If you found someone dead?

[unruliejulie]

yesterday morning , my Mum went to check on her neighbour, a man in this late 80's. She found him on the bathroom floor, half undressed and very much dead, eyes wide open and very cold!!! It shook her up even though she has seen many a dead body over the years!
It made me think, what would you do if you found someone dead, would you touch the body to feel for a pulse or try and move them, what? or maybe you have been in this situation, if so how did you handle it, not just at the time but afterwards?
I cant imagine having to deal with that, it must be awful.

[4getmenot]

It depends on what situation I was in, if like your mother it was a neighbour I would check on them whereas when I found a body on the side of the road in early hours of the morning I wouldn�t get out my car and check as just me and my girl mate there and could have been dangerous.

[whiskeysheri]

Aww! Your poor mum, Jules! Hope she's okay. x

If it happened to me, I hope I wouldn't panic and I'd just 'know' what to do, but I suppose the first thing I'd do would be to touch them and try to get some sort of response. After that, though, I really don't know...

I'd just hope if it was me that was found, that it wouldn't be my bloke that finds me. I just know what he'd do to try and get me to respond! ;o)

Give your mum a cuddle from me, hun. x x x

[Octavius]

My dad. It scared the hell out of me as before I touched him I knew that he was gone. He felt cold and �rubber like�. The feeling of that moment has never left me.

Prior to that I had to help deal with a dead child whilst I was working in Pakistan many years ago. I assisted the embalmer, although I can never say I did help that much. Again, I can picture that as if it were today.

Nurses, doctors, firemen, policemen and paramedics (etc) have to deal with that prospect every working day and I admire them for that.

[unruliejulie]

thanks ws! X i She was a nurse for 25 years so the sight of a dead person is nothing new to her but when you're not expecting it, it is a massive shock!
Im not sure i want to touch a dead person to be honest, although when i was nursing, i did help lay a body out, but i didnt touch the cold skin because they wrapped her up, mind you, i could feel the coldness through that. It was the look of her that haunted me! Not nice. My ward sister made me go to the funeral parlour and see her again just so i didnt take away that image of her with me, instead i remember how lovely and peaceful she looked laying in her coffin.
I do think thats different though than finding someone.
I agree with pa___ul, i think you'd go into auto pilot!

[crete]

the important issue is to assess if they are dead , or unconscious, a shock for your mum julie.

[unruliejulie]

Octavius, a child must be worse than anything else. I can totally understand how that would always stay with you!

Total agreement about all the professionals you listed! Truly amazing, mind you, they must get desensitized to it, don't you think??? Saying that though, there must be the odd case that even the most hardened professional has difficulty dealing with such as the baby who was savaged by the dog here in Leicester at that pub for example..

[unruliejulie]

yes crete, it certainly was!!! she did all that but she still asked her hubby to check just to make sure, but he wouldnt go over! The paramedic confirmed what she knew but she said it put her mind at rest!

[megan07]

Hi julie give your mam a cuddle from me julie i look after terminally ill people and i have lost count now how many people i have nursed and laid out the one thing that still gets to me after 20 years is when they pass-away in my arms it just feels so much more personal but i have trained for these situations and my patients get all the T L C i can give them and with the upmost dignity and respect hope your mam is ok love megan

[cockroach]

love & hugs too.. I saw a dead lady at Palma airport. They had put the wheely curtain ting round her but she was flat on the floor & the curtain thing started about a foot & 1/2 up so you could see all. I went to see my friend who died & she looked shorter. The most horrid is My uncle had a heart attack on a running machine & died outright...His grandson was running next to him at the time . he was 15 years old.(grandson that is).

[crete]

julie you said when you were nursing you assisted in laying out a dead body, only one if so i wish id worked in your hospital.. : )

[unruliejulie]

it was menatally handicpped nursing crete, not general ! There was a ward for the terminally ill, so they usually died over there, also i was only a nursing assistant so i shouldnt have been doing it but the qualified nurse ran a mile so i had to help out! We lost about 6 of our ladies whilst i worked there but only the one passed in her sleep whilst actually on our ward.

[crete]

thanks julie understand now.

[gloop]

When I was 19 I found my uncle at home after he'd hung himself. I think I just blacked out briefly. The first thing I did was phone my mom as I just panicked. She told me to call an ambulance and they kept me online and asked me to check if he was alive. I couldn't bring myself to touch him but i knew he was dead and he had been for quite a few hours. That was eight years ago but it's something you never can get out of your mind no matter how much you try to.

[Joe_the_Lion]

I have only ever seen fresh ones.

Some war-kill which was usually bloody and no time for emotion, but when I have had close ones die I took comfort in the fact they looked peaceful.

Yes, I am a Christian, but religious or not when you have seen somebody suffer and they then expire, you really can see the pain and suffering lift from their features.

[funkymoped]

i wouldnt want to be in the situation your mom was Julie...
i cant think of many things worse that finding someone you know and respect, dead on the floor...

in the same situation, i know i would check for a pulse and call the emergency services.. wouldnt matter if the body was cold or not.. i think it has to be a priority to check for any sign of life !!

hope your mom wasnt too upset and gets over the shock VERY soon.
:-)

[crete]

war kill or road kill. there is a difference.

[hotpink]

My dad died when I was 18 (22 now) and we knew it was coming because he was very ill, and also quite an old dad compared to my school mates. Me and my sis went to see him in the chapel of rest, and I'm glad I did it, but it was horrible. To never have seen a dead body before, to suddenly see your own dad in a suit you've never seen him in before and his hair combed differently... it was scary. As soon as I walked into the room it was like there was a waxwork in front of me. No breath, no movement, nothing... it was just a shell... and all I could think was 'my dads just been in a freezer, and now I've seen him, he's going back in the freezer'. When my nan died last year I couldn't go and see her in the chapel of rest (though I saw her in the hospital... I got there as soon as I could but she had already died, but I asked for the curtain to be closed so I couldn't see her face... and just sat and held my mums hand). Its made me value so much more in my life

[cruella]

Hi All,
I work as a Warden in Sheltered Housing, all tenants having their own flats.
Unfortunately, My colleague and find ourselves in that situation frequently.
Usually it is fist thing in the morning when they do not answer the intercom.
You never get used to it, even though it is part of our duties. Most of the people we look after are more like friends to us and we do have to stay with the body until it is removed from the house.
Then we have the awful task of informing their NOK . That is very hard at times, and normally we are on duty alone at the time.

[bigmamma]

I still wonder at the life given and taken.I have laid out lots of people from adults to children and babies.As has already been said ,as a nurse you have to keep in control but you still have heartfelt feelings and often take your emotions home after your shift.Each person is treated with dignity in death and they are still a person even though the light in their eyes has gone.
I also mentioned the life given,I also trained as a midwife and in that period of my life I delivered well over 500 babies
Unruliejulie I hope your mum is ok ,it would shake her up finding him unexpectedly.