A guy died at my work today....

[Lee-bun <3]

Hey there, just to warn you this might be a bit shocking but I can't sleep and need some advice if anyone can help me.

I work at a hotel as a recpetionist and have had a really nasty day today. A guy checked in at 9am this morning and was really ill so the receptionist in before me put him in a room and just said keep an eye out for him. I arrived at 3pm today and didn't hear a peep from him, but at around 9pm one of his friends said they were supposed to be meeting for dinner and he wasn't answering his phone. So sure enough we went and banged on his door and there was no answer so I used my master key to get in his room, and he was lying on the bed, cold and blue. Naturally I checked his pulse, put my cheek next to his mouth for signs of breathing, which there were none and then lifted an eyelid up to see if his pupils dilated. I can't get his face out of my mind, his eye were glazed and his lid didn't drop back down. I obviously rang the ambulance my manager blah blah blah, it was obviously too late.
The lady on the ambulance phone line told me to lie him flat and when i tried, he'd already gone into rigor mortis.....It was so horrible.
It's the first dead body I've ever seen and now every time I close my eyes tonight I can just see his face and his eyes.
I feel partially responsible as he had been dead for about 6hrs but I just wish I'd checked on him sooner, but at the same time, he'd said he wanted to sleep and so didn't want to disturb him. Makes me feel sick thinking that I was less than 5 meters away from him (as he had put in a room close to reception) and yet maybe if I'd realised, he could have been saved.

Any thoughts? I'm sorry this isn't a nice thing to bring up but I'm playing it through in my head and it's driving me insane.

 

[primetime]

Wow..sorry to hear something so tragic happened. Take some comfort in the fact that there was nothing you could have done. How were you to know he was going to pass away?

I suggest talking to a grievance counselor. Usually places of employment have counselors for these type of things, but I am not sure your job has them. Check with you rmanager.

Sorry to hear about your experience.

 

[usgrant]

It's called seasoning...by the time you are my age you will see a bunch of people die and it won't bother you all that much.

 

[Fire_Sprite]

It's called seasoning...by the time you are my age you will see a bunch of people die and it won't bother you all that much.

That's a charming thought.

 

[asutickler]

I saw my first dead body when I was 18, under oddly similar circumstances. I was working at a local resort for the summer, and there was a dormitory that housed some of the seasonal help. To make a long story short, one of the guys who lived in the dorm thought he had a backache and went to the hospital. They gave him painkillers and sent him home. Well it turned out that his "backache" had been a heart attack. He had a second, lethal one later in the night. The next morning a co-worker and I went looking for him and found him dead in his room.

It took me a long time to get over it. Between the horror of finding the corpse and the constant thoughts about my own mortality, I didn't get much sleep for a very long time. If you feel comfortable talking to someone, I'd really suggest that you do it. I didn't talk about it with anyone, ever... And, in retrospect, I think that may have been a mistake. Best of luck to you in coping, it's a truly awful experience.

 

[Synful Pryde]

There was a queen.

Her reign had been long and difficult. To be sure, there had been times of great joy, times of celebration and festivities and prosperity. In those times, the people of the land were happy -- and so too was the queen. But those times had also been punctuated by periods of great turmoil, by battles and intrigue and murderous plots. When those dark times came, the people were terrified and dismayed. Their despair brought great sadness to the queen.

Back and forth, high and low -- the queen and her people felt surely they would break from the strain, like a metal rod bent too far, too often. And so the queen called in all of her advisors, all of the greatest minds of her domain. "Life," she told them, "is full of the unknown. Surprise -- good or ill -- waits round every bend." Looking at the wise people before her, she continued: "I need a word, a phrase, a sentence of great power and wisdom. When i am happy, it must make me sad. And when i am sad, it must make me happy. There must be no circumstance, no time nor place nor event that can escape its power." And with that, she left them to confer.

The advisors, the ponderers, the philosophers -- all day they discussed and deliberated and argued for these words or those, one phrase or another. Night fell and the stars moved through the sky, oblivious to the dilemma on the Earth below. The conference was reaching a breaking point as time and tempers grew short... when one of the advisors, deep in thought and absently staring at the horizon, witnessed the first rays of the morning sun searing through the darkness of the dawn. The words came with them. And when those words were shared amongst the advisors, they all grew silent.

The queen, upon waking, was eager to hear the results of the night's labors. She found one advisor, the one who had seen the daylight, waiting in the audience chamber and holding a golden ring. "My lady," the advisor said, "we have found the words you seek, and have had them engraved upon this ring, that you may look upon them at any time -- and in turn have them look upon you." The queen took the ring and inspected it, reading the inscription.

She beamed, her smile filled with joy and amazement.

Then her brow furrowed. Her smile faded. And she began to sob, humbled and awed.

After some time, she looked up again at the advisor, smiling through her tears. "Truly," she whispered as she slid the ring onto her finger, "these are words of great wisdom."

And the inscription on the ring?

This too will pass.

 

[Mitchell]

Lee, I'm very sorry to hear this. Such must have been a very tramuatic experience.

I'm almost 41, and I've never seen a dead body. I wasn't in the room when any of my grandparents died. The only one I might ever see dead, perhaps, would be my mom, if I was at the hospital, or in the room, when she dies. She has cancer, as most on the forum know, but, hopefully she will live for a while.

An experience like the one you had can last a bit. Hopefully it will go away. If not, maybe see if you can talk to a couneslor about it. Good Luck.

Mitch

 

[paracarl44]

Seek out a counselor.

Remember that that many professional people have to deal with these situations like policemen, firemen, and nurses.

I saw a man go into cardiac arrest, the paramedics did all they could to revive him but he was pronounced dead at the hospital. The images will always stay with you.

You now have an idea of what our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq have to go through.

 

[love feet]

talk to a professional! abut it!

 

[TheTickleMonster]

I'm sorry about what you experienced. But I must say for someone freaking out right now you sure were brave when it happened. Walking up to him and checking his pulse and putting your check to his mouth... Most people would have automatically called 911 instead of getting near him. Maybe some would check his pulse, but not put their cheek up to his mouth.

But I'm sorry about what you're going throug. It's undestandable. Seeing people that are dead like a funerals can be scary enough, but being the one finding them dead or watching someone die is a whole different type of fear and horror.

Someone mentioned that emergency people see that kind of stuff all the time. I don't think that needs to be said. It's part of their job. They expect to see that kind of stuff, if they can't handle that they shouldn't be in that job. But you don't go into a receptionist job thinking you'll see dead bodies, you don't expect it...

 

[princess-tickle]

It's called seasoning...by the time you are my age you will see a bunch of people die and it won't bother you all that much.

I work in the intensive care unit of a major metro hospital and I can tell you with 3 years experience and countless number of patient deaths, I don't think it's normal to get 'seasoned' to it.

To the OP. Sorry you had to experience that. I agree with the other suggestions with counselling. It helps to talk it through and accepting how you're feeling. Hope it has helped somewhat by reading the responses on this thread. x

 

[me4o]

I have seen a couple of dead bodies, mostly of people, dead in car accidents. I don't know why actually, but I just seem to pass through a place, where an accident occured. What can I tell you- death is scary, unpleasent, yet-inevitable. I believe that each and every one of us has his own fate, and his time on Earth is known to some higher power. How could I comfort you...think in that way- yeah, this guy passed away, but somewhere in the world, a new baby came to replace him. Celebrate life, is what I can say

 

[StevePerry4Ever]

First off, as a firefighter, I see dead people a lot. I've seen some die too. You never forget your first dead body and you never forget the ones you can't save but you always always always remember that it wasn't you who made them sick, wasn't you who gave them the injury.

Yeah you could have checked on him earlier but when people are sick and hours from death, there isn't much we can do for them. You did more than you need to by checking for life signs but there are no what if's in this business. He was sick, and he died. Simple as that.

My neighbor was 17 when he was found dead the next morning. Stiff and blue, his family is obviously affected by it but he had an aneurism near his heart, he could have had that in an emergency room and still probably would have died. Most important thing to remember, you did NOT cause the problem.