I know of 3 coworkers who all worked for 1 company and died. A guy in his 40s passed away in his sleep. A girl in 20s passed away suddenly. A guy was only 23 went to dominican rep for surgery and died. All within a year.
Enjoy every day. You might not be here tomorrow.
My condolences to everyone who told their stories. I pray for everyone.
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Probably the closest one to me, was a guy in his late 40’s or early 50’s, that was very athletic, wasn’t feeling well one day on a weekend, sat down in a chair, and died (IIRC) of a pulmonary embolism. It was definitely a strange thing to get to work Monday and not see him there.
At a place I used to work, two women came to work over Labor Day weekend to catch up on some things. They were raped and murdered by the weekend janitor.
Had two other coworkers who died of cancer.
i used to work with this sweet old Scottish lady everyone loved her and she was a genuine person who was kind and loving .
One day on a Friday she said she had an announcement to make we thought she was going to quit and retire but she told us she has cancer and she’s got around a year to live, almost everyone started crying .
after she quit we would meet her on a monthly bases and every time she would be thinner which was sad to see , what really got me was the fact every time we see her it’ll be indoors and her husband would always be wearing sunglasses i always wondered why it was apparently from all the crying and he didn’t anyone to see his eyes .
unfortunately she ended up passing later that year .
Fuck Cancer
A guy I worked (IT field) with got divorced in his late 50s.
In order to pay for alimony, he started cutting grass on weekends.
He had a heart attack and died in someone’s backyard.
Last year, I don’t even remember what month because it was all a blur, one of my early 60s coworkers passed. The first time something seemed unusual was: he couldn’t remember the password to log into his computer, and we had just reset it the day before. I helped him out a few times with it that day & I just remember him being really frustrated. Within a couple of months he had succumb to brain tumors. I miss talking camping, surfing, sports and movies with him. He did some acting himself, he had a THICK Jersey accent.
RIP Ed, you were one of a kind my friend.
edit: here he is in a geico ad he’s the “we struck sprinkles” guy. https://youtu.be/-xqfqnR1MCE
Safety guy walked off the third floor of a building. Same job and electrician fried himself.
Know a friend who had a young man die under a falling scissor lift on one job. Know another buddy who had a guy fall off a building and split his head wide open.
Had a woman that complained about headaches. Her daughter also worked for the company. She went and got it checked out but the doctors dismissed it.
She died of a brain aneurysm. I went to her funeral.
I had a colleague who was completely Type A, very high-strung and complained about everything. The only time I ever saw him smile was at his retirement party. He looked truly happy about his long-deserved break. A week after he quit he was sipping mai tais on the beach and dropped dead of a heart attack.
Public defender I knew. Had been practicing for 25 years or so. Completely devoted to the cause
Was walking to court one day, had a massive heart attack right before he got to the steps, pronounced DOA at the hospital
When I worked at a grocery store, there was a gentlemen in his 50s coming in to start his shift. He walked through the produce section and saw me. I waved to him as we always did, looking forward to our conversations today, as we had similar interests.
He returned the wave but froze. His eyes told me everything. Wide and puzzled, I wasn’t sure what was up but i could tell something was off.
As quick as the realization came to me, he stopped walking. Wobbled back and forth, eyes rolled back, and he fell, busted his head open.
Everyone rushed to his aid and got him to the hospital quick. Lots of prayers let out, hopeful people waiting for news.
I knew before all of them though. I saw that look. And I saw that blood running from his ear. Everyone assumed it was from his head. But after he died and the information was released, he had a brain aneurysm.
The medical staff said he probably had it and died right after he waved back to me. He was the only one I saw die, but I have other stories of coworkers dying unfortunately.
I worked in a hotel restaurant and the overnight chef killed himself after work one night. He was 25 I think, so needless to say it was a big deal. This was also a long time before people started caring about mental health so it was sad and weird
Our CEO died of cancer, in his fifties. Made me think about how despite getting paid millions, that couldn’t save him. And he spent so much time working.
My grandmother worked at a furniture factory where she and many of the other ladies died of cancer due to one of the chemicals they used.
Huge coincidence but my friend’s co-worker just died today after being on life support for 2 days. It was a workplace accident, they were moving a boiler at work and the guy said he felt like he was about to pass out. He then fell and hit his head while the others kept holding the boiler so it wouldn’t crush the guys legs. The ambulance got there around 5 mins later and rushed him to the hospital. Apparently his brain didn’t get oxygen for 10 mins so he was braindead. Today then took him off life support.
There’s a surprising amount of suicide in tech. I’ve known two people in jobs over the years that took their own life. One I knew very well, my trainer at a legacy ecommerce company. Happiest guy you could ever meet. Very smart, quick witted.
I knew the second guy mainly through email at a large enterprise. I didn’t know him well, I’d just seen him in the hall or the cafeteria a few times. I remember being unreasonably angry that he killed himself, and I can’t remember why. I vaguely recall he had a picture of his kid at his desk, which might be part of it.
worked at a staples in FL once, I was stocking and my manager came up to me and said “___ is no longer with us”, which I responded with “oh she quit? did she give a reason?”
turns out he meant it literally, apparently she had gotten involved with some bad dudes and one of them pushed her off a bridge. that was surreal to hear
My wife worked at a factory where a guy disabled the safety interlocks (very common practice, unfortunately) and was inside the hydraulic press when some idiot manager came along, saw that the machine wasn’t running, and hit “cycle start” without bothering to ask why it was off or where the operator was.
We just had one a few weeks ago – pulmonary embolism. It was a shock. Another one we had (years ago) was a heart attack. The dude didn’t show up to work for a couple of days, and our managerial staff couldn’t get hold of him. They called the police to do a wellness check, and the police found his body.
In my last job, it was announced that one of my co-workers was retiring early. I congratulated them because – hey, what an accomplishment for someone in their late 40s/early 50s! Her eyes welled with tears when she thanked me. Yeah… turns out that she had breast cancer, and her doctors had advised that she didn’t have much time left, so she early retired to make the most of it. I don’t think she lasted six months. Fuck cancer.
Worked as a lumberjack after high school for a while. We had a huge machine called a feller buncher that felled trees and laid them in a row. Then me and another guy would trim the tops so that they could be dragged to a deck and loaded onto trucks. The equipment and chainsaws are so loud that even with ear pro we would put headphones in and listen to music while we worked. (I know, but they were 12 hour days). One day, the man in the feller cut a tree that was too big to handle and was trying to wrestle it back upright. As he was fighting it the machine crept closer and closer to our other trimmer. I saw what was going to happen and started running and screaming to get his attention. The feller lost control and the tree started to fall. Trees fall very very slowly, and more slowly still when they catch and tangle other tops in the canopy. It must have taken a full 30 seconds but felt like an absolute eternity. With everything I had I still didn’t make it to him in time and watched a father a four young children get crushed under 4 tons of red oak. That wasn’t the end though. He wasn’t wearing a safety vest and in order for his family to get money from the company and workmen’s comp me and my remaining crew of four had to get to what was left of him and affix his safety vest before we called the police. I was 19 at the time and will remember the smell of that moment for the rest of my life. I got out shortly after that and 11 years later am the only still living member of that group. The real kicker, 100% of the trees that we cut went to feed two paper mills to be turned into “fluff” paper. That raw material was sold to one of two manufacturing facilities in the area. Tampax and Kotex.
A gymnastics isntructor at my gym failed a flip he was trying off a trampoline and landed on a hard surface on the top of his head. His spinal cord essentially went into his brain. I actually was the one who attempted CPR to resuscitate him, but we later learned he was dead on impact. His pulse was just his body on auto-pilot after the fact.
Several months ago I had a female colleague aged 30 that passed away completely unexpectedly from an underlying medical condition that was only discovered after her death. Literally here on a Thursday and joking around with everyone and then Friday she was gone.
For as tragic and shocking as it was, it really did wake me up to how fragile and finite life is and you never know when your time is up. I used the wake-up call to set some big goals for myself and have been definitely living a more active / fuller life and feel more gratitude for each day.
I had a coworker who worked at Walmart. Name was Karl. He was always happy, loved his job. Helped me out with things I couldn’t reach. Helped me buy a BB gun once. He had a heart attack at work. Went to the hospital. Told he needed a heart transplant, couldn’t afford it and decided to just live out the rest of his days. He went back to work at Walmart. One day he died at home. Another heart attack, getting ready for work. He died in his Walmart uniform. That will always fuck with me.
During my first deployment to Iraq, I was given an assignment to attend funerals. It can be difficult for funerals to be attended in a combat theater and we had the manpower to spare for someone to be there. I don’t know all of the circumstances, I don’t recall all the names, and I can never adequately express to anyone who has never served and attended a military funeral how painful it is.
My family doesn’t understand why I refuse to go to funerals.
When I was in the army there was this super awesome guy in the infantry. Nicest guy, tough as hell, really good soldier material. He was learning how to scuba dive in his free time, and his regulator got snagged in something and he must have panicked and held his breath on the way up because he was so new at it and his lungs burst.
R.I.P., soldier.
I was the Manager.. whoopdeedoo.. my new hire called and left me a message saying ” hey sorry boss.. I must be tired.. I woke up in my truck on my way to work.. I’ll beright in.. sorry sorry” etc… then there was another message form his gf.. screaming and crying.. scared.. he had a brain aneurysm… it must have passed.. and he woke up.. but then it got stuck somewhere else I guess… the most fucked part… was..while he was dying… he was trying to get to work. Awful memory