. My first was my grandpas funeral in high school. Then my mom’s when I was 20 and found her passed away in her sleep. On average like 1 a year or so. Funerals become more frequent as you get older.
Quite a few!
The first one was when I was 7-8 and my mom’s friend overdosed and died in our living room. The next ones (outside of funerals) were my friend Monica and her two children. Her husband beat and shot her and then killed the kids. Her mother and I were the first on the scene. (He is doing life now).
After that, my uncle died and I identified him. Then I had to take my dad off life support. Shortly after all that, I gave my friend a ride to go check on her elderly mother and she was very obviously deceased. She had been left for three weeks in August with no a/c on, you could smell it walking up to the house. The cleanup was pretty intense. My grandmother and grandfather recently passed, but they were peaceful and not nearly as traumatic as the others, and for that I am so thankful. Now I just wonder who’s next, I feel like I can’t escape death 🙃
Only one. It was the aftermath of a head on collision with a convertible and a motorcyclist. It wasn’t graphic or anything but I vividly remember looking over as I was slowly driving past, seeing a person laying on the road, and just instinctively knowing that they were dead. Just the way that they were absolutely still, and the fact that no one else wanted to get near him. It was very sad, I still think about him sometimes. I found out his name a few months later and saw on his Facebook profile that he had recently gotten sober and the sports bike was a present to himself for being one year clean…breaks my heart.
3 family members immediately after death.
Multiple others as a student nurse I’ve sat with dying patients and also been to the huge hospital morgue.
3 mostly its funerals
2 one I gave CPR to the other was on the freeway in Tijuana and was getting ran over by cars
Over 40.
Forensic unit had bodies literally stacked on top of each other in the freezer.
fish
I just opened reddit guys
Nurse at nursing homes and hospitals for many years…. Too many to count.
My dad, grandads, grandma. All funerals
Twice. In like a 2 month span. It was a weird start to 2023 for me.
Four. I even had to bathe two dead bodies as per the rituals in my community
Only one in the wild outside of work.
Several in the wild for work. In a laboratory setting, easily thousands. I have had my hands ON over 800, personally. I do autopsies, and have occasionally assisted on death scenes for investigators. My relationship with death has made my relationship with life a lot more intimate and devotional.
Lots. Mostly babies, but that comes with the job.
Several. Family members that died in the home and at the job I had working in an assisted living facility.
I went to medical school. That probably doesn’t count.
I think every funeral I have been to was open casket, so 7 or 8 at funerals.
My mom when she passed, I was holding her hand in the hospital.
Spent a lot of time on a farm and ranch growing up so quite a few dead farm animals. Some we slaughtered, some who died for other reasons. Lots of dead varmints (I have shit plenty of gophers ) Several dead cats and 1 dead dog (that was a sad day).
I occasionally hunt so several dead whitetail deer, plus many animals friends and family have had harvested (deer, elk, beer, moose, etc).
I have butchered several cows and deer.
I don’t really have a number, since I’ve worked in nursing homes. But it’s definitely above 30. The only ones I really remember though are the traffic accident ones (3 bodies, 2 accidents – motorcyclist, please wear helmets and proper suits) and the 3 suicides from when I was working with mental illness patients. The graphic ones do stick out. Oh and I remember my grandparents deaths too, but for a different reason.
The nursing home ones were all fairly calm. Some had made it a bit out of the bed, likely woken up feeling a heart attack and then taken a few steps before collapsing, but even those seem peaceful in a way.
Like mentioned, I’ve also seen 2 grandparents die. I held my grandmothers hand as she died and I was the the one who found my grandfather dead in his bed. Both were calm, but heart wrenching, since I loved them dearly.
Too many
In real life – 3 – one school girl on a push bike in North London crushed by a turning rubble lorry to strawberry jam – one biker in several pieces on the fast stretch of dual carriageway by Box Hill in Surrey and a dead foot sticking out from a sheet on a trolley in East Surrey Hospital during COVID…the first one was tough…made me go through a bit of a forced desensitisation process so the other ones, when I saw, were very sad but not as horrifying or scary…
None – except in coffins at funerals – and the coffins were closed.
I saw 2 up close.. We were camping by a river bank and a boat came roaring through at like 3am blasting music. Then we heard a BAMMMM!!! then whispering then splashing. A helicopter and tons of police arrived within 30min. They slammed into a dock that was under construction directly across from where we were.
We were detained as witnesses for hours. It was a super high profile man who owned a horse racetrack or something. Anyways, he slammed into the steering wheel and I saw him pulled to the bank with a caved in chest. There was a woman topless with huge fake boobs who was pulled out next. Then 3 survivors who didn’t say one word the whole time. I was within 2 feet of the bodies briefly.
Not sure if this counts but I’ve seen two dead bodies, aside from funerals, via autopsy/crime scene photos due to the nature of my old job.
3 …my dad , my mom and my grandpa. Weird and shocking feeling.
I’m an ER nurse for 15 years. I can’t tell you the number because it’s pretty high – I don’t even count anymore 😕
But I do love the postmortem care. Cleaning them, putting fresh gown on, adjusting them to a natural look, etc etc. To me it’s a very therapeutic and beautiful moment. Life is precious and I hope the person who occupied that body had a hell of a good time. I like to imagine some of the stories they’d tell.
Children are different though. Cleaning up a kid/baby just destroys your soul. Your brain knows this isn’t right and as a mom you want to hug them and fix them and make them better. You want to cradle their tiny bodies and not accept what you’re seeing. I very much vividly remember every pediatric code I’ve had. I may not know their names, but I remember their circumstances and question in my mind if anything had gone differently that day – would that baby still be alive?
And yes I do weekly therapy – but a lot of nurses don’t. And our mental health is horrific right now as a profession. So many suicides, so many that turn to drugs or alcohol to mask the pains they’ve witnessed.
If I had a perfect world (LOL) – I’d make it mandatory to have workers that deal with patients take an hour of therapy every other week. Weekly if possible but I know that even then it’s never going to happen.
Probably over 10. Touched one too.
Between 30 years in healthcare and several years in fire/rescue, too many.
I gave CPR to and watched the light leave my grandmother’s eyes as she drowned in fluid her lungs were producing due to a medication she had previously taken. She was all but dead for the entire half hour it took the paramedics to drive the 6 miles from the station to our house and was pronounced dead in the hospital, where I saw her body. Excluding funerals, that’s about it.
4? I’m 34. One when I was about 7 and went to the neighbors house to say hello and found her deceased in her home (Elderly lady). Two more the following year when I went to the beach with my mom and two kids about my age died from a wave they weren’t prepared for, blunt trauma to the head from a log that came with the wave. Then a few years later at about 11 I had seen my great grandma at an open casket funeral.
3 dead bodies in 6years.. it killed me.. 80% of my emotions died really
I’ve never seen one in person, but I have seen quite a few on the internet unfortunately.
Two, but idk if the first one counts. The first was my grandmother in the hospital, the second was a suicide on my driveway (I knew him, he was my roommate’s separated husband).
Both looked a lot smaller than they did in life
i’m an emt i’ve seen more than i should have in a lifetime that’s for sure
Not enough
Unfortunately 4. My son, my mother in law, my sister in law and my brother. Son passed in my arms at 2 months old in hospital. Sister in law and best friend passed from an aneurysm and saw her a few minutes after. Mother in law I was there when she was being resuscitated at home and she didn’t make it. Brother committed suicide and I had to see him to make it real.
Husband has worked fire service and seen many, many bodies. His worst are the ones I’ve listed above.
4
None
not including funerals, one. i was there when my grandpa passed away.
Outside of funerals, I’ve seen three. My grandfather, my grandmother (both died in front of me), and a neighbor who starved himself to death and decomposed for a few weeks with no AC in summer.
Not counting those at funerals; one when I was interning at a home for the elderly.
Not on funerals? I don’t know, two dozen maybe? A handful not in war time (I’m Ukrainian), with outright gore, such as a person who has committed suicide by throwing herself under a train.
I did approach, went to talk to dispatcher right after. She just looked like a pile of clothes from afar, didn’t have a pulse on her wrist anymore, only on her neck, definitely a goner, absolutely grim. There are normally very few passenger trains on that station, that patch of railroad is just used to sort the wagons with various cargo into specific trains, and there’s a depot nearby.
Several corpses in subway stations, often covered with tarp, but you could definitely see that there was a corpse underneath. Is it the sharp temperature change from the outside that kills them, maybe some kind of cardiovascular disease? The subway is always pleasantly cool in the summer, especially when a train approaches. My previous landlord was friends with a subway employee, and he said they grew oyster mushrooms in the service room. I’ve also seen one of my relatives pass when I was 7 y.o. It was after a long battle with terminal illness.
Outside of funerals, just the 1 – a fella without a helmet who crashed his motorbike.
Let me tell you folks I will be wearing a helmet after seeing that
One, the next door neighbor across the hall from the apartment died while taking a shower. He was retired and had family in Virginia and lived alone, so his body was there for about 10 days. You never forget the smell.
I’m a body removal tech for a funeral home. So more then I could remember tbh. Like 100+ so far I’m guessing.
1 and it was my uncle. this was the first time i saw one and i didn’t know how to react. i remember toppling over by the steps next to his casket and other family members picking me up.
I worked in hospice. So almost everyone in hospice dies. Plus I’ve seen 4 family members die and/or found them dead and had to put several pets to sleep. So I’ve seen a lot of dead bodies not counting funerals. I’ve also been to a lot of funerals.
Worked at a morgue so, many. The one thing I never got used to is the smell… Can’t really compare it to anything it’s just the way dead people smell. gross.
I’ve worked for a medical device company for years and I’ve probably seen over thousands of dead bodies, I’ve had to handle them, get them out of the bags, position and take them to the tables, untape them and clean them up and put them back in a bag and wrap them up and tape them up at the end of the labs the surgeons do.
Surgeons will practice surgery, practice new surgical techniques, and they practice with new devices on cadavers before using them on people.
My neighbor’s husband, a man I barely knew, was for me the most “traumatic.”
His wife and children had been out at a party for much of the afternoon/evening, and upon returning home found him laying unresponsive on the couch. They ran to me next door to ask for my help.
I immediately told them to call 911, and as I followed them back to their house, did my best to remember my CPR training. The family was of course very emotional and distraught.
As I entered their living room, the husband was stretched out on the couch, unmoving and with a very deathly pallor to his skin. His head was slightly tilted backward with his mouth open wide, and his eyes were mostly closed with just a bit of the whites of his eyes showing, as if they were rolled up in his head.
I reached out with my fingertips and pressed them to his jugular to feel for a pulse. Immediately, I was struck by how cold his body was, and though this slight action didn’t move his body much, something felt “stiff” about his flesh. I detected no pulse. Instinctively, I called out to him by name, and grabbing his wrist quickly realized that his arm was very stiff and inflexible from rigor.
In my mind, I thought to myself that this man must’ve been dead for some time if he’s already so cold and stiff, but with the wife and children standing just feet behind me sobbing and begging me to help somehow, calling out to their husband and father to wake up, I felt like I needed to attempt to do CPR just for their sake.
To this day, 20 years later, I still feel ashamed. I just couldn’t do it. 😞
At the time, I had been trained that CPR required both chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. As I leaned in to my neighbor’s face to listen for breathing, to position his head, and to verify that his airway was unobstructed, before I could sweep his mouth with my fingers, I could see that there was a congealed and partially dried mass of what looked like mucus or maybe vomit at the back of his throat.
Knowing in my heart that this man was already beyond resuscitation, and repulsed beyond measure with the thought of putting my mouth on a stranger’s mouth, and a vomit filled one at that, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I wanted so bad to give his family peace of some kind in knowing that “we” had tried to help their husband/father as best we could, but I simply couldn’t overcome my own anxieties and fears to do it for them. It’s eaten at my conscience ever since. I’ve never spoken to them about any of it since that night, so I don’t know what they think or feel about any of it, but for me it feels like a big fail.
Other than that, I’ve been there with 4 of my grandparents at the time of their passing, and with a fifth shortly after she had passed in the night, and before the mortuary had arrived to take her body away. None of these were scary or creepy in any way. In fact, it was a very healing, and almost sacred privilege to be with them in every one of those cases.
Beyond those, I’ve also viewed several bodies in cadaver labs. This, for me, was somewhat disconnected from how you might imagine seeing a “dead body” would be. They had all been preserved, and dissected to varying degrees, and in most cases their heads were covered to preserve anonymity and out of respect. So it was much easier to view them almost as an “object” rather than a person in many regards. I found these opportunities very fascinating and not frightening or uncomfortable at all.
i just turned 30 and i’ve seen countless dead bodies as a Junior doctor, including my fathers, the worst ones were 3 victims from an oil field explosion that i had to examine for a death report, one was a young boy who had drowned and was discovered after 19 days in the water, a woman who burnt herself and basically turned into charcoal and another woman who was also burnt 100% 4th degree but somehow was still alive and talking. These were probably the worst ones excluding all the children, gunshots, suicides and medical cases …
Probably about an average of 15 a year for about 18 years now. And before that I saw 2 guys get struck by lightning and die when I was about 16, and did CPR on my first person when I was 19. So rough estimate 273. Im also at 2 more this weekend and another 1 a couple weeks ago. So about 276 I guess. Rough math.
TW: Infant loss
Two. The first was a baby that was born sleeping. The second was immediately after my grandmother passed. I was there when her body was transported to the funeral home.
Retired US doctor: more than I can readily count.
I’ve seen 6. Two were cadavers on a school field trip to a medical research facility, so they were expected. Then I saw one at the scene of a car crash that hadn’t been moved yet, a homeless man who had died on a park bench outside an Applebee’s, and a worker who had just fallen from an aerial lift while repairing a street light. The last was my brother at the scene of his death.
First time I saw a dead body in person was probably 20 years ago now…saw a lot of police by a riverside park area, lots of people watching from afar wondering what was happening. Then I hear there was a body floating in the river and they were getting it out. I caught a glimpse of the body and after that I left the area. I wasn’t grossed out necessarily, I remember being speechless witnessing all of this.
Have seen dead animals, almost all of them roadkill. Was dropping off relatives at their home recently and there were two roadkill rats in the middle of the road outside their home. Not pleasant to look at!
Edit: if we’re including open casket funerals, then I’ve seen maybe like 8-10? A great grandparent, grand parents, and other relatives in my extended family or from close family friends
I dated a mortician about 18 years ago for seven months. It was wild. I saw some things. If you want to know, I can share.
You know what’s crazier? Seeing an alive body turn into a dead body.
Hmm non-funeral dead bodies: I worked in medical for a couple years so I saw a handful from that, less than 10, more than 5. Cadaver labs I saw dozens of dead bodies and body parts (literally saw a “bag of dicks” haha sorry if that’s too dark to joke about) Think I’ve seen a couple out in the wild from car wrecks or OD’ed but not up close. Up close and non work/class related, I watched my mom die a couple years ago and, since I have previous experience preparing bodies, I stayed after my sisters left and helped do the postmortem prep with the nurse (body bath etc). Dead bodies are so crazy how instantly they are cold and stiff and don’t seem like people anymore.
It doesn’t or doesn’t have to, snuff any light out of you; death is an inescapable part of life and I think more people would benefit being exposed to it, obviously not violent deaths or mutilation or anything, just exposure to natural deaths or dead bodies.
My grandfather passed away while holding my hand. He was very sick and died in the hospital. It was terrifying yet peaceful in a way.
We knew he was going to die very soon, he could no longer speak and all he could do was look at us and hold our hands.
At some point that evening, the docot came to us and told us that we had to choose to give him some extra morphine so he’d fall asleep and die in his sleep or keep him awake until he gave out. We had to think about it for a couple minutes, was the hardest decision I ever had to make. But the moment we decided it was time for his suffering to end, he breathed out for the very last time. With his last remaining strength he let go of my hand to hold his wife, my grandma in his arms.
It was as if he waited for us to have found peace with it.
That was the first and only time I saw a dead body untouched right after it’s soul had left.
40-50. Didn’t keep track.
On the internet? To many to count. At funerals? Around 6. In person? Around a dozen while in school.
Cpl dozen. Worked at a children’s hospital. Had to take bodies to the adult hospital morgue. So yea babies, kids, teens, and adults. Hated a lot about that job.
Does the anatomy museum count? Because the numbers would go significantly higher
Just one. Guy jumped off a parking garage at the airport. Saw his foot sticking out from underneath the tarp over him.
Off the top of my head, I believe it’s 3 for me.
One was a patient in a hospital where I worked delivering food to patients. A nurse asked, “Can you give me a hand?” So I went to help her, turns out the patient died and she wanted to move him to a gurney to remove him from the room.
One was a homeless person lying on a sidewalk. When I first saw him, I thought he was asleep. When I returned 15 minutes later, there was a cop and a chalk outline where the man had been.
One was a 14-year-old lying in the middle of the road at 2 in the morning. His friend banged on my door, yelling for help. He and his buddy had been playing “chicken” when a black car (without headlights on) came up fast. His buddy pushed him out of the way and was hit. The boy was dead when I got to him. I waited with him until the police arrived and took him home. The next day at work, a co-worker looked upset, saying, “My little brother’s best friend died last night when a car hit him.” She broke down when I told her my story.
5 and I’m only 30
5… In person separate times not at a funeral.
1..I revived back to life so 4 I guess.
2, my first was a cranky yet beloved professor who passed away from covid and then i saw my grandad in the hospice after he died
Two.
One was my Taid (Welsh for Grandfather)
The other was a guy I was playing hockey against when I was about 14/15. He had a heart attack mid game and couldn’t be saved.
I see one every time I look in the mirror, I’m dead inside
Probably a couple hundred.
EMS for 2+ decades.
You get used to it.
Almost.
I work hospice…
I seen my first one 2 weeks ago. I was on the way home from a buddies bonfire on a Saturday night. It was 11:45 when I rolled up to a backroad intersection that was full of dust in the air. As I got closer I seen parts laying everywhere, I jumped out of my truck and seen a SxS flipped over into a telephone pole. I seen multiple people getting up off the ground and then 2 local cops pulled up at the same time I was getting out. We ran over to it, 3 were ejected and 1 was trapped underneath the sxs. 2 of the ejected were men, and the other 2 were women. The driver of the UTV (who is a local police officer) was drinking and driving. There were beers bottles everywhere. I slipped on one as I ran up to the vehicle. 1 of the women unfortunately was killed on impact and was laying in the grass about 10 feet away. One of the officers started CPR while the other helped me and a few other guys that were riding their motorcycles behind me, flip over the side by side to get it off of the other ladies legs. Unfortunately the officer could not get a heartbeat of the other woman and she was pronounced deceased later on. It was the first dead body I’ve ever seen, and I hope it’s the last. The nightmares started 3 days ago for the first time, always me and her in that intersection. Every dream is different. Something I never wanted to experience.
Just under 100 I think. A chapter that is luckily closed. Exposure to death accelerates you normalizing death even for yourself, and definitely makes you smile at small problems…no one is even dead. ☠️
Military and public safety. Work pen testing networks now.
I’m not actually sure, it’s that wild? I’m a recovering addict and I’ve been in out and round trap houses where a lot of people were passed out on the ground not moving, needles in arms, I was sure about one or two and I’ve been to a lot of funerals, so it’s hard to say. One of those questions I hope I can ask at the end of days. How many times did I come close to death, how much death did I see, how many people have I kissed, how much money I spent on clothes/food/drugs
7
I used to be a mortician, so a lot.
Every day as an ER nurse.
More than I can count – especially through COVID (I’m an ICU specialist). I’d guess somewhere around 500 or more during my 20+ years in critical care.
I can tell you with 110% certainty I have seen someone’s soul (or several occasions) leave their body before their heart actually stops. It difficult to explain to someone that hasn’t witnessed this but it’s almost as if the person’s soul has a decision of which path to choose and it’s either to stay or go. Once they choose to go, you can feel it and see it in their face, eyes, body – even if their heart is still beating.