Been working with this person for more than a year and he's been at the job for years now. Not a fun guy to be with but civil enough to work with work wise. He was brought in after someone found him collapsed in their home and was already trying to be revived at the ER.
I personally didn't witness the act. I didn't need to. I've seen this thing play out several times. It just hits different when one day you've been talking them alive and then hearing they won't be reporting to office again.
I wouldn't say I'm deeply affected by it. This stuff happens sometimes but one striking difference was already working in health care. Everyone had their piece of sorry for what happened and shock but majority were just nonchalant. I recognize this reaction. It's not that people didn't care, it's just compartmentalizing business and personal matters.
Everyone in the office had a tinged of sad moment with the news but an outsider would've probably not recognize something off that day given how everyone just went to back to business after the news broke out.
After a day of the news settling in, everyone was back to normal planning for the schedule adjustment, making jokes about the departed without malice but more like recollecting fun memories, and this is the part that makes the whole experience surreal. Like something serious happened and nothing happened out of the ordinary.
I guess everyone in healthcare is just used to death that the impact of seeing one of our own people faze us less. The atmosphere just felt different for a moment because the person was no stranger but it's also understood that if that were to happen to any of us, I'd know the reaction can be similar to what happened recently. We just get used to death differently.
Take care of yourself.
Thanks for your time.