Damn, that is a rough stretch for sure Eric! Appreciate your guys service and take care of yourselves. I know I couldn't see that stuff without it affecting me.
It can be difficult, especially for the younger guys/girls. We have no females but two young females on the PD we work on a regular basis. When I saw young, I mean younger than my daughters, born after I started on the FD (or were in diapers) or less than 5 years on the job. I've talked to a few of them, off to the side when no one else is around.
I'd rather not see one of them lose it and have to walk away from a good and promising career.
I have a bit of a dark but true story on this one. I had a friend who got sucked into a sandpaper rolling machine that was rolling 4 grit. Found out later that his employer had disabled all the emergency shutoffs because they didn't work right and he didn't want to pay to fix them. Anyways, he got sucked into the machine after his hand got pinched, whole body was wrapped in the roll like a dead body in a rug before anyone could get over to shutoff the main power to the machine. It broke most of the bones in his body in the process. It was pretty brutal looking.
Paramedics showed up and it appeared to be a DOA. They cut the roll open and while they were preparing to extract his body, he breathed. The one paramedic had a break down on the spot and had to go sit down. They had already processed it as the just a body category, and the shock of that lump of flesh needed to move back into the person category took a minute. They saved his life and he made nearly a full recovery minus strength in certain ranges of motion of his left arm.
One of the attempted suicides we went on was a GSW with a Mosin rifle. . . 7.62x54R. . . big bullet. Dude was sitting on the edge of the bed when we got there along with a PD officer. I asked where the pistol was and the officer said, rifle, it's out there in the hallway. Like I said, sitting on the edge of the bed, a pool of blood on the floor between his feet, arms at his side, hands across his open lap. I bent down and looked at the facial damage. . .
and thought, this is bad. As EMS arrived on scene, we were talking about how to move his down the stairs from the upstairs bedroom, he moans out. . . Leave me alone. . . Dude was alive. Mosin was so long, he basically missed. The round when through the bill of his hat, through the ceiling, and next shift, we drove by the house. You could see where the round traveled up and out of the standing seam roof and kept going. You just never know what you are going to arrive to.
Eric, I agree, I don't know how you guys deal with the stuff you have to see and experience, that takes a whole different kind of person and one who is stronger than I am emotionally. I would have a hard time compartmentalizing those incidents and think it would mess with me mentally and emotionally.
Mike, I used to have a count of the GSW suicide and hangings that I had went on. I could tell you almost every call I was on during my career. There comes a point where calls, days, weeks and everything becomes a blur. About the only thing you never forget is the smell of a dead body.
I don't try to talk to much about it here at GJ, but I know there are other members here involved in LEO, Fire and EMS. I try to avoid the details as I don't want someone to get upset but at this moment, this is my thread, so I feel I can talk about it here a little more.
