Witnessing death.

[pulse2]

Does seeing someone jump from the window of a building opposite the building I was doing work experience count as seeing someone die?

Short story: Several stories high, man jumps, everyone shocked, police everywhere throughout the rest of the afternoon. Yeah, that stained my memories, but I'm sure it's not as bad as an old friend of mine who witnessed someone throw themselves in front of a train.

Death isn't a pleasent sight

 

[Carnage95]

A person? Nope and I hope I never see a person die right in front of my eyes. I'm not sure how my mind will handle it.

 

[V TheSystem V]

I've never seen a person die, but when I was 9 I witnessed my pet rabbit going crazy and dying in front of me. Not sure if it was a heart attack or seizures, but it really, really scared me.

 

[DanielDeFig]

I've gone few a few deaths around me: Two pets, my great-grandmother and a classmate (didn't know him more than 6 months, so I was mostly shocked and less sad. But he was a returning student, so I felt mostly guilty about not being as grief-stricken as some of my other classmates who had known him since before he left). I've also seen more than my share of dead animals on the roadside, which always disturbs me (Doesn't really matter in what third-world country your're in, nobody cares enough to get rid of a dead dog from the road or sidewalk).


I was just about to post that I have never seen a living being (beyond bugs) die with my own eyes, but now I remember that I have actually killed a living being (Bugs still don't count, somehow).

I remember the time when I took care of yet another unfortunate animal to be our cat's latest victim. Unfortunately, unlike the others that were either already dead (So I had to throw them away, because my mother, sister, and younger brother didn't even want to look at them) or alive and well enough to run back into the wild, my mother deemed this little bird to be too injured to be able to even lift off the ground if I put it outside. She asked me to wring it's neck and throw it away. I did so, and felt extremely weird (and somewhat shocked) that my first witness of a death was due to my own actively causing it. I think I was 15. It was disturbing, but I quickly moved on (or repressed it, however you want to look at it)

 

[HandsomeZer0]

I've seen someone die in front of me. I wasn't really phased much. I never knew the woman but it was sad nonetheless.

 

[LuckyClover95]

I haven't, but it isn't right that it didn't phase you 'one bit'. I can understand if it didn't traumatize you etc, but didn't bother you one bit? You saw her and wasn't shocked or scared, you didn't go home and think about what you saw? You don't feel sorry for her?
I refuse to believe.

 

[Scars Unseen]

When I was six I saw victims of a 4th of July boating/fireworks accident being dragged ashore. Some completely toast, others still alive, but covered with 2nd and 3rd degree burns. Some of them died while I was watching. Years later, I saw an old woman die of heat stroke in a parking lot.

 

[AlAaraaf74]

The only deaths I remember are that of my great grandmother and my uncle. I didn't see either of them as they passed away, but I saw them both right before and after.

I did, however, watch my dog murder a bird once. He grabed it in his mouth and shook it to break it's bones.

I also was in the car when my uncle drove over a kitten. That devistated my younger cousin.

 

[TheKmanofAwesometon]

I've lost several pets, but the only body I remember seeing otherwise, was that of a deer which had been dragged over the schoolyard by a wolf. I was 8 at the time, so we all found it intresting every time we discovered another part of the deer scattered around the area. The teachers didn't believe us about the deer until we showed them its skull with one antler still attached.

 

[Dogstile]

I saw one person die in front of me, and I've seen many people recently dead (and helped pick up body parts) when I used to drive a towtruck under contract with the police.

She was outside your monkey sphere, don't worry about it. Your not a monster for feeling nothing, now if she was your mother and you feel fine then I'd start worrying.

Lack of compassion is worrying.

Not really. Lack of compassion is your bodies way of dealing with death in the world.

Think of it this way. If you knew someone who died who you've only known because you saw them a few times as you walked down their road and they died, would it make sense to feel horrible about it?

Apply that to every disaster we've had in recent history. Feeling even a little compassion for people we don't know makes no biological sense, so we don't. Nothing worrying about it.

Hell, would you want your doctors and nurses getting really beat up over a patient dying of cancer every week or so?

OT:

I've seen a man get his head crushed by a car. The popping sound was awful. Its like his skull just like, popped open at the back and then the road was just covered in blood.

Its the sound that gets me to this day. The death itself? A memory, its not even very prominent. I don't think its affected me aside from making me a little more wary of roads for a few weeks.

 

[The_ModeRazor]

Uh-huh.
Quite a few pets died on me, so did a grandma I liked, and best of all, my dad up and got a heart attack when I was 15. That was... shocking.

 

[Geek_DR]

I've never seen anyone die, but it is interesting how death affects us.
I remember when my Godmother who I was really close to (she gave me my first gaming system: an original Game-boy) died of cancer. I just nodded in acknowledgement when my mom told me, since it was cancer we knew it was coming. Weeks later I had a day where I just lay on the couch despondently, and when my mom asked what was up, I just let it all out. I didn't even know what was up until it came pouring out.

Another example was when there was a shooting in Toronto (where I live) on boxing day (the busiest shopping day in Canada). A gang shooting where a young girl named Jane Creba was killed in the crossfire.

My younger sister and I had been shopping on the same street an hour earlier. After we got home I found my sister crying and found out one of her friends (Jane) had been killed. I had never met this friend, but I remember being quite angry and upset for some time after that as their stray gunfire could have hit my sister if it had been just one hour ealier. Still disturbs me to this day.

Gang-bangers can fuck right off.

 

[Nomatophobe]

I watched my sister take her last breath. She had been very sick for a while and I was holding her hand when she passed. It wasn't particularly scary or frightening, it just sort of was what it was.

I thought it was going to be strange to watch someone die but once you see it you kind of just shrug it off as a part of life.

 

[fragmaster09]

i saw a Gerbil die once, it was very old and thin, it was breathing it's last, yawning as it went, i didn't freak out, sat there, at 14 years old, said goodbye, let it go, let out a few tears(pets get so close to your heart), and got on with my life, it was, sad, and i felt kind of sad even now, but there's no use crying over spilled milk

 

[Formica Archonis]

Simple question: Have you ever seen someone die with your own eyes?

Yes. Loved one, nonviolently. She was breathing when I took hold of her hand and not breathing when I let go.

How did you react?

Similar to the deaths of other people very close to me, actually. The changes tended to be further down the road, and not where I expected. It's quite odd when you suddenly have a violently bad reaction to a comment you thought little of before, and don't realize it until you're in the middle of the reaction.

 

[ROBOcity123]

Simple question: Have you ever seen someone die with your own eyes? How did you react?

While walking to my friend's house yesterday morning, I watched a woman get hit by car, fly 10 feet in the air, and slam into the ground. This happened not even 5 feet in front of me, and the piece of her skill with her hair attached to it landed even closer. My friend's and I have made countless jokes, and mockeries on the subject of death. In fact, it was one of the ways I'd coped with the death of my best friend. However, until now, I'd never witnessed death with my own eyes. Surprisingly, and even somewhat worryingly, it didn't phase me one damn bit.

I've witnessed 3 people slowly die and I feel that is much worse. It's like holding a dead flower or watching it wilt to death only obviously much worse. Believe it or not one of the most traumatic death I have ever seen was a kitten . My little sister drowned it in a pond (she was 2) and it just lay there looking lovingly into my eyes and gasping for air, it was really fucked up and that moment lasted forever. Death is beyond terrible, and nothing is worse than cancer.

 

[Morkel]

I've witnessed a couple of incidences where a wildebeest and a warthog was killed by a pride and a single lion respectively. And yes, this was in the wild. It was a really weird feeling watching one creature killing another creature in such a brutal way. The wildebeest lived on for about an hour while the lions nibbled at it, but it succumbed eventually. I will probably remember that for the rest of my life. The sound of bone crunching, the wildebeest thrashing in the tall grass, the smell of raw meat and blood followed by the unmistakeable stench of death. The lions growling at each other as they tore pieces of flesh from the still living wildebeest. And the fear of the lions noticing us and diciding to take us as dessert.

 

[IceStar100]

Simple question: Have you ever seen someone die with your own eyes? How did you react?

While walking to my friend's house yesterday morning, I watched a woman get hit by car, fly 10 feet in the air, and slam into the ground. This happened not even 5 feet in front of me, and the piece of her skill with her hair attached to it landed even closer. My friend's and I have made countless jokes, and mockeries on the subject of death. In fact, it was one of the ways I'd coped with the death of my best friend. However, until now, I'd never witnessed death with my own eyes. Surprisingly, and even somewhat worryingly, it didn't phase me one damn bit.

Your not odd or anything. Rape victim sometime feel nothing. It could be becuase it out of you care circle or could be you mind trying to stay sane.

 

[shwnbob]

I walk to school everyday and have to walk on a narrow street to get to the college so I see a ton of roadkill (the worst being a half crushed cat that was just recently killed.) I've seen two dead bodies (both at funerals.) And my friends tricked me into seeing that video of a politician (I think he was at least) shoot himself in the head on camera. It was...different.

 

[Realitycrash]

Car-crash. Two cars doing 40Mph hitting eachother full-frontal. Noone was wearing seatbelts, only one out of four survived. I was six, and me and my dad were on a vacation in Spain. We were wandering along a local road on the way into town.
I still remember their faces..Blue and broken, with blood everywhere. I think it's the cause of my slight autophobia (what, not a correct word for "scared-of-cars"? Well, BITE ME!)