Two Deaths, One Week

Today in our pre-shift briefing I mentioned that I think about death calls on my personal time. I don't know why I mentioned it and later wished I didn't. Though it's expected in the job, showing compassion and a soft side internally with coworkers is uncomfortable. But the fact is I do think about death calls. There are some that settle into my mind more deeply than others but typically I consider a few aspects of every death with which I'm involved.

Last week I was dispatched to an "obvious death" where a reporting person hadn't heard from his friend for a couple days, went to his house, crawled in through a window, and found his friend dead. The friend, we'll call "Larry", told me he met his now deceased friend, call him "Stan", some 16 years ago when they both joined Alcoholics Anonymous. Larry said he and Stan had been going to meetings for AA every Sunday since the time they both joined and had become close friends, supporting each other over the years. Larry said they were both sober. Larry also said he talked with Stan, either in person or by phone every day and Stan missed the last AA meeting on Sunday. Larry was unable to reach Stan by phone over the last couple days.

When Larry crawled in through Stan's window, he went upstairs, hearing Stan's TV playing in the master bedroom. When Larry didn't find Stan in his bedroom, he went into the bathroom across the hall and found Stan, deceased, sitting on the toilet wearing only a shirt. Obviously, this is incredibly upsetting to find your friend gone and in this compromised position. 

Stan's house was a very nice 1930s larger home with wooden floors and very clean with expensive, solid yet simple furniture. There were hundreds of tastefully framed pieces of art and photos of family. There were several cards displayed from family, including his deceased parents telling him what a special son he was for taking good care of them in their final years. There were photos of his son, whom, I learned from Larry, died from a drug overdose. There was a lot to take in on this call. Stan had so many people he loved and who loved him but many of them were gone, and now he was gone, too.

While taking photos and conducting my investigation for my report, I found an empty bottle of vodka on Stan's bed next to an empty water bottle. Stan was clearly not sober and who knows how long he had been drinking while still attending AA meetings with his friend. The coroner felt Stan's death was probably related to his alcoholism. I never told Larry about the bottle I found or the the coroner's conclusions. I figured it would be best to let Larry retain some strength in his own battle with alcoholism by believing his friend was strong to the end, too.

Fast forward a few days to this week. 

Yesterday, dispatch aired a call assigning two other officers that a bicyclist crashed and wasn't conscious or breathing. I, and another officer, were just a couple blocks from it, so we jumped the call and ran code (lights and sirens) to it. We arrived just seconds after the call came out. As soon as I got out of my patrol car and saw the man's eyes and condition I felt confident he was gone. Regardless, immediately the other officer and I performed CPR until the ambulance arrived and relieved us. 

It turns out the male, we'll call him "Sam", was homeless. Sam was riding his bike down the sidewalk pretty quickly and didn't see an uncovered manhole in the middle of the sidewalk. Sam rode directly into the hole, flipped over the bars, and landed face first onto the concrete with apparent tremendous force. Sam had substantial trauma to his face and head and probably died on or just after impact. 

Sam was a veteran and clearly proud of it, wearing his military branch emblem hat, and carrying veteran cards in his wallet. The fact that I didn't recognize him or his name told me Sam wasn't the type of homeless person using the system and committing petty crimes we, as officers, deal with every day with the majority of the transient population in our town. Sam seemed to be doing the best he could with what he had and just getting through life. The violent abruptness of Sam's death immediately brought my mind back to Stan and the stark contrasts between their lives and deaths.

Stan had people standing outside his beautiful house and people arrived there while I was on scene. Sam likely knew people who cared about him and the coroner would track them down to share the news about his accident. Aside from possibly a few scant belongings, most of Sam's possessions were on his person when he died. Stan had infinitely more valuable belongings. After death, neither of their material things mattered. 

The distinctly different circumstances of Stan's and Sam's deaths, dying on a toilet or flying face first onto concrete, and what they had or didn't have in life are rendered equal and meaningless in death. There is no immortality. I used to believe people could achieve a semblance of immortality through either creative work they left behind or through the impact they left in people's hearts. But I've come to realize that through time everyone, at their core, is eventually gone and forgotten. I've thought about my mom and dad pretty much daily since they died, my dad in 2001 and mom nearly two years ago. But when I'm gone there won't be anyone to think about them and their mortality, both physically and spiritually will be sealed.

These are the things I think about after watching people die or being recently deceased. Even though they are strangers to me, my thoughts are both a way for me to show personal respect for the person and also a way for me to embrace my own mortality.