85 Times Patients Said Something Before Passing That Stuck With Hospital Workers To This Day

Not a hospital worker but my story is somewhat relevant. I honestly just need a chance to share it with someone.

For some background information I am a CPR / First Aid Instructor and drive around the state of Arizona to teach. About a month and a half ago I was scheduled to teach a CPR Pro class for a care home. I arrive at the location which seemed nice enough from the outside. The second I walked in I almost threw up from the smell. The best comparison would be like the smell of s**t mixed with rotting meat. Anyways, I start the class and start to learn and notice some questionable things. First there were 11 residents but only 2 people working at a time, and they could barely even speak English. Throughout the class numerous times id hear someone wailing in pain and asking for help, receiving pretty much only replies of " shut up " . It was really obvious to my eighteen year old self that there was neglect and a***e going on. The part that really haunts me and I dont think ill ever forget is when I was leaving. On the way out I peeked into some of the rooms and this really old fragile woman who was extremely thin and confined to her bed made eye contact with me and said " help us ".

Needless to say i got the f**k out of there before I almost lost it on these people. I mean I couldn't imagine my grandmother being treated like that. First thing I called my boss and let her know what happened and now I am taking legal action against that place so hopefully the residents can actually live out their lives with the respect they deserve. I will NEVER forget the way that woman looked at me and asked for help. I still get chills :/

Watched my step dad pass away after a week in the hospital. His last words "I love you son. I want to go home" Called me son like I was his own flesh and blood. A moment that will always stay with me.

When my granny d**d last summer I brought her to the hospital with my aunt. They sent in this very handsome, burly nurse guy to pick her up (she was 87 and very frail at tjis point) and take her to her room. My aunt, always one to make a situation lighter, says "oh Granny look at this handsome man taking you to bed!" I swear to god my Granny says "Yeah, it only took 87 years and for me to be d***g for this to happen." She was a beautiful soul. That was the last thing I heard her say, and I am so happy I shared a last laugh with her.

We don't know if they were really his last words but the last thing my mom heard my dad say was in reference to the shooting pain in his arm due to the heart attack he was suffering, "well what if I hold it different? Like resting it on the backside of a lovely lady? Will that help?" He promptly grabbed Mom's bum before they wheeled him away to surgery. She shouted down the hall, "I'm going to kick your butt when you get out of there!" He didn't come back.

"I never even had someone love me." 7 years ago and I still think of that guy.

I'm an X-ray tech at a busy little rural hospital. What bothers me the most is the way people d**. It just happens. You expect to see their spirit leaving, or feel their presence vanishing at the exact moment they give up the ghost, but you don't . You think that the earth should bear a scar in the exact place where someone d**s, but it doesn't. You feel terrible, for a life extinguished, but you go on. I suppose that's why we have grave markers, to show the earth that we mattered for a little while.

I worked for a pediatric level 1 trauma center as a trauma nurse. I can't/won't ever forget the screams of parents as they watched us trying to save their babes. One mom was screaming her child's name demanding her not to leave her. Somehow that mom still had the wherewithal to thank us and acknowledge that she knew we tried everything when the doctor announced the child's d***h. I know the question is about patients' last words... But the parents' words were powerful and lasting.

Not so much what was said, but how everything happened was horrible... Had a 20 something girl with leukemia come in short of breath, needed to be intubated, I told her we were gonna take good care of her, and she stared back with the most horrified look in her eyes. then she went into Cardiac arrest, started CPR, and when we were doing compressions, she would wake up, grabbing at us, when we'd stop to do a pulse check, nothing. We did CPR so long she started to have blood foaming up through the tube, but she kept waking up when we would do it. Eventually, we just had to stop, and let her d**.

She looked so scared...

I am a dietary aide in Palliative care at a large hospital. It's not the last words that haunt you, it's the advice. I have one patient, who can no longer eat anything except puréed food, can't go to the bathroom by himself, is missing most of his teeth, and quite literally looks like death. Every time I see him, he asks me "what did you do today?" And I tell him the usual "watched tv, then came to work". And he gets mad. He gets mad that I'm not out there sky diving, and going on wild adventures. The one thing he said to me that stuck the most was "you're young. Go have adventures. When you're in my position, are you going to be glad you have an RRSP (401k for you yanks), or are you going to be glad you lived your life?". He's an amazing man, and is still with us.


Edit: Another one that stuck with me was Mildred (not her real name). Mildred was one of my patients in Transitional care, suffered from severe dementia and Alzheimer's. She was only my patient for a couple weeks, then she got moved to palliative. Mildred cannot remember her own name, she cannot remember where she is, and she doesn't remember her children when they come to visit. When I got transferred to palliative, I was so excited to get to see her again. I walked in to the room and she yells "SHELLEY. (Not my name, but she always called me Shelley.) SHELLEY THEY TOOK ME AWAY. I USED TO SEE YOU AND THEN I DIDNT. WHERE AM I? WHERE DID THEY TAKE ME?". Mildred had no idea she was in palliative care. She didn't know she was d***g. She waited every day for her husband to pick her up and take her to the show. That terrifies me to no end. When I d**, I want to know where I am. I want to know who I am. Mildred is still alive, and I will be hanging out with her on Christmas Day. Working in palliative, you learn not to get attached. But not with her. For some reason, I feel responsible for Mildred. When she passes, I want her to know that she is with someone who she knows, and recognizes.

ICU nurse here.

There are lot of times if people are able to talk, they talk about the importance of having no regrets.

The biggest thing that stuck with me was a lady who had been on a vent for a week while family decided what they wanted to do about her situation. So her brother flew in gave the consent to withdraw life support and start comfort care. Thing is, the brother didn't even come in to say good bye. Just made the decision and left. It was about 230 am when her heart slowed down into the 20's I went into her room and just held her hand during her final minutes while she took her final breaths. Since then I have always made it a point to be in the room with someone when they are close. No one should d** alone. Its a memory that I will always have. Walking into the room seeing her laying there the only light was the monitor and the glow of the IV pumps realizing she utterly alone with no loved ones watching over her.

Firefighter/Paramedic here.

I've seen way more than my fair share of active deaths. The 36 year old we coded last week said "I'm going down guys. I'm going down." He went into V-fib and didn't come back out of it.

I had a man once in the ER who coded and we shocked him and got a rhythm back, he woke up and asked if he d**d. Then he started crying and said he saw god. Then he coded again. About that fast too.

The craziest thing I've ever seen was a skinny woman who went into cardiac arrest and since it was witnessed, we were able to start compressions immediately. As we compressed her heart, she would wake up and kick us and (try to) scream. The second we stopped compressions she would go back out. This continued over and over for a good 30+ minutes until the cardiologist ordered us to stop. We had a nurse dedicated to speaking in her ear to try to reassure her and get her to stop kicking.

Another crazy one, I had a man witness his own heart stop. He was having an arrhythmia (I'll spare the details) and I had the defib turned towards him in the ambulance. He was watching the monitor as I was treating him and his heart stopped cold. He looked at me with a panic, put his hand on my knee and went down. The poor guy literally watched his own heart stop when he d**d.

Man, I'll never forget this guy. He was a diabetic, 52 years old, came in with gangrene of the testicles. When we informed him that surgery was required to remove his private parts, he looked me straight in the eye and said, "I hope I d** on the table."

And he did. That dude willed himself into d***g.

I'm not a hospital worker but my sister's last words were "I just want my life back." She was 15 when she d**d of a heart defect she had since birth.

Not a hospital worker, but I watched my maternal grandmother d** in the hospital. She was 95; went into the hospital because she fell, got pneumonia, and d**d. Relatively common for people of that age we were told.

In her last hours, she was in and out of consciousness. My parents, myself, and my father's mother were scattered around the spacious hospital room listening to the deafening heart rate machine and thinking of a funny story about her to tell. She woke up; her eyes did not open, but her hands started waving. She muttered out my father's name in a voice that was drier than a mummy's. She managed to wave her hand, beckoning him to come to her. He leaned in.

She thought she was whispering. "I want to d**," she said. "I want to go see Leonard," referring to her husband, who d**d 20 years ago. "I am ready."

My mother heard her mother's wishes and began to cry quietly. She did not want her mother to hear her pain--just as my grandmother did not want my mother to be the one to hear her request. My father held my grandmother's hand, said "We love you," then looked at me. I left to get the doctor to fulfill her request.

**"I want to d**. I want to see Leonard. I am ready"** Those words motivate me, in a sense. I want to have the kind of love that endures 20 years of mortal separation. It haunts me because I will always remember my grandmother as the kind of woman who wanted to spare her daughter pain with her last breath. And it terrifies me because I wonder how much she prepared those words. Those on death row can write soliloquies; the elderly only get to mutter a few sentences before the darkness takes them.

And yet with her few words, she was clear with her wishes and comforted us with her confidence. She was lucky. And so were we.

A nun looked right through me, broke into a beatific smile, said, "Oh! It's you!" and promptly d**d.

Obligatory "not a nurse but"...

My great uncle's last words were about "having to catch the train". My grandpa's last words were about "getting on the ship". My dad's last words were about "making his flight."

I've told everyone I've ever dated to wake me the f**k up if I ever start talking in my sleep about transportation.

I'm not a hospital or even healthcare worker, but I had a pretty profound and sad thing happen today that fits in this thread to a degree. My mom lives an assisted living center. She is 74 and other than mobility issues she is in decent health, but many of the residents that live there are in very poor health.

Today was their annual Christmas lunch. I sat at a table with my mom and two of her friends. One of them was a guy in his 70's who was going through chemotherapy, but said that it likely wasn't going to help much and he likely only had a few months left at most. He said these will be his last treatments because he is sick of fighting the inevitable. As we talked he told me how throughout his life he was a real a*s to many people in his family. Now his two kids live in different states and he hasn't spoken to them in years. His brother lives nearby, but they haven't spoken in years and any friends he may have had have long since stopped seeing him. He said all of it was because of his own stubborn pride and desire to be right about some things and now he is alone, d***g and has no friends or family that seem to care.

As the lunch came to an end I was saying goodbye to him and shaking his hand and he said to me, "Live your life in a way that when you get to be my age the number of people who will come see you outnumbers those who will come up with any reason not to." It was a pretty sobering moment.

Also not a hospital worker, but it's a story that is simultaneously funny and a bit sad.

All of my grandmother's illnesses (breast cancer followed by leukemia, then diverticulitis which required a colostomy, all with shingles and lung issues) had finally caught up with her, and she was d***g of various complications. She, and her children, decided that she would rather d** comfortably from vicodin o******e with her family than from the pain of the complications.

She lived about 150 miles from me, so my mom and uncle were with her, but I was still at home because I needed to be at school for some reason. I woke up at 6 a day or two before she d**d, and two minutes later she called me. She said "I'm sorry to wake you up. I'm going to d**, so I'm calling all my family and friends to say goodbye. I love you very much and you've been a wonderful grandson." It was the hardest thing I've ever replied to. I can't remember much of what I said, but it wasn't very much. All I remember is that I was never sure if she heard me say "I love you, you've been wonderful to me." That still haunts me. I try to remember how composed and peaceful she was.

Anyway, I had to go to a competition that she wouldn't have wanted me to miss, and she d**d just after I finished it. This is where the semi-funny part comes in. She was fading in an out due to the vicodin, and she woke up and saw my uncle sitting next to her and said "oh, it's you. I guess I'm not d**d yet." It sounds a little more morbid now that I write it out, so I guess you had to know her. She was a wonderful person.

I used to work in a nursing home. Whether you believe in an afterlife or not this is still something that will make you shudder. I had a women scream that the demons in the floor were trying to take her out of bed. She d**d that night in fear. Another man who kept saying he was hot and that he was burning, he d**d hours later. I had a man who said he had talked with the angels and they were taking him in a few hours. They did. The one that sticks with me the most though was that of a man, who d***g, fully awake knowing he was d***g, had tears streaming down his face and begging us to do anything to help him. Those are the ones that stand out to me the most.

When I was 19 I was working in a lab at a hospital as a phleb and I was really really good at drawing blood.

Was called to ER to draw blood from a 12 year old at around 7am. He had spider web looking veins all over his body except hands, feet and above the neck.

Drew blood. No big deal.

Called back again to draw a second sample. Everything was purple. He looked up at me and asked me if he could have some water. I looked at the attending and he shook his head ‘no’ and then mouthed ‘we are about to intubate. He grabs my hand and two seconds later he went into arrest.

His parents were outside the room looking in thru glass. Mom was balling. Dad was balling. Everyone did chest compressions for what seemed like 45 minutes.

He d**d.

Last thing he said to anyone was to ask for some water. From me.

I left. Kept my composure. Got to a private hallway and started balling... entire way back to our office.

Walked in to my bosses office and said ‘I quit’.

Turns out kid had bacterial meningitis.