“Am I dying?” The honest answer.

Matthew O’Reilly is a veteran emergency medical technician on Long Island, New York. In this talk, O’Reilly describes what happens next when a gravely hurt patient asks him: “Am I going to die?”

I've been a critical care EMT for the past
seven years in Suffolk County, New York.

I've been a first responder in a number of incidents

ranging from car accidents to Hurricane Sandy.

If you are like most people, death might be

one of your greatest fears.

Some of us will see it coming.

Some of us won't.

There is a little-known documented medical term

called impending doom.

It's almost a symptom.

As a medical provider, I'm trained to respond

to this symptom like any other,

so when a patient having a heart attack looks at me

and says, "I'm going to die today,"

we are trained to reevaluate the patient's condition.

Throughout my career, I have responded

to a number of incidents where the patient

had minutes left to live

and there was nothing I could do for them.

With this, I was faced with a dilemma:

Do I tell the dying that they are about to face death,

or do I lie to them to comfort them?

Early in my career, I faced this dilemma

by simply lying.

I was afraid.

I was afraid if I told them the truth,

that they would die in terror, in fear,

just grasping for those last moments of life.

That all changed with one incident.

Five years ago, I responded to a motorcycle accident.

The rider had suffered critical, critical injuries.

As I assessed him, I realized that there was nothing

that could be done for him,

and like so many other cases,
he looked me in the eye

and asked that question: "Am I going to die?"

In that moment, I decided to do something different.

I decided to tell him the truth.

I decided to tell him that he was going to die

and that there was nothing I could do for him.

His reaction shocked me to this day.

He simply laid back and had a look

of acceptance on his face.

He was not met with that terror or fear

that I thought he would be.

He simply laid there, and as I looked into his eyes,

I saw inner peace and acceptance.

From that moment forward, I decided

it was not my place to comfort the dying with my lies.

Having responded to many cases since then

where patients were in their last moments

and there was nothing I could do for them,

in almost every case,

they have all had the same reaction to the truth,

of inner peace and acceptance.

In fact, there are three patterns

I have observed in all these cases.

The first pattern always kind of shocked me.

Regardless of religious belief or cultural background,

there's a need for forgiveness.

Whether they call it sin

or they simply say they have a regret,

their guilt is universal.

I had once cared for an elderly gentleman

who was having a massive heart attack.

As I prepared myself and my equipment

for his imminent cardiac arrest,

I began to tell the patient of his imminent demise.

He already knew by my tone
of voice and body language.

As I placed the defibrillator pads on his chest,

prepping for what was going to happen,

he looked me in the eye and said,

"I wish I had spent more time with
my children and grandchildren

instead of being selfish with my time."

Faced with imminent death,

all he wanted was forgiveness.

The second pattern I observe

is the need for remembrance.

Whether it was to be remembered in my thoughts

or their loved ones', they needed to feel

that they would be living on.

There's a need for immortality

within the hearts and thoughts of their loved ones,

myself, my crew, or anyone around.

Countless times, I have had a
patient look me in the eyes

and say, "Will you remember me?"

The final pattern I observe

always touched me the deepest, to the soul.

The dying need to know that their life had meaning.

They need to know that they did not waste their life

on meaningless tasks.

This came to me very, very early in my career.

I had responded to a call.

There was a female in her late 50s

severely pinned within a vehicle.

She had been t-boned at a high rate of speed,

critical, critical condition.

As the fire department worked
to remove her from the car,

I climbed in to begin to render care.

As we talked, she had said to me,

"There was so much more
I wanted to do with my life."

She had felt she had not left her mark on this Earth.

As we talked further, it would turn out

that she was a mother of two adopted children

who were both on their way to medical school.

Because of her, two children

had a chance they never would have had otherwise

and would go on to save lives in the medical field

as medical doctors.

It would end up taking 45 minutes

to free her from the vehicle.

However, she perished prior to freeing her.

I believed what you saw in the movies:

when you're in those last moments

that it's strictly terror, fear.

I have come to realize,
regardless of the circumstance,

it's generally met with peace and acceptance,

that it's the littlest things, the littlest moments,

the littlest things you brought into the world

that give you peace in those final moments.

Thank you.

(Applause)