The Old Man
The elderly man was regularly visited by his whole family, who clearly loved him. He often told them he had a good life and was peacefully ready to go. But one evening, he suddenly sat up, his body tensed like a bow, and shouted, “I’m not ready, I’m not ready yet!! No, please, not yet!!!” Then he collapsed and passed away. In my career, this was the most haunting departure I’ve witnessed.
If Only
A young man with cancer’s last words were: “If only I could have killed more…” Then he sighed one last time and died. His wife told me he was a soldier. It’s very likely he struggled mentally because no sane person would think like that.
Witness
A young guy said nothing 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. Terrified, he glanced at me with pure panic in his eyes, and his hand slipped off my knee. Poor guy literally saw his 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 still haunts 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 they knew no other man 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 was.
The Path
In his final hours, an old man’s tears streamed down his face 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 foggy, she suddenly screamed, “They have no faces!!” One minute later, she was gone.
Linda
A 53-year-old man was recovering from a heart attack in the ward but wasn’t doing well. One night, he moaned that he saw Linda waiting for him on the other side. I covered him and reassured him she was definitely waiting. He just lay there with eyes and mouth tightly shut; we couldn’t do much. The next day he passed away, and I told the family his last words were about Linda waiting. 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 Linda was his brother’s lover, whom he had strangled after she cheated. He served eight years for manslaughter. I still feel awful for kindly confirming Linda was waiting, but somewhere deep down, I’m glad they finally had that conversation after all those years.
Those Who Are Waiting
We worked on a man around thirty 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.
The Direction
The man gasped, “I’m going down, sinking, but I don’t want to go there, that’s hell, the light is above!” I still get chills thinking about it.
Opening image: Sean Anthony Eddy/istockphoto.com
