One thing they never teach you when training for any care giving role is death. In my 4 years as a caregiver I have dealt with just under 40 deaths. Lots of them had happened on my shift or just as I was coming or leaving on halls I was not working on. My most hands on was when lady I was caring for right after I had done my hourly checks. To give a better picture she was in her 70's or 80's and had just come to our facility from another one not to far away, she had a horrible breathing problem and you could hear her wheezing from down the hall as she was on oxygen around the clock and aspiration problems. From the office you could hear her enough to know if she was having a problem. I had headed down my hall and did my checks stopping in her door way and checking on her while she slept in her chair (she hated her bed and could breathe better sitting upright). I had walked in covered her legs with her blanket and made sure all was ok. She opened her eyes and smiled as I told her good night and would see her in a few hours when she got up. She was in room 3 out of 10. I continued my checks and made my way back to the office all while hearing her. When I got to the office I sat and started my check report, by the time I was done I noticed it had grown quite so I got up and walked a little faster to her room then normal when I got to her room it took a few seconds (tho it felt like minutes) to grasp that she was not breathing anymore. I tried my 2way only to get no response so in the middle of the hallway in the middle of the night I yell to my co-worker "I NEED HELP HERE NOW!" She came running and everything went slow motion.
We lifted this poor lady to the ground felt for a pulse and started CPR while reaching out to the other workers so we could call for an ambulance and notify our manager. After the ambulance was called we continued to do compressions for 20 minutes with the 911 operator on the phone while waiting for this ambulance that seemed to never be coming. Once the EMTS arrived we continued while they were setting up as this facility did not have a AED machine we did compressions. They finally got their equipment set up and got us hands off they worked franticly and we had a faint pulse, then it dropped again. We would go back to hands on as they were struggling to keep it. Between us and the EMTS we lost her 4 times before they had a strong enough pulse to transport her.
They loaded her up and the real hard part began, we had to reach out to her family. En route they lost her again not even 5 minutes down the road and had to change route to the nearest hospital not equipped to handle the situation at the early hours of the morning. At the hospital they brought her back long enough for family to come and say goodbye before the family decided to let her go.
Much of the night after this was a blur to me unable to talk with anyone but my co-worker who was next to be switching off doing compressions for well over an hour. I remember retelling the story to our manager, our assistant manager, her family, the EMTS, the police just everyone under the sun it seemed. I was on auto piolet for days after.
I felt like some how I had missed something I should have know, I should have done something more. What I have no idea. I finally broke and talked to our assistance home manager six months after this asking what I could have done different. She looked me dead in the eyes and said me and my co-worker went above and beyond and her family felt the same as we did not give up. She also told me this lady had come to our facility septic. She was there as a terminal respite case. And no matter what was done it would of happened sooner or later and while it was tragic it happened she was glad I was on the floor when it did.
It still took me months to finally be okay with this death I know in my heart tho we did go above and beyond.
I have never had to deal with death this close again since besides helping once they pass and comforting families as they go through it or making the heart breaking call. I wish neither on anyone.