My first and only experience of death was strange and terrifying. My mum received a call from a neighbour asking for help because her gardener was having a heart attack. My mother called the ambulance and ran over to help. Twenty minutes later my phone started ringing – it was my mother. She said, “come out – I want you to see this.” I was very uneasy, nervous, but also slightly curious. I tentatively made my way outside to see a large mass of people gathered around an unconscious, bearded, half-naked man being resuscitated by paramedics in the driveway. Many people were crying. He died about ten minutes later. Afterwards I asked my mum in a horrified voice, “why on earth did you make me watch that?!” She said, “you want to be a doctor right? You’ll have to deal with this on a daily basis – get used to it.”
