The saddest death I've experienced

@drchintandave

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Why it worked

The video likely resonated with viewers due to its raw emotional honesty and the relatable theme of connection and loss during the pandemic. The doctor's personal story, combined with the visual of the family's remote farewell, created a powerful and empathetic narrative that likely drove engagement.

Summary

An ICU doctor recounts the saddest death he experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. He describes the emotional toll of being the only person physically present with the dying patient while the family watched remotely via an iPad, unable to be there in person due to hospital restrictions.

Structure

1Introduction to the doctor's experience with death and the specific case.
2Description of the patient and his family's situation.
3The doctor's efforts to save the patient and the hospital's COVID-19 policies.
4The virtual farewell between the patient and his family.
5The doctor's role as a conduit for the family's grief and love.
6The patient's death and the doctor's reflection on the experience.

Product placement

Substack (platform): used to publish articles. It merely appears as the platform where the author published the article being discussed. Removing it would not change what happens in the video. iPad (device): used to facilitate video calls between the doctor and the patient's family. It is used to display the faces of the family members. Removing it would change how the family members are able to see the patient and each other. N95 mask (medical equipment): worn by the doctor. It merely appears as personal protective equipment. Removing it would not change what happens in the video.

Original caption

This was from COVID, and has stayed with me to this day. Everyone in healthcare has deaths and patients that stays with them forever. If you are open to share, I'd love to hear in the comments what are you still carrying? #doctor #nurse #icu #covid #medicine COVID-19, pandemic, lockdown, patient, family, death, grief, loss, healthcare, system, RFK.

More from @drchintandave

On-screen text

The saddest death I've experienced FRONTIER MEDICINE i have seen >500 deaths; this was the saddest In the chaos of ICU, a family's love spanned continents. But it couldn't cross the last six feet. Chintan Dave, MD JUN 17, 2025 I've seen over a thousand people die but this was the saddest I've an ICU doctor and people routinely die on my shifts and this was a substack I wrote from last year that I wanted to read for you from my article What do you think is the saddest way a human could die? It's a question that haunts the quiet moments of my job As an ICU doctor, I've seen death in its many forms I've seen the peaceful, the sudden, the expected, and the tragic During the height of the epidemic the pandemic I saw more of it than I ever thought possible But one death more than any other carved itself into my memory It wasn't the most violent or unexpected It was quite simply the saddest It was early April 2021 And Canada was being crushed by another severe wave of COVID-19 The admissions were relentless and a tide of critically ill people were flooding our unit and the number of those that we lost kept on piling on The one I can't forget was a 58 year old gentleman He was generally healthy though he carried some extra weight and was a He was a husband and as I would soon learn the beloved centre of a large sprawling family He contracted COVID-19 and within days was admitted to our ICU For three to four weeks we fought for him We initiated all possible measures Maximal life support Additional and sometimes even experimental therapies Everything that medicine could offer But the virus was unyielding His lungs showed signs of Recovery As the week progressed he continued to deteriorate His auction level sank into a dangerous territory hovering at 60 to 70% no matter what no matter what we did We paralyzed him, proned him, put him on various medications and maximized his life support systems It became clear he wasn't going to improve We were going to lose him Normally this is when we would sit down with the family in a quiet room to talk about what comes next But this was twenty twenty-one The hospital had a strict and necessary policy in place To curb the spread of the virus no family members were allowed inside to see a patient A cruel but essential regulation Though thankfully not long lived Throughout the week I'd been updating his wife over the phone trying to convey the gravity of the situation through a cold receiver She was able to visit a couple times to the ICU but was restricted to remain outside the glass doors of the patient's room She told me he had a large extended family of siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews Spread across the globe who loved him dearly and wanted to be kept informed I distinctly remember it was Saturday around midnight The hum of the ventilators was the unit soundtrack And I was already getting countless pages A couple admissions still pending It would have been easy to just let the wife update the family about his impeding death So I could move on to see the other sick patients being already in my hour twenty of my 30 hour shift But something in my in the eyes in tears if the wife compelled me to sit with her and have a conference call with the whole family And I'm grateful I did I took the wife and cousin who are visiting to get a I took the wife and cousin who were visiting to just get a last glimpse of him through the glass doors to an empty conference room I took the wife and cousin who are visiting to get a last glimpse of him through the glass doors I took the wife and cousin who are visiting I took the wife and cousin Who are visiting him to just get a last glimpse of him and then I took them to an empty conference room That night in that small conference room I got on a FaceTime call through an iPad The wife's face appeared on the screen but tears prevented her from being able to say anything Then one by one other faces flickered to life 12 other family members joined A constellation of grief from across the world There were people in the Southern Hemisphere, the Northern Hemisphere everywhere We were all on this virtual conversation and I giving them The update they They understood he was about to pass They were losing him Their only request was a simple heartbreaking one Can we be present? Via the iPad at his bedside when he passes they ask Of course I said When the time came when the monitor showed us that he's he was in his last moments of his life I put on multi-layered PPE The ritual felt heavier than it usually did The mask, the shield, the gloves, the blue plastic gown I wore almost Like they were resisting Almost that I didn't want to put them on I went inside the room The iPad was still in my hand I called them all back The 13 faces reappeared Their silent anguish was radiating through the small screen Many started crying uncontrollably And as he was experienced his last moments The only person physically there for him was me A stranger in a space suit I held his hand I pointed the iPad at his face so his family could see him one last time He remained unresponsive as he was still in a coma I became a human tripod essentially for their grief But also a conduit for their love Through a 12 inch screen they set their goodbyes Their voice crackling Their tears flowing in in their own homes thousands of miles away In that room there was only the beeping of these failing machines and the soft muffled sound of my own breathing against the N95 mask In that moment I felt An intense and profound sadness This man was in his last moments of life And the only person holding his hand was a doctor who barely knew him His family who loved him more than anything could only watch through a piece of glass Then he died I pronounced his death and reflected on how death is but a silent whisper I do not recall what happened for the rest of my shift He was surrounded by love and yet he died alone And I a stranger was Only one there to witness both the whisper of death and this depiction of love If you like more of this I posted some I wrote some of these articles on my substack last year and I'll link them here so feel free to give them a read. Thank you.

Transcript

I've seen over a thousand people die but this was the saddest I've an ICU doctor and people routinely die on my shifts and this was a substack I wrote from last year that I wanted to read for you from my article What do you think is the saddest way a human could die? It's a question that haunts the quiet moments of my job As an ICU doctor, I've seen death in its many forms I've seen the peaceful, the sudden, the expected, and the tragic During the height of the epidemic the pandemic I saw more of it than I ever thought possible But one death more than any other carved itself into my memory It wasn't the most violent or unexpected It was quite simply the saddest It was early April 2021 And Canada was being crushed by another severe wave of COVID-19 The admissions were relentless and a tide of critically ill people were flooding our unit and the number of those that we lost kept on piling on The one I can't forget was a 58 year old gentleman He was generally healthy though he carried some extra weight and was a He was a husband and as I would soon learn the beloved centre of a large sprawling family He contracted COVID-19 and within days was admitted to our ICU For three to four weeks we fought for him We initiated all possible measures Maximal life support Additional and sometimes even experimental therapies Everything that medicine could offer But the virus was unyielding His lungs showed signs of Recovery As the week progressed he continued to deteriorate His auction level sank into a dangerous territory hovering at 60 to 70% no matter what no matter what we did We paralyzed him, proned him, put him on various medications and maximized his life support systems It became clear he wasn't going to improve We were going to lose him Normally this is when we would sit down with the family in a quiet room to talk about what comes next But this was twenty twenty-one The hospital had a strict and necessary policy in place To curb the spread of the virus no family members were allowed inside to see a patient A cruel but essential regulation Though thankfully not long lived Throughout the week I'd been updating his wife over the phone trying to convey the gravity of the situation through a cold receiver She was able to visit a couple times to the ICU but was restricted to remain outside the glass doors of the patient's room She told me he had a large extended family of siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews Spread across the globe who loved him dearly and wanted to be kept informed I distinctly remember it was Saturday around midnight The hum of the ventilators was the unit soundtrack And I was already getting countless pages A couple admissions still pending It would have been easy to just let the wife update the family about his impeding death So I could move on to see the other sick patients being already in my hour twenty of my 30 hour shift But something in my in the eyes in tears if the wife compelled me to sit with her and have a conference call with the whole family And I'm grateful I did I took the wife and cousin who are visiting to get a I took the wife and cousin who were visiting to just get a last glimpse of him through the glass doors to an empty conference room I took the wife and cousin who are visiting to get a last glimpse of him through the glass doors I took the wife and cousin who are visiting I took the wife and cousin Who are visiting him to just get a last glimpse of him and then I took them to an empty conference room That night in that small conference room I got on a FaceTime call through an iPad The wife's face appeared on the screen but tears prevented her from being able to say anything Then one by one other faces flickered to life 12 other family members joined A constellation of grief from across the world There were people in the Southern Hemisphere, the Northern Hemisphere everywhere We were all on this virtual conversation and I giving them The update they They understood he was about to pass They were losing him Their only request was a simple heartbreaking one Can we be present? Via the iPad at his bedside when he passes they ask Of course I said When the time came when the monitor showed us that he's he was in his last moments of his life I put on multi-layered PPE The ritual felt heavier than it usually did The mask, the shield, the gloves, the blue plastic gown I wore almost Like they were resisting Almost that I didn't want to put them on I went inside the room The iPad was still in my hand I called them all back The 13 faces reappeared Their silent anguish was radiating through the small screen Many started crying uncontrollably And as he was experienced his last moments The only person physically there for him was me A stranger in a space suit I held his hand I pointed the iPad at his face so his family could see him one last time He remained unresponsive as he was still in a coma I became a human tripod essentially for their grief But also a conduit for their love Through a 12 inch screen they set their goodbyes Their voice crackling Their tears flowing in in their own homes thousands of miles away In that room there was only the beeping of these failing machines and the soft muffled sound of my own breathing against the N95 mask In that moment I felt An intense and profound sadness This man was in his last moments of life And the only person holding his hand was a doctor who barely knew him His family who loved him more than anything could only watch through a piece of glass Then he died I pronounced his death and reflected on how death is but a silent whisper I do not recall what happened for the rest of my shift He was surrounded by love and yet he died alone And I a stranger was Only one there to witness both the whisper of death and this depiction of love If you like more of this I posted some I wrote some of these articles on my substack last year and I'll link them here so feel free to give them a read. Thank you.