Patient Dies Alone So Nurse Starts "No One Dies Alone" Program

One of the scariest thoughts is dying alone. Death on its own can be scary, but its inevitability only worsens with the possibility you might have to leave this earth alone without the company of loved ones. This is something too many people have had to experience and one nurse felt it didn’t have to always be this way. It was something she thought about for nearly two decades. When her plan was finally set in motion, it ended up being the start of hundreds of lives being comforted as patients took their last breaths.

In 1986, Sandra Clarke was working as a staff nurse at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene, Oregon.

One night, she was making her rounds when she entered an elderly man’s room.

He asked her, “Will you stay with me?”

She said she would be back as soon as she checked on her six other patients.

When she returned to the man, his hand was outstretched.

He had died alone.

Sandra knew he was dying and he didn’t have long, but she knew he shouldn’t have died that way.

Some people have family close by when they pass away, but for those like the elderly man, death is something they have to greet on their own.