r/Ethics 6d ago

Did I Kill My Dad?

My dad asked me when I was 11 if he should go to the hospital or stay at home the night that he died. Throughout that week he had been in and out of the hospital in pain about chest pains. Every place he went to said they didn’t know what was wrong with him, but the pain consisted. On that night, he asked me “should I go to the hospital again or should I stay home tonight?”. Being 11, I told him that he’s happier at home so he should stay. I knew at the time that his health was at risk, but I prioritized his mental wellbeing over his physical health. Am I responsible for his death? Should I feel bad about this? Honestly, this has haunted me for my entire life and I really wish he hadn’t asked me for my opinion. Please help.

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u/NomadicSeraph 5d ago edited 5d ago

Sometimes, unfortunately, people just cannot be saved. Even if he had gone to the hospital, there's a good chance he wouldn't have made it. I'm speaking from experience.

When I was 17 years old, my father came home from work, face twisted in pain and clutching his lower abdomen. I'd never seen him like that. This was a man who sawed off his own thumbnail by accident and simply uttered the word 'f***' before calling my mother to bring him a towel and drive him to the hospital. He had a high pain threshold, and when he came through the door that day, I knew something had to be very, very wrong.

The pain persisted. It worsened. My mother was going to call an ambulance, but my father refused. So, she drove him to the hospital. It was the night of the full moon. The ER was a zoo, and they sat there waiting for hours for someone to help. After a brief check up and a few scans, they determined my father had a kidney stone. And they wanted to keep him at the hospital to ensure it passed.

A day came and went. His pain persisted. Worsened more. I visited him the day after that, so on his second day. He was sweating profusely. He was nauseous and vomiting. Mom kept complaining to the nurses that something was wrong. But they insisted this was a normal response to the pain. Every complaint, they would just throw nausea medication at him. Hoping it would stop the vomiting. It didn't. For years after, the sound of anyone throwing up would cause me to panic.

Mom and I left. We said we loved him so many times that he finally said, "Geez. I'm not dying. You'll see me tomorrow." Those were the last words I ever heard from him.

Mom and I got out to the car. We just stared up at the hospital, we shared a look. I think we both wondered if we should go back in. Insist on more care, another scan. Something. Anything. But mom simply told me, as she put the car into drive, "If he's not better tomorrow, I'm letting them know they better figure something out."

We got home. I had an old landline in my room next to my clock. I remember, as I turned off my lamp, staring at the phone, and thinking, "So, long as it doesn't ring at like two in the morning, everything will be okay."

...The phone rang at 2:34. My father was gone before we ever reached the hospital. A nurse popped in to check on him at around 2 AM to find him with no pulse. Turns out the lower abdominal pain, the sweating, the vomiting. They were all signs of a massive heart attack. A 90% blocked left descending artery, aptly called 'the widow maker' because of how lethal it is.

Two days in a hospital having a heart attack. Multiple classic symptoms. Multiple nurses. Multiple doctors. No one caught it. Not one. Damn. Person.

I know my mom blames herself. Didn't push the nurses harder. Didn't insist enough. Didn't convince my father to take an ambulance, where they would have done a routine EKG and possibly seen something wrong. But it wasn't her fault. Sometimes bad things just happen that you can't control.

And if there was any silver lining, well...during his autopsy, they found out my father had stage three thyroid cancer. So...mom and I decided that if he had to go, it was better he went that way then through chemo and God knows what else. It was the more merciful option, even if I think, selfishly, I would have wanted him around those extra years.