Hospice nurse opens up about one of the ‘wildest’ moments she experienced with a patient as they died
A hospice nurse has recalled one of the scariest experiences she's had with a patient as they passed away.
Julie McFadden, known as Hospice Nurse Julie on social media, is known for sharing her experiences in end-of-life care as she aims to remove the stigma around death.
The 41-year-old has almost three million followers across her accounts, with 1.6 million coming from TikTok alone, and has even written a book which teaches people about what happens in your end-of-life journey.
But now, she has recalled a 'wild' experience with a patient that was 'actively dying'.
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McFadden, who aims to ‘normalise death and dying’ and remove fear from people's minds, has previously explained that active dying is the set of behaviours that occur right before someone passes away.
It's essentially the final stage of someone's life, and she has now claimed that she could hear one man's voice despite the fact he was unconscious at the time.
The nurse recalled the man's last moments in a video, revealing that she 'got to know him', but sadly saw him enter the 'active dying phase'.
While he was under the supervision of a continuous care nurse, the health expert said that she knew he would die the same day that she saw him for the last time.
However, what she experienced during this final encounter wasn't like anything she'd seen before.
"When he was in the actively dying phase, which means like the very last few days of death, we had a continuous care nurse in there caring for him on his last days," she said in the YouTube video.
McFadden continued: "And when I last saw him, he was fully unconscious and I could tell as a hospice nurse that he was going to die that day.
"So, I was in his room and I was kind of saying my goodbyes silently to him and that was it."
But as she was leaving, she thought about their relationship, thanking him, and claimed that there and then, she could 'hear his voice' in her head.
The nurse said it was 'wild' as things like this don't happen to her, and she even admitted that it was hard to talk about as she was 'sceptical' about it all.
As the man's voice kept talking in her head, she explained: "He was saying my name.
"He was going, 'Oh my gosh, Julie. Oh my gosh, Julie', and he was making me feel things. I could feel like exuberance or freedom or like I was flying almost," she claimed.
McFadden previously revealed that one of the scarier parts of actively dying is the 'death rattle'.
“It's literally just a bit of saliva collecting at the back of their throat because their mouth is open, their breathing is going over their saliva and causing a gurgle," she explained.
But while that is common, hearing a dying person's voice in your head isn't, believe it or not.
Topics: Health, Social Media
Joshua Nair