That doesn’t happen so much in the OR. I rarely lost a patient. Usually, we could at least get them closed up & to the ICU for their family to say goodbye. Though — don’t get me wrong, I’ve lost a few. I knew how to do morgue care because I had ICU experience, so when a patient died in the OR — on any service, but usually trauma — my charge nurse would have me switch rooms so that I could get the patient to the morgue as fast as possible. Because there was always another case to put in that room. And in the OR — time is very expensive.

Anesthesia & the intense monitoring that an OR patient has usually gives everyone a heads up & time to intervene before things go sideways. And on those few cases that we just managed to get to the ICU — well — they never woke up. And I wasn’t their nurse anymore — an ICU nurse or PACU nurse would be taking care of them.

In nearly 30 years of nursing, I never had a patient with a near-death experience. The ones that got close enough to experience it, stayed dead. It is a fascinating subject, however.

As always — thank you for your support, Mary. I greatly appreciate it. Have a wonderful day!