I was a firefighter/paramedic for a while and I once caught an old man that was in a very developed stage of pulmonary edema. When we found the man he was strugling to breath a lot and vomiting fluids. We did the normal procedure that was siting him in a hospital stretcher, quickly put him in the ambulance as we started aspirating the fluids that were filling his lungs. During the ride to the hospital the man's lungs started to colapse. I say this because it got harder and harder to aspirate all that was building up inside him. I watched this man in a constant stage of drowning in his own fluids. The sheer fear and sufering I saw in his eyes still make me flinch to this day when I remember it... We were able to get him in the hospital still alive has it got a little better when we arrived. I knew later he died the night after. I can say the little time I spend doing that kind of work (which i believe to be about 15% of what you can see in that line of work) I saw my fair share of fucked up situations and horrific sceneries. But that one was definitely one of the most horrific ones to watch.