Have you ever seen someone pass away in public?

Yes. I saw a woman get run over on my local high street. It was surreal. Do you know the root of your fear OP?

Oh my gosh, sorry R1. That’s crazy. Run over by what?

[quote]Run over by what?

Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer, Rose.

A car. She died on impact.

Sadly, when I was very young on the way home from school, I watched a women who had died being taken out of the local drugstore. I remember the image to this day. A few hours later, I found out it was my grandmas best friend, but I didn't recognize her at the time she died as she looked different lying down, bloated and a different colour

I don’t know where I get the fear of dying in public, but it’s there, R1. When I stand in line, at the credit union, for example, I always worry that I’m going to die right then and there. Then I start to sweat, my heart races, and sometimes the room spins. I have to breathe to calm down. I don’t know where my fear of public death came from but it’s been there for years.

Two people.

I was out to dinner when an old woman who was dining with her family just slumped to the side. An ambulance came and just took her out. We asked the owner and he said that she was dead.

The second was a young construction worker in his 20s who didn't have his safety harness on when he fell 20 stories and landed right under my window a few feet below.

A friend was working as a cashier and a regular customer walked up to make a purchase, looked down, gasped, and fell to the floor. Within minutes he was dead of a heart attack.

One day I noticed the man who ran the company cafeteria looked very red and was shaking. i was concerned, he looked so unwell and was having difficulty counting change. He died that night at home from a heart attack.

Oh, R7, that reminds me of the time I saw a man laying on the street after jumping out of a window several stories above. He was flat on his back with his long hair radiating out from his head. Next day I read in the paper he survived the jump with two broken legs. I thought for sure he was dead.

I saw an electrocution. A guy was cutting storm-damaged limbs from a tree and he cut through the power line with his chainsaw. There was a huge flash of blue light, which was a strange thing to see on a sunny afternoon, but that's how bright it was. When I looked up he was swinging back and forth from a harness and his back was arched like he was doing a backbend. I've never gotten that image out of my head.

I think that would be worse, r9, seeing someone in agony. I was suprised with the construction worker just how little blood there was (just a splattering on the scaffold) and how little external damage his body had considering he fell 20-stories. I always thought it was because he hit the plywood on the scaffold and not the concrete of the sidewalk.

I understand OP’s anxiety, mostly because I wouldn’t trust total strangers to care or help. That said, I was once in a movie theater when somone had an epileptic fit...I ran out of the theater so fast! I threw out my popcorn and twizzlers, and yelled to the employee to call 911 (all while running out the door)! I have severe flight or fight issues (panic disorder); I cannot be around emergencies or I’ll pass out. If someone actually died in front of me it would probably induce a heart attack.

guy had a heart attack on a plane getting ready to take off.

Years ago I was managing a store in midtown Manhattan. A customer passed out. We tried to revive her and she told me her name and that she was pregnant. Before the ambulance arrived she died in my arms. It was horrific watching the life just slip away while trying to give her some sort of comfort. Her family later told me that the doctor had told her she should not get pregnant but she really wanted a baby and was willing to take the risk. Later that day I realized the date had other significance in my life. It was the anniversary of my aunts marjor heart attack when she was only 38 and the anniversary of the death of my dog I'd had for 14 years. Every year since then I have a sense of dread.on that date.

R11, he was unconscious. Eyes' closed, head back. I suppose it hurt when he woke up though. People gathered quickly. I did not wait around and watch what happened next. I assumed he had died.

Saw a guy run over on the street in NYC.

Seems like a strange phobia - not that there’s logic to any phobia. But it just seems that if you were dead, you wouldn’t care what people think. Unless it’s fear of not being helped? If it’s fear of dying in public, you won’t even know it because you will be dead.

A businesswoman stepped off a building roof opposite our office... holding a paper cup of coffee. (I'm surprised she didn't have her phone in the other hand.) So of the zeitgeist. I suppose it was easier than giving up her job and becoming an aromatherapist.

I used to work on the Santa Monica Pier. I saw a man get stabbed to death twenty yards away. Another had a heart attack two feet from me.

I was delivering furniture to a friend's mom in Potrero Hill. and saw a man shoot a woman in the back of her head. I was jumping from the bed of a company pickup, the entire thing took place in stop motion-it was so shocking. . I ran up the stairs to warn everyone to stay away from the windows..turns out, it was the son of the woman that shot her. He walked to a local park and waited for the cops to intercept him.

I was staying at Torre Pines golf resort on a business trip. I didn't see him keel over but I did see the paramedics trying to resuscitate him. They worked on him a long time and eventually hauled him away in an ambulance. They didn't ue the siren when they left so I assume he was dead.

Walking to work in downtown Ottawa on a very cold wintry day when I must have spotted people looking up. i looked up andto y amazement there was a body hanging over a hydro wire. What was strange was the wire ust have been at least 5 to 6 metres away from the apartment building so I tried t figure ot how the heck a person could end up on a hydro wire. Did they jump towards it? or was that person pushed? A total mystery.

This was way back around 1984 or so and I never thought about it really until this thread came up.

I’ve never heard of a hydro wire r21. How high off the ground are they?

“Pass away”? No. ‘Die’? Yes.

I was 11 years old and on an altar boys’ picnic (the recovering Catholics will understand) when I watched as two of my friends and the young priest who tried to save them, drowned, at Little Marley Beach south of Sydney.

After so long it is still one of the defining moments of my life, sadly.

Way to make everything all about YOU, r12. Drama queen.

It was a small high rise building, r24. The body was dangling around maybe the 4 or 5th floor at the approximate height of the hydro wire. This was back in the 80s and I just remember seeing the body. Kind of creepy and disturbing. Especiallly on a very cold winter day.

What’s a hydro wire? A wire that carries water?

I was in traffic while driving home from the University in Reno in the late 90s, passing by the casinos on Virginia St., when I saw a man jump to his death from the Eldorado upper levels parking garage to the pavement below. It was horrifying and, as I recall it, my memory plays it in slow motion whereas at the time it all happened very quickly. No time for any intervention whatsoever.

It's a common term, r26.

R14, did the family tell you the cause of death?

At the same time as the stabbing, R18?

OK, r28, it’s a common term where you’re from. But English is my first language. I was born and raised in California and no one around here ever uses the term “hydro wire” or “hydro pole” and I’ve never heard it before. And nowhere in your post or link explains it , either. “Hydro-“ means water and I sure don’t see anything with poles and wires that have anything to do with water. I

R30, I've never heard of the term either, strike me dead. It turns out that it is a brand name for electrical wires. It has nothing to do with water, which I was thinking as well.

I had a heart attack on a plane. it must have been so awkward for the person sitting next to me.

When I was in kinder garden my teacher chocked eating a pastrami sandwich. I remember the soud she made when she hit the floor and most of us kids were crying.

Two jumpers. One off a building on West End Avenue at 93rd Street. Another off a bridge on an interstate in Bellevue, WA. He ripped his pants. He had a huge hard-on before he died.

One where it would probably be best if he died, but I don't know: bicyclist running red light v. motor vehicle at Florida and Connecticut in DC. The bicyclist landed on his kneepit and his leg splayed out from there.

R33, did she die?

I have a phobia of dying in any embarassing/undignified manner, or at my most vulnerable private moments (in the shower, on the shitter, while watching porn, etc.)

Remember the story not too long ago about a middle-aged woman who died in an airplane lavatory, and whose body was dragged through the aisles with her dress pulled up and her underwear still around her knees, basically leaving her entire lower half exposed to the rest of the passengers? That's my worst nightmare.

Of course, the woman was black. I wonder if her family ever managed to file a lawsuit against the airline. I'm seriously surprised airplanes aren't equipped with a stretcher or gurney for these sort of things.

[quote]did she die?

What do you think? she chocked eating a bite of a pastrami sandwich and then took a massive fall on the floor. She was a big gal, so hitting the floor made the floor vibrate.

A group of us pedestrians (all strangers) were waiting to cross at an intersection in Manhattan. The light turned green and we started out. A speeding car ran the red light and the first person crossing in the group, a stylish, well-dressed woman in her early fifties or so, was struck and sent flying like a rag doll. We were absolutely stunned. One moment she was there, and the next she wasn’t - thrown yards away by the impact. About eight of us ran over to her. I reached her first, gently knelt down, and quietly whispered, “Can I have your stuff?” She died moments later, before I got an answer.

Here is a good one….orchestra seat at Patti LuPone On Broadway. Patti comes out, begins first song, ironically it's Life Is a bowl of Cherries. She is about 8 bars into it and the woman in from of me yells out "Patti Patti stop singing!!!!My husband is dead!!"…Stage Managers, house lights up, Patti looking confused.They tell us to leave the theatre asap, paramedics arrive, get them out. We all are allowed back inside, Patti comes back out and asks US if she should continue, which after some hesitation we all screamed YES. She said "I'm going to need to take 10 minutes but then I will be back out". She did just that, and after the curtain call she told the audience that they had heard back and was indeed dead. Now, begin the jokes….

That’s awful R37. That’s my fear. How terrible. Life is cold.

R38, are you saying that she died because she was chock-full?

Hydroelectric power provides over 90% of electricity in some portions of Canada. Canadians typically refer to electric power as Hydro.

Goa India Old man riding a bicycle in the opposite direction that I and the bus that hit him were going. So surreal and very slowed down even though both the old man and bus were going less than 20 mph. Watched the bus hit him and then crush him with the front tire. It was like a hyper real video game where I, riding in a tuk tuk, and the bus that hit him were moving but he really wasn't ..Like he was a fixed object and we were not. Of course being India the whole scene immediately erupted into pandemonium. My tub-tuk driver just kept on going. maybe a shrug was his response.

Of alll the songs to be sung in that person's final seconds....... "Life Is a bowl of Cherries", r40.

I saw My Uncle die in a pub about 5 years ago. The paramedics worked on him for about 30 minutes but we all knew hew was a goner.

On the plus side I managed to get his Post-Mortem (Autopsy) and funeral out of the way in 6 days (unheard of in a big city in the UK, got a cancellation at the crematorium) and Probate on his estate within 30 days.

yes, I saw someone die in a car accident on the scene. It was raining and the couple was crossing without the light (as many do in nyc), the guy got knocked down by a uber driver with no license. lots of blood.

Such a caring nephew. I'm sure your uncle would be proud.

R33, never once in my life did I see a teacher eat during class.

R48 I also donated his bones, cornea's and anything else useable for transplantation, helped hundreds of people which is more than he ever did.

Gang wars in my city during the 70's and I saw a young man shot and killed in my backyard while I ate a slice of pizza on my porch. Never ate pizza again where I didn't remember that incident. Don't eat it anymore.

Beside my mother in the hospital, dying of ovarian cancer. She knew when she was going and announced it the day before. I wish it had been peaceful but it wasn't.

A woman at work had a brain aneurysm during a phone call and slumped over dead at her desk. Didn't see it though.

aneurysms are quick

A guy drowned when I was at a beach club in Dubai. After he was pulled out, they just left his body on the beach for about an hour covered in towels until an ambulance came. I think he must have been there by himself. I was just lying there on my lounger reading a book with a dead guy on the sand not far away.

Two: the first was a guy on the sidewalk in front of the downtown (Avenida Juarez) Sears in Mexico City who apparently had a heart attack and died. We were across the street at the Palacio de Bellas Artes when it happened and, when we crossed the street, we stayed with him along with two or three other people until the ambulance came. In the interim, people just kept walking around us as if nothing had happened.

The other time was at a restaurant in Rancho Mirage about 20 years ago. Harry Caray, the Chicago sportscaster, collapsed two tables over from us and hit his head on the table on the way down. He was still alive, I guess, when he was wheeled out on the gurney but he never regained consciousness and died at the hospital. He was probably 80 but still, it was sad: it was Valentine's Day and he was having dinner with his wife.

“Pass away”? No. ‘Die’? Yes.

OP, can't you say DIE? Are you so religious that you think the Almighty reads Datalounge and will see that your ass burns in hell if you don't use the "pass away" bullshit for DIE?

I'll wait.

A woman in her 60's, super fit, just dropped from the treadmill at my gym. I saw it from across the room. Her heart had stopped. Luckily there was an MD there and he started working on her. I left the place since I didn't want to be in the way. She was still out of it when I left. She was resuscitated and the ambulance came and took her to the hospital, where she died of a massive heart attack two days later while her husband and children were visiting.

So she didn't really die in front of my eyes, but it was a really uncomfortable experience. I went and took the CPR course after, hoping that if something similar happens again I'll know what to do. I hope I never have to.

"Passed" is worse. As in, "So and so passed."

"Passed" what? A car doing 50 mph in the passing lane? A licensing exam to be a plumber? David Ortiz's single-season record for home runs?

I can live with "Passed away" even if whoever did no longer can. But "Passed" just pisses me off.

Tommy "Spoon, Jar, Jar, Spoon" Cooper. Hilarious Welsh comedian.

Died onstage doing his act at the St. James Theatre in London. As the show was being televised.

How do you feel about "passed to glory"?

R60: The same way I feel about "Is in heaven with the angels."

Sez who?

R60: And at the very least, "Has gone to his/her reward" leaves some ambiguity...

R58, in the world of the internet it's now "Past Away."

R 56. No, I’m not religious. But, I love how capitalized “Almighty”.

Blocked.

You’d think with the ever growing population on this planet, you’d think everyone has seen at least one person drop dead in public. Maybe that will happem in the future when the population gets even worse in the coming years.

Oye Vey!

I did a few tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, so yeah. Servicemembers and civilians on both sides. The ones that stick with me were a young Marine who struggled mightily to stay alive despite one entire side of his body shredded by an IED. He wasn't even old enough to drink legally and he had everything ahead of him. He held on long enough for the chopper to bring him back but died right there on the stretcher with the corpsman carrying him. Blood everywhere. Two of the guys with him were burned beyond recognition. It's amazing how much a burned body shrinks.

Then there was an Afghan woman who was having difficulties in childbirth. Her family brought her to the field medical unit from some little village in the mountains, days away but too late. I don't know what the issue was, I think it was something that would have been routinely treated in a Western hospital. Her kids were all crying and her husband couldn't accept she was dead after all they went through to bring her to us,all that screaming and wailing, I'll never forget it, just pure abject human misery.

I wonder if places like India have this problem—public death.

Psycho cunt at R58 replies to her own post at R63

Nevermind I was wrong, but regardless R56 (the one I actually meant) is still a psycho cunt

Uhhh, three. Bad ones. My office wall to the street was all glass. Saw the window washers go up, all safety-harnessed in, later heard a horrific clatter, one end of the rig had broken loose, fell 14 floors to a set-back. Looked down to see the rig, a man splayed out, dead. Another time, lunchtime, standing at a hot-dog kiosk in Times Square, Nathan's, a tall elderly man with very white hair just totally fell straight back to the floor. Big thud. Dead on the spot. Emergency police were quickly there, covered him, took him away. Once on an ocean liner in the dinning room a man strangled, keeled over in his chair. The staff quickly screened off the table, experienced with such things, as it turned out. Heard the Tannoy requesting "Code Red" but it was too late.

R64 = afraid, very afraid...

Psycho 69 what are you, DL police? Use the time checking up on people getting out and actually meeting people. We might not run from you. Maybe.

I saw a guy in a motorcycle hitting a stopped car get thrown from his cycle, getting his leg sheared off by electric cables as he flew threw them, and land on the street. Dead

I hope to God no one ever goes home to Jesus for their glorious final rewards in front of me. No sirree. If they want to pass on to their next life that's fine.

How does that happen? You croak in one place and pop out of a vagina in another? Or do you fertilize and egg somewhere in your moment of passing.

I was exiting a hotel in DC where there were 9-10 people standing waiting for the valet people to bring their cars around.

A man & woman (probably in their late 60s) were standing there and he just went over like a tall tree.

CPR ensued but he was gone. His wife was hysterical. It shook me up for a long time.

I also have a more personal experience, but I can’t retell the story even 10 years later.

I see how it would suck to die in public, but if you were in grave condition, much better for there to be people around to help than it to happen to you when you're home alone!

Two middle-aged guys died at my former workplace. One keeled over at his desk from a massive coronary, the other had an asthma attack in the kitchen. That's quite aside from the living dead who currently haunt the endless maze of gray cubes.

Catholic school, 2nd grade, feast of St. Blaise. We're standing in line in church waiting to get our throats blessed. Substitute teacher keeled over in a pew, dead. We were told to keep our eyes looking straight ahead but of course no one could.

R49, I had an 8th grade teacher who would occasionally smoke in the classroom. We never saw her die though.

Most of my teachers smoked in class, one even had a pipe.

How is this relevant to dropping dead in a public place?

I own this thread

Remember what mother said, "Always wear clean underwear and socks."

One never knows when one will croak.

R83 Can I tell you about the universality of that? I know a woman - she did our IT for a while and was from Liberia - who told me her mother, at the same time (later 1950's) told her the same thing mine did and for the same reason: you needed clean underwear because "You might get hit by a bus." Was there a spate of soiled-undies tragic children's hit-and-run deaths at the hands of errant bus drivers around 1957-58??? Why would anyone, let alone women on two different continents pre-internet, send their kids out with that message?

My Scandinavian grandmothers alway said that too, r84. And they both wore their "good" underwear/corsets when they went to the doctor.

Indeed, R82. That made LOL.

[quote]I see how it would suck to die in public, but if you were in grave condition, much better for there to be people around to help than it to happen to you when you're home alone!

True, R77. But, what if your standing in line, no problems—nothing. Then you just drop. Dead. In front of everyone. Then they drag you away and your pants rip off and your undies are all exposed. Then your undies rip off...it’s a mess. No dignity.

The Underwear doesn't usually remain clean when somebody dies.

Don't sweat the small stuff.

YES We could do a whole thread on what happens to your body once you die.

Our director of HR died in the elevator. He was on the top floor, and by the time he got to our floor, and the doors opened, he was on the floor dead. Several of us were waiting for the door to open to go in, and saw him there. It was horrifying.

Saw several people die at the Colonnade In the Atl. Lots of gays and grays eat There.

R81, I was replying to another poster who was asking a question of another poster. Maybe you should read the book Website Threads for Dummies.

Yes, unfortunately. A woman outside of my work had an epileptic fit and fell down the stairs while I was having a cigarette break..was probably the worst thing I've ever witnessed. A fellow team member of mine who was cpr trained and rushed to help the woman had to have therapy for months afterwards. I still think about her family, it was a real fucking tragedy.

I saw a guy jump to his death from the top of a six story hotel when I was 14.

[quote] Patti comes out, begins first song, ironically it's Life Is a bowl of Cherries. She is about 8 bars into it and the woman in from of me yells out "Patti Patti stop singing!!!!My husband is dead!!"

How DARE he!!! HOW DARE HE!!!

Well, we didn't know he was dead.

Four people were crouched around him. And his face looked rather blue.

A few minutes later we saw ambulance and other emergency workers hasten past us. And then we realised.

I was waiting to get seated at a pizza parlor when their delivery guy, who was only a teenager, came in bleeding to death. He'd been stabbed just outside the restaurant. When the paramedics came he was clinging to life, but according to the newspaper he died at the hospital. The police came and interviewed all of us in the restaurant, but unfortunately none of us actually saw the stabbing. It was one of the most awful experiences of my life. RIP pizza delivery guy.

That was Goodfellas, R97.

That’s awful, R97.

R83 AiKC yes! I was one of those children too.

Interesting thought R75. Yes, at the moment of the last breath, an expire if you will, do you pop back as a newborn, or fertilize an egg? Like to think of that …. Life goes on!

R91 "gays and grays" …. good term!

Homeless man, drug overdose, downtown SF

R103 that must have been very meh

[quote]I don’t know where I get the fear of dying in public, but it’s there, [R1]

Probably a past life thing, OP.

re: Hydro wire. Many electric utilities (i.e. Ontario Hydro) in the Northeast are fed by hydroelectric dams, thus electric lines have become known as hydro wires.

I myself have not, fortunately.

But an old friend of mine had a hell of an experience. About 20 years ago, he and his wife were standing on a street corner in Toronto when they saw a man stumble into a crosswalk against a traffic light, seemingly very drunk. A car is heading right for him; the driver slams on the brakes, bumps the guy just as the car is coming to a stop, and knocks him down. The guy pops right back up, locks eyes with my friend, starts staggering forward again and says out loud to him: "I'm OK ..."

Just then, a big van in the next lane slams into the guy at full blast. My friend's wife screams at the top of her lungs. The guy goes flying 20-some feet in the air, and hits the ground dead.

Fucked up my friend pretty badly. He still has dreams about that moment.

R107 Jesus Christ

This is going back 50 years....

I was an altar boy, serving Mass. Our head pastor was officiating. The evening before, his young associate, had suddenly passed away. During the Mass, the pastor became visibly upset, collapsed on the altar before my eyes and kept repeating, "(name of associate), too good....(name of associate), too good..." and then died.

Needless to say, the death of two parish priests within 24 hours left the community in a shock.

OP, so weird to read your post because I suffer from the same fear. I'm an extremely private person and the idea of calling attention to myself in such an undignified way is horrendous to think about, coupled with loss of control.

I saw a woman die on the spirit of Chicago , on the dance floor. Just dropped dead..

But don’t most people hope they have a quick and easy death? You don’t want a lingering death to cancer or Alzheimer’s or anything slow and excruciating, right?

I have no idea what a hydro wire is.

It is a fear of mine also but since I can't change my future, I push the fear to the back of my mind. I have had a heart attack but I made it to my house...

Yes. I saw a young man on a motorcycle get hit head on by a car. He flew through the air screaming and landed face-first on the street. From his awful gray pallor and the distinct lack of urgency by the ambulance crew, I assumed he was deceased. Parts of his clothes lay on the street for weeks and months afterwards.

So weird! Started reading this thread - and thought to myself that I’ve seen plenty of accidents or people being very sick and needing emergency medical help over the course of my life - but I haven’t actually seen anyone die...

And then it hit me that I had. I’d completely forgotten about it.

When I was ten or eleven, I was at the local public swimming pool one summer with friends,. There was a big commotion at the deep end of the pool, people started gathering - and eventually ambulance guys arrived. A girl had drowned. She was only in her early/ mid teens - a little bit European looking - and I think I was up in the grandstand right above where all the commotion was - as I can remember looking down at her lying there on the concrete with people all around her (our local pool was Olympic sized and hosted all the swimming carnivals and competitions in the area - hence the grandstand). She was so slender and pale and in a floral one-piece suit that was predominantly red. I remember wondering if she’d hit her face on the bottom of the pool as she had what looked like vomit on her face - that seemed to come from her nose...? (Is that possible?)

It was kinda surreal looking back - I’d compleyely forgotten about it and hadn’t thought about it - pretty much since It happened - decades ago (eldergay here!)

I am still trying to figure out how British and Canadian people can tell where the electricity in an electrical line came from.

Why not just call it a generic electrical line rather than distinguishing hydro line from wind line from turbine line, etc.?

R91, several!? Please share details.

R109, sounds like they were lovers and the second, older one died of a broken heart.

r117 needs to start a separate thead.