Watched a man die today...

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by GP
what's your definition of "cure". You don't consider succesful lithium treatment to be a cure?

Nope. It's only a cure if there's an end to treatment and the disease stays away in most patients. If you have to continue the treatment indefinitely then the disease can be said to be compensated, allieviated or even in remission, but it is not cured.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by GP
Those ****s continuting their workout need a boot in the ass. If they couldn't do anything helpful they should have left the room

Don't be too hard on them - that can be shock reaction or denial or both. Most people have no idea what to do in the event of a sudden death.

Same with the gallows humour of interns. Its a coping mechanism.

I've seen more than a few sudden deaths and you always feel useless, people act weird.

One of the saddest was a young guy who was having a routine vaccine shot. He went back to his office and then had some sort of allergic reaction and died suddenly. He slumped forward and looked like he asleep at his desk.

By the time he was found, he had already gone stiff

[Caligastia]

They fished a dead body out of the east river by my building a couple of weeks ago...eewwwww

[Fidel]

Originally posted by paiktis22
BTW when were you there?
I was in the summer of err '95 IIRC...

umm, let me see
summers of 91, 92, 92, 94, 95, 96, 97 and i am still alive
it used to be pretty cool way back then. i remember flashing our cyrillic serbian IDs to german tourists, shouting 'elliniki astynomia, no drink after 2 in the morning', confiscating all the booze they were drinking...oh, those were the days LOL

[Bereta_Eder]

We were most of the time in the beach (nearly all of them we visited) and at the greek clubs which were run by the irish up in the proteyousa.

[Bereta_Eder]

(the irish helpers were more drunk than the customers, it was a riot )

hint: from Ios you can go to the nearby folegandros island to spend an afternoon which has a completely different character (= family vacations) and it was like the invation of barbarians (=young party animal people) in a shire of utter serenity and calm vacations pupulated by middle agers.

they were afraid, very

[Sikander]

Has anyone here seen the film "Slacker"? (Not "Slackers" which came out this year, but the Linklater film) There is a scene where a woman is run over by a car, and a small crowd gathers around her trying to decide what they are supposed to do. There is a woman who is wearing 1980s era jogging attire, walkman etc. who jogs up to the group and keeps jogging in place the whole time as she gives not very useful advice and is obviously not going to dirty her hands doing a thing. It's a funny scene, and eerily like BG's experience.

One reason I don't like cities is that the disconnect between people is so large. You might find people in smaller towns who are in shock in an emergency and useless, but you won't often find people who are so used to ignoring the mass of humanity around them that they can ignore such an important event and refuse to show any respect at all. Interestingly this topic was the subject of the last Seinfeld episode (though IIRC it was a mugging, not a death), where the jaded New Yorkers were brought to justice in the hinterland, where the standard for caring about your neighbor is a good deal higher.

[Fidel]

Originally posted by paiktis22
(the irish helpers were more drunk than the customers, it was a riot )

hint: from Ios you can go to the nearby folegandros island to spend an afternoon which has a completely different character (= family vacations) and it was like the invation of barbarians (=young party animal people) in a shire of utter serenity and calm vacations pupulated by middle agers.

they were afraid, very

i know. when i went once to antiparos to recuperate, our attempt to 'mellow out' there was considered disturbing by local standards the last time i was at ios it was really boring. either that or i got old.

[SuperSneak]

I've seen that before.
Massive cardiac arrest is definitely not as neat and clean as it is in the movies.
But, given all other options, I think that I'd pick that as my way to go...over very quickly, it seemed.
Sorry for the experience...but it will probably impact you for the better.

[Alexander's Horse]

That reminds me - I saw a man drop dead one fine sunny morning in the queue to a skii lift. They pulled the guy out, did cpr, the ambulance guys came but he was pretty obviously beyond help. His friends just stood around hopelessly.

Nobody stopped shuffling forward to catch that skii lift - including me. It was a bit like the way wild herds watch lions devour one of their number.

[WhiteElephants]

Hmmm... I guess I'm just not sure what you guys think is the appropriate reaction. Should everyone in the immediate vicinity fall to their knees, light incense, and pray to God? If you can't do anything, you can't do anything, right? Standing around gawking at a man in his death throes isn't exactly being respectful either, is it? Or is it that when someone dies in your vacinity you should drop what you're doing and immediately become meditative and introspective?

Being that I've never been in the situation I'd sure like to know proper death etiquette.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by WhiteElephants

Being that I've never been in the situation I'd sure like to know proper death etiquette.

That's the thing - in modern societies death is hidden so people don't know what to do.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by WhiteElephants
Hmmm... I guess I'm just not sure what you guys think is the appropriate reaction. Should everyone in the immediate vicinity fall to their knees, light incense, and pray to God? If you can't do anything, you can't do anything, right? Standing around gawking at a man in his death throes isn't exactly being respectful either, is it? Or is it that when someone dies in your vacinity you should drop what you're doing and immediately become meditative and introspective?

Being that I've never been in the situation I'd sure like to know proper death etiquette.

Well, in my situation, considering it was a confined room, the people just could have left. Or they could have at least stopped. It would have been respectful for the man's friend, who was right there helping the doctor with CPR. What would you think if a friend of yours was on the floor dying, and 5 feet away some woman is still chugging away on her stairmaster?

[Alexander's Horse]

Well you don't actually know someone is dying - people collapse all the time.

[Bereta_Eder]

Originally posted by LaRusso


i know. when i went once to antiparos to recuperate, our attempt to 'mellow out' there was considered disturbing by local standards the last time i was at ios it was really boring. either that or i got old.

there were 7 of us when we went to Ios.

Noone knew eachother very much except that we all knew one guy who was sort of the connective link.

3 girls 4 guys.

by the time thge holidays were over there were 3 couples and the guy who organized it all was left with his d!ick in his hand (no it wasnt me )

Which made for the classic line that we said to him: make sure you organize more holidays and that you then leave us to enjoy them (he was pissed he was left alone )