Posted: 2/25/2011 3:34:35 PM EDT
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Yesterday I worked a triple fatal.
Vehicle found upside in a ditch at about 0600, expected to have occured at 0000. 3 vics, all from my high school class (21-22 yoa). Lengthy AI done then we had to extricate bodies. Vehicle hit a large tree, uprooted it and snapped it like a tooth pick with a little leight weight coupe. They were cruisin. Pretty grouesome, and thats all I can say with out going into details, and with the high publcity around it I prob shouldnt. But heres the catch, I feel NOTHING about it. No emotions what so ever. I cut the bodies of 3 kids I went to high school with out of a car and I dont feel anything. It just doesnt seem human to me to feel nothing about it. |
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I think you are in shock to some extent. Kind of a delayed reaction to a traumatic event. You are so locked in –– on doing the job –– doing the right thing –– knowing what you have to do –– that you are on autopilot and the emotions have not caught up with you. It would be a good idea to talk to a police psychologist if one is available to you. If not then consider talking to a pastor of one of the local churches that wont cost you any money and sometimes its good to have someone you can talk to who wont go blab what you say. Empathy is the normal reaction to tragic events - while we may not personally love and care about the deceased, we understand that other people do, and in that understanding we should be a little sad that their mom's and dad's, brothers and sisters of the deceased lost someone they cared about.
I've been to a lot of bloody shit over the years and I really think you should probably find someone you can talk to in confidence just to help you sort through your feelings because it is not good to keep everything bottled up inside. |
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The first time I did CPR was as a first responder, I was woken up out of bed for the call, went...did CPR...unsuccessfully and went home and went back to sleep like it was no big deal. When I woke up later that day I kinda  a little bit when it dawned on me how little it bothered me. |
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I'm not a LEO but this past July I went to check on an elderly friend. He didn't answer the door so looked in the window and saw him on the floor. I found the back door open and went in to investigate. Really didn't want to, had that feeling.
I called 911 and the operator asked if he was cold. Don't know why I bothered to check but I did as I was told, it was gruesome to see. When the deputies and coroner arrived, they concluded he'd been gone over a week. Only thing that bothered me was, he died alone and I should have been there sooner. The officers let me hang out and joked about other stuff. I've always respected our local officers, and felt bad that they had to do this too often as part of their job. I had a couple cold ones and talked to my girlfriend that night, did some good. |
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It is a difficult part of the job to see events that no person should ever be subjected to. Like the other posts have said eventually it will catch up to you in some way. A flash back at a similar accident, seeing their face in a dream, remembering every time you pass by that location. The important thing is coping with these events in a healthy way. I have seen several officers use the bottle as a coping skill.
I am a TI for the largest municipality in Iowa and have seen my fair share of fatality accident scenes. While you are on scene it is "game on" and the training sets in. It always seems that some time later the reality of this being a person with a family sets in. Law enforcement is definitely cut from a different cloth. There is nothing wrong with you. Different people react in different ways. Just make sure the reaction is a healthy one when it comes. |
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You went into autopilot-professional mode to take care of business. Nothing at wrong with that.
I remember working an arson about my third year on the street. A 8 year old girl barely made it out the front door then collapsed and died horribly burned at my feet. I felt her last heartbeat as I was cradling her to run further from the house and back towards the EMT's. I went back to the PD after the call, changed, walked over to the YMCA, showered, worked out, then showered again before going home and sleeping like a log for about eight good hours. Dog (Pug in my avatar) crawled in next to me, wife was at work, yanked the shades down and fired up the AC. It was honestly some of the best sleep I ever had. Not to jinkx the OP, but the subsequent attempts at sleep for the next week or so were pretty unpleasant. Good luck. |
| I have wondered the same thing a few times. Basically the fact that you know it should bother but it doesn't means your normal. Well as normal as any in this profession. There comes a time in everyones career that the simple act of doing the job seperates us from the normal reaction of everday people. |
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Quoted:
Some things that should bother me don't. Some things that shouldn't bother me do. It's a weird job. This- But after 20 years I'm pretty much unresponsive to everything. Hell, when my last partner LODD I was the only one straight enough to make the calls and do the work until I got other assistance from other friends on surrounding departments. |
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Still not feeling anything at all, over 24 hours.
sleeping has been fine. I know how I should be feeling. I know the feeling I usually get on calls like this, and I guess I have just progressed passed it. I dony know. BTW to clear up any confusion, I was there as a firefighter/ rescue tech, not that it matters. |
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We were talking about this the other day at work. I asked a similar question. Is it wrong that I feel worse about dealing with a dog killed by a car than I do about dealing with some young guy that overdosed and was dead for hours before his family decided to check on him? When I walked in the house the smell of death was in the air and i knew right away he was dead. Didn't feel a thing then, feel nothing now.
I feel bad for people who deserve it not for people who make stupid decision that get them killed. Sometimes I feel bad for the families, but it depends. I can still hear the screaming of a 3 year old boy who pulled a deep fryer off the counter onto himself wearing nothing but a diaper. His skin was just falling off. I had to hold his legs apart and pinned down all the way to the hospital, which was a 20 minute drive. He screamed the whole time. THAT bothered me. Was 15 years ago. Don't worry about it. Becoming desensitized to this stuff happens. Worry about it if it starts affecting your relationship with your family. |
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i had the same thing happen to me after i worked a C17 crash were we lost 4 Airmen. i didnt hit me till a couple days later. i felt like i was sleeping fine but my wife said i would toss and turn as well as talk like i was on scene.
doesnt bother me to this day but it affected me in ways that i didnt know about. (if that makes sense to you) |
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Quoted:
Some things that should bother me don't. Some things that shouldn't bother me do. It's a weird job. 'Dog nails it. And there will be times that it seems like every call is crashing back down on you at once. The last week or two it's felt like work has been nothing but a string of deaths. Dead old people, dead young people, just ... dead. You learn to deal with it in your own way, or you go nuts. 
Talk if you need to, work out, read, write, shoot, whatever - but don't turn to the bottle (on a regular basis). I promise, it doesn't help. |
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Quoted: Some things that should bother me don't. Some things that shouldn't bother me do. It's a weird job. I can still hear a man begging for his life just before he was murdered while I was talking to him on the phone. That call didn't bother me for the longest time. Trying to get a sheet to stay over a dead guy and his girlfriend popped back into my head after many years. A lot of things will come back to you when you don't expect it. You have the ability to deal with things without emotion when you have to. Make sure you have someone to talk to if you need to. It is better to find that person before you need it. |
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Quoted: Still not feeling anything at all, over 24 hours. sleeping has been fine. I know how I should be feeling. I know the feeling I usually get on calls like this, and I guess I have just progressed passed it. I dony know. BTW to clear up any confusion, I was there as a firefighter/ rescue tech, not that it matters. How should you be feeling? Should you feel sorry because some people from your past didn't have the good sense to take a cab? Did you look at these people and think, I figured this would happen some day? Don't dwell on it. If you stay in your profession you'll see much worse from people you knew.. |
| As many have said, it will come. It could be in a couple days or a couple years. I learned early on that people die. No matter what you do or how hard you try, people die. Sometimes its someone you know. I've had the same scenario as you. It didn't bother me then, and still really doesn't but I remember it like it was yesterday when I drive past that utility pole every day driving home from work. |
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For the most part it's just nature... there's nothing special in the way life ends, that's for sure - and people can be cruel to each other, but I have no sleepless nights.
Shootings, stabbings, accident fatals, drug ODs - meh. Children being accidentally run over by the family car, killed by falling TVs, drowning, burned and dunked in boiling water by "parents" ––- I suppose anyone would always remember those. |
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Quoted:
Yesterday I worked a triple fatal. Vehicle found upside in a ditch at about 0600, expected to have occured at 0000. 3 vics, all from my high school class (21-22 yoa). Lengthy AI done then we had to extricate bodies. Vehicle hit a large tree, uprooted it and snapped it like a tooth pick with a little leight weight coupe. They were cruisin. Pretty grouesome, and thats all I can say with out going into details, and with the high publcity around it I prob shouldnt. But heres the catch, I feel NOTHING about it. No emotions what so ever. I cut the bodies of 3 kids I went to high school with out of a car and I dont feel anything. It just doesnt seem human to me to feel nothing about it. Let me ask you this. Were these people that you were close friends with in HS? There are people that I went to HS with that I don't even remember their names let alone who they are (Grad class of aprox 600). I probably would feel anything for someone that I was not real close with even if I realized that they were in my class. Granted I graduated from HS going on 20 years ago, but I gaurentee that the result would have been the same if I was only out of HS for acouple of years. They way I explain it to people is once a person is dead I do not view them as a person merely a body. May be krass but thats what has gotten me through 16+ years, over 50 homicide investigations, other 200 autopsies and countless other atrocities. J- |
| Even if you don't think it will effect you it does. Talk to someone close about it, I have my best friend, my wife, who is always willing to try to understand....some people don't understand how we start to perceive things as LEOs, don't let it get to you, happens to all of us. |
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People die.
Don't mean to sound so.... uncaring, but everyone dies. When I ran EMS before I was in the military, I saw lots of dead people. Never had issue one, or shed tear one. OTOH, 9/11 didn't affect me for about a week. about a week or 10 days after it I just broke down sobbing, and I didn't even realize why for a couple of minutes. I cried for about 5 minutes, and I haven't cried about it since. You could well be blocking it to cope, and, have a delayed stress reaction later. |
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Quoted:
Yesterday I worked a triple fatal. Vehicle found upside in a ditch at about 0600, expected to have occured at 0000. 3 vics, all from my high school class (21-22 yoa). Lengthy AI done then we had to extricate bodies. Vehicle hit a large tree, uprooted it and snapped it like a tooth pick with a little leight weight coupe. They were cruisin. Pretty grouesome, and thats all I can say with out going into details, and with the high publcity around it I prob shouldnt. But heres the catch, I feel NOTHING about it. No emotions what so ever. I cut the bodies of 3 kids I went to high school with out of a car and I dont feel anything. It just doesnt seem human to me to feel nothing about it. IF this is the same kind of thing, I call this my delay reaction to things. A condition that lets me get out of the battle area before the emotions sink in. I first felt this when my first grandfather died 35 years ago....it took two, three weeks for it to sink in what I had lost. My interpretation tends to be romantic, but I have come across a similarly described situation in my psychology studies. You may not be able to say when it will hit you, but when it hits you...............give yourself time to reflect in whatever way your culture calls for. I am Especolpian........our wakes are grand. |
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I am a cold Mfer. Been told that several times.
Dead people don't bother me. Bleeding, screaming, dying people don't bother me. I don't even get shaken up too bad when it's kids. But, I saw death from an early age (dad killed himself in front of me when I was 8) and plenty of stuff followed that. It just plain isn't shocking or disturbing to me. It happens, it's a natural part of life (although the timing may not always be) and outside of the rare occasion where I was able to kick the grim reaper's ass and get the person back..there's not much to be done to change it, so why worry about it? It also helps that I'm really good about leaving work at work. I disconnected when I was there, and whenever I got home, none of that came in the door with me. I miss being on the ambulance...a lot, really. But I was (and still am) in the financial shitter because of it. Back to the oilfield for me. 
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