#71 She Wanted a Proper Last Meal
ER nurse. Had an old lady come in by ambulance, near death. She was a DNR, so we weren’t going to do much for her. She didn’t have any family that we could find. The hospital was full, so we had to keep her in the ER for the night. Again, she was near death. When you’ve seen enough people die, there’s no mistaking it, and she was almost there.
Barely responsive; pale, cool, breaths were really irregular. Heart rate was up and down, too. We just turned the lights down and kept an eye on her monitor, basically waiting for her to die. About an hour later, she’s standing at the door of her room. She’d gotten up and put on all her clothes. We were all like, what?
One of the nurses went to check on her, and she said she was hungry. Not knowing really what to make of things, we got her a chair and a bedside table, went to the cafeteria and got her a tray of food. Lady sat there, ate all her food, talked with the staff a little. After about an hour, she told her nurse that she was tired and wanted to lie back down. We helped her back into bed, and within 30 minutes she was dead. Not exactly paranormal, but in 22 years in busy, wild, inner-city ERs, it’s the weirdest thing I’ve seen.
Credit: Permalink
