The Old Man
The elderly gentleman’s whole family visited him regularly. They clearly loved him, and he often told them he’d had a good life and was peacefully ready to go. But one evening, he suddenly sat up, his body tense like a drawn bow, shouting, “I’m not ready, I’m not ready yet!! Please, nooo!!!” Then he collapsed back and passed away. This was the most haunting departure I’ve ever witnessed in my career.
If Only
A young man battling cancer’s last words were: “If only I could have killed more…” Then he sighed deeply and died. His wife told me he had been a soldier. It’s likely he struggled with mental health issues, because no sane person would think like that.
Witness
A young guy didn’t say a word but watched his heart stop right before my eyes. We were in the ambulance—he had arrhythmia—I turned to him with the defibrillator and saw him staring at the heart monitor showing his heart had stopped. Panic filled his eyes as he glanced at me, and his hand slipped off my knee. Poor guy literally saw his own heart stop. We couldn’t bring him back.
This Too
An elderly lady whispered to her dying husband, “Darling, you beat this, you escaped a murder, you’ll get through this too.” This happened years ago, and it still weighs on me because I don’t know what I should have done. My husband said I should have reported it to the police, but what good would that have done? The man was barely conscious and died a few days later. Should the 80-year-old wife have been jailed for complicity...?
True Love
The lady’s daughters were surprised when their elderly mother—half-conscious—kept mentioning a certain Peter, even though their father’s name was Gábor and, as far as they knew, no other man had been in her life. One night, I saw she was somewhat aware and asked who Peter was. With tears in her eyes, she said Peter was her true love. “Now we can finally be together,” she said—and by morning, she had passed. I never told her daughters who Peter really was.
The Path
In his final hours, an elderly man’s tears streamed as he kept repeating, “I don’t know where to go! I’m afraid I won’t find my way!” I can only hope he found his way in the end.
Faces
The lady handled her last hours fairly well, but when her gaze grew cloudy, she suddenly screamed, “They have no faces!!” One minute later, she was gone.
Linda
A 53-year-old man recovering from a heart attack was in poor shape on the ward. One night, he moaned that he saw Linda waiting for him on the other side. I covered him and reassured him that yes, Linda was definitely waiting. He just lay there with eyes and mouth tightly shut; there wasn’t much more we could do. The next day, he passed away. I told the family his last words were about Linda waiting for him. I thought he meant his wife, but the family looked shocked. One daughter cried, another quietly cursed. I didn’t understand until his brother explained that Linda was his brother’s lover who cheated on him, and in a moment of rage, he strangled her. He served eight years for manslaughter. I still feel awful for kindly confirming Linda was waiting, but somewhere deep down, I’m glad they got to talk after all those years.
Those Who Wait
We worked on a man in his thirties whose heart stopped and then started again. After one resuscitation, he gasped and whispered, “Only those I hurt are waiting!” Then he lost consciousness and never woke up again.
The Direction
The man gasped, “I’m going down, sinking, but I don’t want to go there—hell is there, the light is above!” I still get chills thinking about it.
Opening image: Sean Anthony Eddy/istockphoto.com
