Saw my dead coworker at work
Okay so to preface I work at a hospital and this experience has had me absolutely dumbfounded. So I’ve been working at this hospital for a few years as a nurse and we regularly coordinate care with the radiology departments to get patients scans/X-rays and so on. I had worked around this older coworker from radiology for a few years and we aren’t close or anything but when I would see him we would small talk and he was always really kind and easy going.
Well anyways around the time this happened in December I had a few exciting things happening in my personal life and was just mentally all over the place at work. It’s also not uncommon to go long periods without seeing coworkers because of crazy hospital schedules. So on this day in particular I was very busy at work and was rushing to the medication room next to where the X-ray machine is stored. When I see my coworker fidgeting with the X-ray machine trying to unlock it and because I was so busy I was not planning on making small talk. I was going to just enter the med room when something told me “say hi to him”. So the conversation goes exactly like this.
“Hi coworker how are you haven’t seen you in a while”-me
“Hi OP I’m doing so good! how are you!”- coworker
“I’m sooo tired but it’s okay I go on vacation soon for a few weeks and I’m so excited!”-me
And then we say well nice seeing you and to have a good rest of your shift blah blah and I go into the med room. I was in there for maybe 2 minutes and when I walk out he wasn’t there and the X-ray machine was still there.
This is all super important because fast forward about a month later. I am talking to another nurse on my unit and we’re talking about a doctor who had recently passed when she said yeah so sad we lost another coworker this year. I was confused as I only knew of the doctor so I asked further and she went on to mention a coworker from radiology died. She then describes the older coworker I make small talk with and I am so devastated. I was under the impression he maybe passed while I was on my vacation.
When she drops this absolute bomb on me… she pulls up his gofund me/ obituary that states he had actually died 4 months before in August.
I start absolutely freaking out because i immediately recalled that exact encounter with him IN DECEMBER!! I KNOW I saw and spoke to him in December because it was right before my vacation how could he possibly have passed away in August.
So unfortunately this coworker had a tragic and unexpected death. So heartbreaking. Just don’t know what to make of this experience.
Looking back on the memory of this it just all “makes sense”
- I hadn’t seen this coworker in while before this encounter
- Something in me told me to say hi to him that day
- He was fidgeting with the machine and could not unlock it/move it?
- I h
ave not
- seen him since
(Obviously)
I don’t know what to make of this but freaked out is an understatement.