What exactly do you do when someone dies on you?

[TheLoadedDog]

@ivylass

I’d say if the death is unexpected, call 911.

If, as in the case of someone under hospice care, hospice will handle it. IIRC, the hospice nurse was with my FIL when he died, so she made the appropriate phone calls (to the funeral home, to whoever needed to remove the body, to get a grief counselor over for my MIL, etc) while the rest of us made the phone calls to family and friends.

If it’s unexpected to the extent of "He was old and not looking very good, so we didn’t actually not “expect it” in the way we wouldn’t have if he were a 22 year-old snow-boarder (say you visit an aged relative and find him/her very obviously parrot sketched [no suspicious circumstances]) then -for Australia at least - I’ve been told you should simply call the cops.

Nobody will mind if you call the emergency number, but you might prefer to call the local police station out of the phone book. A cruiser will pull up, and some young grunts will tell you how to proceed.

[Rhythmdvl]

Oh great, another “need help fast” thread :rolleyes:

[irishgirl]

If unwell and death expected: call their own doctor.

If sudden and unexpected: call for an ambulance and start CPR.

If you call in on a neighbour/relative and find them stiff, cold and clearly dead for some time…call the police and don’t bother with CPR. The police will call either a funeral home or the coroner, depending on circumstances.

Anything not clearly natural (suicide attempt, accident, murder, drugs or alcohol involved) call the police as well as an ambulance.

The way it works here is that in order for a GP to certify the cause of death the person must have been seen by them within 2 weeks, have died in natural circumstances and from a condition that their GP has previously diagnosed. Everything else requires at least a conversation with the coroner.

So…
If Joe Bloggs, aged 92, who saw his GP last week for his angina, has had 3 previous heart attacks and has been DNR for some time, clutches his chest and dies: call his GP.

If Joe Bloggs is aged 45, has had 3 previous heart attacks and isn’t DNR, clutches his chest and appears to die: start CPR and call an ambulance.

If Joe Bloggs, your neighbour, hasn’t collected his milk from his doorstep for 3 days and you notice a lot of flies…call the cops.

[NinjaChick]

@panache45

One of my exes actually had a guy die *IN *him once. He thought the guy had fallen asleep after cuming, so he went to sleep too. Didn’t notice the guy had died till morning. I think he dressed the guy before calling 911.

Holy crap. Was this as emotionally scarring as it sounds like it must have been? Were they in a serious relationship, or was it a casual thing? Sorry for being morbid, but…yikes, that’s morbidly fascinating. And horrifying.

[postcards]

@elbows

…remade her bed and placed a single, long stem red rose on top of it. A very thoughtful gesture that made the empty bed a tiny bit less jarring, for us.

This is an absolutely wonderful thing for them to have done.

[kayT]

@Quartz

I deliberately posed the question for an older person to avoid this aspect. I think - though I would stand correction - that when elderly people die of natural causes, apart from their partners who are usually devastated most others realise that it was their time.

Well, my mother was 85 and in the hospital but I can tell you I was in fact devastated and did absolutely NOT think it was her time. I thought, in fact, that the hospital was staffed with morons. But that is another story. Anyhow, you must be young or you would not think this way! (or maybe your idea of elderly is 105)

[Zoe]

kayT, I’m with you. My father was 83. I had known for a long time that he could die at any time. When it happened, I still went into that fog that serves as a sort of cushion. I don’t remember much of what happened over the next two or three days.

My dad was in a nursing home and they called my mother at home. She was alone and called me 150 miles away. After reassuring her that I would be there as quickly as I could, I told her to call a friend to be with her. I knew someone else would be able to think more clearly.

Funeral homes, ambulance staff and hospital staff usually understand that grieving family members are sometimes just living in a sense of unreality.

[Broomstick]

@panache45

One of my exes actually had a guy die *IN *him once.

:eek:

I am now totally squicked out.

[Nava]

@WF_Tomba

If he’s just slumped over in a deadish way, and you can’t detect breathing, call an ambulance. I have no idea what the likelihood is, but I know people have been found this way and turned out to be alive.

St. Teresa de Jesus (XVI century, Castilla) was catatonic for IIRC three days, only her father’s stubborn refusal to accept what the mirror and the doctors said kept them from burying her. This and similar cases led to regulations indicating a minimum time between TOD and burial (these regulations have recently been modified to lower the time).

What I’d do if I was in Glasgow is call 999. If I was in Spain, call 112. If I was in Spain with the whole family, holler for my SiL as she’s a doctor, and call 112.

I’m trained in CPR but also in knowing that the first step in an emergency is to call for help. I wouldn’t start CPR until I’d called the emergency folks.

My father died at 62, after 3 years with lung cancer. Men in his side of the family have a history of dying either at 65 of cancer, at 90+ of old age, or in their 20s of a bullet (Spain likes its civil wars). I was the only relative who wasn’t completely stunned. It’s been 8 years and Mom still gets angry at him and claims he died “owing me three years!” (the “cancer at 65” is exact age, for every ancestor of Dad’s who we know died of cancer and that’s over a dozen; Dad’s elder brother managed to last until 72).

[Westrogothia]

If in USA:

1. Call lawyer, find out whom to sue.
2. Call 911.
3. Probably tip your waiter a bit more than you usually do.

[Ice_Wolf]

If unexpected: check for pulse, check for breathing, and within the same couple of minutes, call for an ambulance.

If expected: I’d call the nearest undertaker.

[Pushkin]

Strange, I was thinking the same thing recently, after my ex’s father fell ill and rang her thinking he was dying.

Irishgirl’s advice seems sound, if in any doubt I would call 999.

[UltraVires]

After my grandfather died, my grandmother remarried. Although I loved the guy, he was as sick as could be, and we knew it wouldn’t be long until he was found dead.

So, one day she calls me, crying, and tells me that she thinks “Bob is dead”. I told her to dial 911, and that I would be right over.

When I got there, the EMTs were in the bedroom where he didn’t wake up from his nap, and my grandmother was in the front room crying. After waiting and consoling her, the EMTs came out and asked to use the phone.

We walked in the other room, and they confirmed that he was indeed expired, and needed to call a physician to sign the death certificate, and a funeral home to take the body away.

I was in the other room with my grandmother, but the two EMTs (one male, one female) were in the other room joking and grabassing about one of their kids, or dinner plans for later, misdialing the phone number, and asking if the other could read, etc.

I know my grandmother heard all of this, and I was straight with them. I told them that while they experienced this every day, we didn’t, and to please quit joking around right now. They apologized profusely, and continued.

The physician agreed to sign a death certificate without coming to the house (I never could understand that) and about a half and hour later, the funeral home’s hearse showed up and took him away.

They asked us to clear the room as they said it would be too traumatic to watch a person being zipped up in the bag. We left and all we saw was his covered remains (inside a body bag) being loaded into the hearse…

[Elendil_s_Heir]

@Chez_Guevara

…Please check your partner is alive after coitus as well as before it.

If you ask afterwards and she says, “Yes, I’m still alive,” can you rely on that?

Nava, George Washington, on his deathbed in 1799, made his attendants promise that he would not be buried for three days. And of course Poe wrote a little something about premature burial.

[Enright3]

<private benjamin>
Mrs. Goodman: Please dear, I need to know. What were his last words?
Judy Benjamin: I’m coming.
</private benjamin>

[AT_Love]

Yell “Don’t you die on me!”.

[Otto]

@OtakuLoki

If my father had been found like that before his most recent surgery, I am 99% sure that neither my mother nor I would have begun ALS.

Why on Earth would you have begun Lou Gehrig’s Disease?

@panache45

One of my exes actually had a guy die IN him once.

“I thought it was round two. Turns out it was rigor mortis.”

[Antinor01]

@Quartz

So you’re sitting there after a good lunch with the rest of the family and you’re about to offer Great Uncle Eric another cup of coffee when you notice that his head is slumped and there’s a distinct lack of movement. A nudge elicits no response. He certainly looks dead. And there’s no mist on the mirror.

Do you call an ambulance? A doctor? What do you do?

Pretend you don’t notice. Dying at the table is a faux pas to be overlooked much like someone using the wrong fork. It would be rude of you to comment or in anyway draw attention to his shocking lack of manners.

Signed,
Ms. Manners.

[flodnak]

Am I a bad person for thinking, as I read the thread title: “First, get out from under him…”?

Anyway. I’ve tried several times to write about what happened when we found my nan dead in her bed at home, and I keep crying, even though it happened 20 years ago. So let’s just grab the relevant details, shall we? My mom called 911 (this was in the States), and explained that she had already had a serious heart attack and was bedridden in generally poor health. The 911 operator sent out both an ambulance and a police car. I expect the ambulance was just a formality, but the crew and the two police officers were great people who helped us through the rest of the details - contacting a doctor to sign the death certificate, calling the funeral home, etc. Which was good because neither of us were thinking straight at that point.

[gigi]

@Antinor01

Pretend you don’t notice. Dying at the table is a faux pas to be overlooked much like someone using the wrong fork. It would be rude of you to comment or in anyway draw attention to his shocking lack of manners.

Signed,
Ms. Manners.

So you don’t toss the contents of your fingerbowl in his face?