When I was a kid, I sang in a choir that occasionally visited a local hospital for terminal patients to sing hymns from room to room. One time, as we sang to a very sick man lying in bed, I'm pretty sure we saw him flatline right there, and our maestro quickly ushered us to the next room over. What I had seen that day didn't hit me until a few years later.
One time, a woman in hospice care had about ten crows outside hanging out on the ledge of her hospital room window. They all cawed briefly when she passed and took off.
A patient passed away from cardiac arrest, but he kept twitching almost 40 minutes after his death. It was just muscle spasms, but no one wanted to touch him for the bag and tag, so I put on a brave face and did it. I was definitely freaking out the whole time.
I was in the NICU with my son in the middle of the night; I knew he was dying, so I was already in a weird state and hadn't left the side of his incubator for days. The one on the other side of me, less than a foot away from me, had another baby inside who had only been in for a week. I heard the nurses trying to get a trace on the sats probe, but they were struggling, trying different wires and positions. Then they realized her temperature had dropped and tried to get a blood gas where they prick the baby's heel, but there was no blood.
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