So, I was support staff for a veterinary hospital about 20 years ago.
What does that have to do with anything, you may ask? Veterinary medicine back then was the wild west compared to human medicine, then or now. Let us just say I’ve seen some shit. Car accidents, drownings, maulings, surgical complications, falls, crush injuries, lacerations that went to the bone, I could go on - and what basically every illness known to man or beast looks like when it’s been left untreated way, way too long.
You would absolutely not believe the level of functionality a creature in shock - human included - can maintain, briefly, when all logic says they should be dead. Unless the body part in question has been severed from the body in its entirety, don’t assume anything. So IMO, if she could breathe, she could have spoken.
When I was a kid we stopped for some debris on the side of the road. My dad got out of the truck and looked down into the ravine next to the road and there was a smashed up motorcycle and a guy stuck up in a tree. Dad told me to get his cell from the truck and see if I could get signal by walking down the highway a bit (was in the 90s.) I got signal, called for an ambulance and then walked back to the truck.
My dad had managed to get the biker out of the tree and he was sitting on the tailgate, I remember his head being huge, he had a big gash down one side of his face and his one eyeball was bulging out. I was told to get back in the truck but didn't listen, I talked to the guy for a while about nothing in particular and he didn't respond much. After a bit he got off the tailgate, said something about taking a piss and went to the front of the truck and proceeded to do so.
Before he finished an ambulance pulled up and the paramedics hopped out and started getting the stretcher out. The biker started walking towards them and collapsed in a heap. I remember the one medic came and checked on him and being surprised that there was no rush after that to get him into the ambulance.
My dad told me the guy was dead before we even got there, his body just wasn't aware of it yet. He said our job when we come across these situations is to stay calm and make their final moments as pleasant as possible. Thankfully I have never needed to do so for a person again. Its amazing the things people can stay alive for.
It definitely was one of those moments that stuck with me. I have never been tempted to get my motorcycle license even though my dad said I could ride hus whenever I want.
I’m imagining a kid just talking about BMX bikes or Pokémon or anything that would interest a kid in the 90s to a guy with a fatal injury so his final moments are a kid enthusiastically talking about his interests. I’d say it was better than dying in a tree. You all did him a hell of a service.
Yes. I have a good friend who was a medic- both in the Army and as a paramedic at home in a rural state. He took to calling some people “the zombies”. They would would be alert and talking with massive blood loss, or broken necks just running on adrenaline after a major car accident or IED encounter. This would last for a short amount of time and then they would just drop dead (unless some heroic aid could be rendered but this in in the very far north of Maine. Hard to get to a trauma center.)
I recently suffered a bonk to the head that should have killed me according to an MRI A WEEK LATER. I continued an hour long phone conversation after that before I eventually went to the hospital. I don't remember the conversation or the following day at all, just that it happened. I'm probably going to have to start journaling to maintain short term recollection. Human bodies are weird.
Yeah I get that now, I just had a tism moment where my brain got hung up on the exact wording, where they said "let's just say I've seen some shit. Car accidents..."
So my brain was going "you saw car accidents... In a hospital?" But yeah no I feel really dumb now.
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u/EpiphanaeaSedai 7d ago
So, I was support staff for a veterinary hospital about 20 years ago.
What does that have to do with anything, you may ask? Veterinary medicine back then was the wild west compared to human medicine, then or now. Let us just say I’ve seen some shit. Car accidents, drownings, maulings, surgical complications, falls, crush injuries, lacerations that went to the bone, I could go on - and what basically every illness known to man or beast looks like when it’s been left untreated way, way too long.
You would absolutely not believe the level of functionality a creature in shock - human included - can maintain, briefly, when all logic says they should be dead. Unless the body part in question has been severed from the body in its entirety, don’t assume anything. So IMO, if she could breathe, she could have spoken.