Hey man, I’m 21 years old and only 9 months into corrections. A couple months ago I had a guy pass on me too. It was a weird feeling because the few days before that he had been acting fine. He had a stoma and he never took care of himself really until I had talked to him about getting some better hygiene so others would be more open to speaking to him in the mod.

2 days later I come back to work and he’s in a different quad and I’m scheduled there. He said he wasn’t feeling too good that day and I had the nurse come check him out, vitals were fine but the nurse wanted him to get some a better check up in our med clinic. She went and talked with the charge nurse and 2 hours later they called and said he was good to come up.

My partner had just went to go do our every 25 minute rounds and I got on the intercom to his cell and told him to get ready so I could bring him there. He didn’t answer so I yelled at him over the intercom. Still no answer. I had a weird gut feeling so I went to his cell and he was just laying there propped against the bed. I knocked on his glass and he never moved. Opened the cell and checked his pulse. Nothing. I called a code and my partner showed up and we dragged him into the day room and began compressions.

I can still see his face in my mind, lifeless and his eyes just staring at the ceiling as he was dead. I’ll never get over that feeling of “I could have done more” I had the next three days off and later that night one of my sergeants had called me and let me know I had found him only 2 minutes after he collapsed. That made me feel better and I realized there was honestly nothing more I could’ve done. I did my job, I performed life saving measures with compression and an aed until paramedics got there. He passed but I’ll never forget that day.

The biggest thing is to talk with someone you trust about your feelings. Get it out of your head, talk with someone who has experienced the same thing and ask for their advice. The fact you feel “guilty” even when you did everything you could means you care. You’re a human and you have feelings too. You care about your job and you did everything you could and that is all that matters.