While in nursing school during the summer of 2005, I worked as a “Nurse Extern” which was really a glorified Med Tech. I was to shadow a Med Tech, and not a Nurse, who had been working at the hospital for years and obviously didn’t like me from the start. One day I was walking past one of my patient’s rooms and heard him gasping and gurgling. I now know this was his “death rattle.” But being my first experience with death, I was alarmed and knew only that something was very wrong. I tried to get the nurses attention, but when she did not come right away, I just couldn’t leave his side. I tried to suction away the secretions he was gagging on, and I saw tears streaming down his face. I waiting and counted his breaths with intense suspense, and when he seemed to stop breathing, I just held his hand and started praying. The med tech walked in and started yelling at me to get out of there and do my work. “He’s dead anyway, just leave him be.” She told me when she saw me crying that I didn’t have what it takes to be a nurse. I quite that job. I believed her for a day or two. Then realised after a hearty cry, on a fittingly rainy night, that I would be a wonderful nurse because I care.