Witnessing death.

[LarenzoAOG]

I've seen a few family members die of sickness, and my first dog Felix get put to sleep.

 

[GamerPhate]

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.

Humor is the main way people deal with uncomfortable subjects to ease the pain. As far as not feeling anything, you didn't know the person personally, so there is probably little connection to the importance of this person's life to you. I am fairly sure if it was your mom, the jokes might not come flying as fast. But it is a bit sad these days, we are so desensatized to gore and violence by tv, games, and the internet, that there is a level of detachment.

Somehow I think you told yourself she will just respawn, heh. Woah, that makes me think, do people view other people they interact with that have no outside bearing to the task at hand, such as a cashier or fast food attendant, as NPCs? Unimportant characters that have no real bearing on anything? But once you get to know them outside of their setting and they join your party so to speak, only then do they become signifigant?

 

[MorsePacific]

I witnessed a car crash that killed a girl at my high school on impact, but didn't know who was in it or if they had died until a week later.

I kind of didn't react at all. Just took it at face value. Had school been in session I would have been forced to see a counselor, but I don't think it would have done anything.

 

[Pig Mazurka]

Either one or two years ago (14 at the time) I watched a new born kitten die slowly on my porch. The saddest thing I've seen so far in my life. Probably cried for more than an hour.

If I were in your position I'd probably be frozen on the spot if I saw that happen, and I'd probably go insane afterwards as well. To say the least, my mind wouldn't take it very well.

 

[Knusper]

I remember a BBC documentary where they showed a man breathing his last, but other than that, no. When my grandfather died I never saw the body, only the ashes.

 

[GamerPhate]

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!)

Actually, what you are experiencing is likely Post Tramatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to a certain degree. I am not a psychologist, but I study a bit of human thought and processes, but only a doctor can say YES this is what you have. But basically, people that witness or even worse, live through a tramatic experience like that often carry a new sense of perception on the world. It leads to extreme depression, isolationism, and elevated fears about doing things similar to what was witnessed. Sometimes it gets worse, and the only way people are able to deal with it is to develope an obsessive compulsive disorder to decrease the stress of life. It starts out small and simple, some people would maybe never take the highway again for example, or others might have to lock the doors 10 times and check their seatbelt a dozen times throughout the car trip. Others attempt to treat both conditions with self medication, that sometimes is effective, but often leads to more problems if a compulsion about the drug-use becomes evident.

Which brings up another issue close to my heart, public health care. Most Americans have fairly low levels of health compared to the rest of the devloped world. I am not just talking about weight and smoking but particularly mental health. And mental health is just as valid as cancer or other diseases, as you might have something happen to you while you are driving and hit someone, like pass out of have a seizure. But with mental health, you might go out and go on a rampage killing many more people, on purpose! But mental health is a stigma in the workplace and society, and is considered taboo to your medical records to be deemed to have some ailment. But where I am getting with this, is that America spends so much money on "fighting crime" domestically and internationally, that it often forgets to treat the source of the problem. We are very reactive to situations, such as we fix a problem AFTER it has become a disaster, instead of being proactive and stopping the problem from getting worse. But really, we NEED some sort of health care reform before it gets too late.

Last note, I think most people are suffering from some level of sociopathic disorders. Here is wiki's version:

sociopath so·ci·o·path (sô'sç-ə-pâth', -shç-)
n.
A person affected with an antisocial personality disorder.

Most people don't really get along with people if they don't know them. What that means in a liberal way, is that the don't think about the ramifications of their actions to society. And in fact, apathy is making a choice. Doing nothing, is doing something. It was an active choice not to react. But basically not caring through apathy, is similar to not carrying about society by your actions. So in a way, we all need a bit of help.

 

[GamerPhate]

Either one or two years ago (14 at the time) I watched a new born kitten die slowly on my porch. The saddest thing I've seen so far in my life. Probably cried for more than an hour.

If I were in your position I'd probably be frozen on the spot if I saw that happen, and I'd probably go insane afterwards as well. To say the least, my mind wouldn't take it very well.

I came home one day and found a tiny black and white kitten dead and still in my front yard. I let it stay there for a day to see if anyone would claim it, but I think it ended up being stray. People told me to just dump it into a trash dumpster, but I couldn't do it. I took it to a vet and paid like $30 bucks i think it was to have it cremated and its ashes spread into an animal cemetary. I am also a penny pinching bastard, so this was quite a reach for me. However, it felt like the right thing to do.

 

[Electrogecko]

My cat was looking right into my eyes when he went.

I attempted to save a bird that my brother shot with an airsoft gun. It died right there in front of me.

As for humans, no, outside of documentaries, I've never witnessed a death and have only seen a couple of bodies.

 

[Jason Danger Keyes]

I saw a little kid get hit by a truck in a parking lot. I remember the plummeting in my stomach as he broke away from his mother's grasp at a run. I remember him appearing as if from nowhere from between two parked cars. I remember the sound as the grill of the truck hit him, and again as his head hit the pavement, and then the only thing anyone could hear was his mother screaming.

The driver didn't realize what had happened right away, but when he did I could see that something in him had died that day as well.

I was holding out hope beyond all hope that the kid would be alright, but when the ambulance showed up and didn't rush off, I knew all I needed to know.

To this day I have a mini panic when I see kids running in parking lots, and to an extent even adults. Parents out there: hold on to your kids until you can get them in the car.

 

[curty129]

I saw (through a gate) a fat child bending over to pick something up, with his head poking out into the road, but as I was walking from a partciular angle, he disappeared from my view for a few seconds and I heard a big "Thump!" as I walked through the gate. He was on his ass and a bit further in the road, wailing like Cartman, and no car in sight. I checked out his face and such, and he didn't have a scratch or dirt mark on him.

That's about as close as I've ever seen death. I'm pratically scarred for life.

Oh, no. I forgot. And now I feel like I dick. I have the image of my brother on his final day of life (He was 13, which to me at the time seemed very old; I was five), and I was pestering him to play "Guess Who?" with me, with my family still around trying to say their goodbyes. I didn't register that he was 'leaving forever', I don't think. And it's the only memory I have of him. So I'm not particularly attached.

The next day, he was on a double bed, dead, and my family started crying, my dad picking me up in his arms. I was baffled for a moment and asked my dad: "Why's everyone crying?" to which he replied something like "Because this is a sad moment.". I was still confused, about to ask "Why?", then I burst into tears too. Later, we had an open casket ceremony where everyone let a fuckton of either black, white, or red balloons into the air. It was a mix of two of those colours. It was very pretty.

I'm not feeling very articulate today :|

 

[ButterFunky]

Saw an old man jump off a 40 storey building, landing on a car. I was around 5, at the swimming pool, enjoying my innocent, carefree youth when that happened. Now, because of his death, I lost it. That and I saw my rabbit jump to its death on the same building, landing on a lamppost, we never saw its head.

 

[trollnystan]

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.

My grandmother died recently and I was with her when she went. She just fell asleep and never woke up. Other than that I've never experienced death.[footnote]I'm not counting the time the train I was on hit a woman. Never saw a thing.[/footnote]

In your shoes I'd probably be pretty upset, but then I'm very sensitive - too sensitive some say - to things like that. I make jokes about death too but if I saw something like that I would probably go puke in a corner, and have a bit of a cry. Then, after a while, I'd get over it. Like other's have said, you didn't know this woman and everyone has different levels of emotional vulnerability. I do hope you thought for half a second, "Poor woman" though.

EDIT: If we're counting animals, I saw my grandfather's dog kill a white kitten when I was six. I still remember the way it dragged its way over the yard, its back legs limp and red with blood. I cried all day.

 

[KedynCrow]

I've been hunting since I was young. So, animals are a given.

Went to high school in a bad part of a city composed almost entirely of bad parts. Several shootings on campus. Low body-count all told, but one fatality not six yards away.

Joined the military afterward. Death is jarring. But if you let it shake you soul-deep, well, then you tend to spend the rest of your life shaking. When it's personal, it's harder. Otherwise, your lizard-brain sort of anesthetizes you.

You aren't inhuman.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

Yup, my uncle. He was already mostly dead anyway(no pun intended), on life support. I'm not profoundly affected or anything. I, as the youngest person in my family, have already come to accept that I'm likely to see all of my family die. Not very cheery to think about, but at least I'm not deluding myself.

 

[TerribleAssassin]

Nope, everyone escaped without me noticing...

 

[Akytalusia]

yeah, i've seen a dog get ran over before, long time ago. i was pretty traumatized by it considering it was my fault.

 

[Saulkar]

I saw a guy flat line in an Estevan hospital before the doctors called it in. I was 2 at the time so I did not understand it till I was 3 watching an episode of ER.

 

[Brandon237]

No person, but I have seen my pets being euthanized, most of them actually, it is horrible The cat I had known my entire life, there on the cold table, horrible. I kept thinking that the cat was still in the house for almost 2 years afterwards, it was upsetting to realise I was wrong ever time

i got home from school and was told that my cat had bee n put down and i felt fine for awhile but then I saw a shape that looked like my cat. as i looked closer it was just a black jacket thrown over some boots and it hit me super hard and i was crying for almost an hour nonstop.


OT: my best freind died a long-ish time ago infront of me which i really dont want to talk about. but hat hit me hard straight away and i had to go to a phsycologist for a while.

Ow, shame, I know that feeling, I thought one of my cats was going to die in the last few weeks, had feline leukaemia and it had reached his brain, I cried a lot and he was still alive, but he is better now and beyond the laws of nature he is well and with us (he is the feistiest, strongest little kitteh you ever saw, and after what he has survived, that is no joke)

 

[Tentickles]

I watched my father fall ill, get diagnosed with a brain tumor then die within the span of 2 weeks. He died when I was 18. I wasnt very close to him but his death hit me so hard I dropped out of school and didnt do anything for nearly 4 years. For two years after his death I was pretty much a shut in. To say I didnt handle it well is an understatement.

(edit)The worst part was having to see him in the hospital, all weak with tubes coming out of him. Crap now im gonna cry.

I also saw a motorcyclist's head get severed at the neck by an 18 wheeler when I was 15. It was very odd to see just a helmet leaking blood onto the street with his motorcycle and body about 30 feet away. Didnt really effect me in anyway though.

 

[deus-ex-machina]

Saw my dad die, but it was in a hospital bed and he wasn't going to be waking up. It was a case of turning off the life support and being there for his last few moments. I've come across a couple of people who have hated what I did. But his kidneys and liver had failed him and throughout his life he had said he didn't want to be 'vegetable'. It was unsettling. But it wasn't a vicious death so I don't know how it would compare to the OP.

Can't say it scarred me. I miss him as we were pretty close.