I watched a man die

As I perused one of the LDS blog aggregators yesterday, I couldn’t help but notice a post titled, “Did You Watch a Man Die?” written by Melissa De Leon Mason on BCC.

My thoughts did not immediately go to the video of Saddam Hussein’s hanging; I’ve already watched that video. Rather, I tried to remember the first time I watched a man die. (Caution: Reader discretion is advised.)

I watched a man die

While I don’t recall the exact year—must have been sometime around 1996—I do recall vividly the night when I first watched a man die.

The time was just after 1:00 a.m., on a Friday night—the bars had just closed—when I was on routine patrol as a uniformed police volunteer in Tempe, Arizona. A call came over the radio of a motor vehicle accident involving a bicyclist. I was about a mile away from the accident, so I informed the dispatcher that I would be responding.

My adrenaline kicked into overdrive as I punched the accelerator of my police truck and sped toward the accident scene.

As I approached the dispatch location, I could see a bicyclist lying in the roadway next to the sidewalk. I turned on my emergency overhead lights and positioned my vehicle to protect the downed bicyclist and preserve the scene for officers.

I hurriedly donned my reflective traffic vest, exited my vehicle and ran toward the injured bicyclist. There was a tremendous amount of blood on the ground, but I was determined to do what I could to render aid and try to save the man’s life.

The man was having difficulty breathing, so I called one of the responding officers on the radio and asked him to bring his protective breathing mask. As I put on latex gloves and knelt down to start first aid, I suddenly saw the futility of rendering any aid—the man was missing a good portion of his head.

As I knelt close to the dying bicyclist, I heard him draw his last, labored breath. When he exhaled for the last time, a look of peace washed over his face as he departed his beaten and battered body. The almost unbearable and intense suffering the man likely felt was finally over.

I called dispatch on the radio and informed them that this was now a fatal accident and would require the major accident investigation team (M.A.I.T) and a sergeant from the traffic squad.

After the bicyclist died, I heard noises coming from an alley behind a grocery store adjacent to the location of the accident. I notified one of the officers and pointed him to the alley where he subsequently found the drunk driver who collided with the bicyclist. The officer later explained that the sound I heard was the driver vomiting and crying as he realized what he had done while driving intoxicated.

For the next five hours I helped direct traffic around the accident scene while the motor officers from M.A.I.T performed their investigation.

I was the last unit to clear the scene around 6:00 a.m. Feeling tired and emotionally spent, I hurried back to the station so I could go home and sleep.

The impact of what I had seen didn’t hit me until a few weeks later, but I was sufficiently numb to the experience since this was not the first dead body I had seen; just the first death that I had witnessed as it happened.

No stranger to death

While I have seen my fair share of dead bodies: suicide calls, fatal accidents, drowning calls, murder and fire scenes; I don’t think I will ever be completely numb to death.

I worked a fatal accident several years ago involving a highway patrol officer who had been hit while he was in the gore-point area of an on-ramp. He was waiting for a tow truck to arrive and remove a disabled vehicle when he was hit on his motorcycle by a driver swerving to avoid a collision. I cried as I watched a brother in law enforcement’s dead body lie on the hot and unforgiving freeway pavement. I thought of his grieving wife who knew that someday her husband might pay the ultimate price.

My heart melted as I watched a mother collapse as she walked up and viewed the aftermath of her son’s suicide. Although the corpse was draped, the mother could scarcely stand the thought that her 16-year old son had ended his life after a break-up with his girlfriend.

While protecting the perimeter of a murder scene at a neighborhood park, I struggled with my duty to protect the crime scene and my empathy for a Catholic priest who arrived to administer Last Rites to the female victim. The crime-scene tape blocked the priest’s entry into the crime scene and the body of his former congregant, yet I knew how vitally important he felt the task of Last Rites to be and how he yearned to break the barrier that stood in his way. I said a silent prayer to Heavenly Father, asking Him to bless this woman’s family and give them comfort in the face of their daughter’s tragic death.

Nothing is more heart-wrenching than seeing a toddler drown needlessly in an unfenced pool. I lack the words to convey the heart break that accompanies a drowning call. I am void of words to express the void that enters the heart of any and all that experience such a thing. As a parent of two small children, I can scarcely imagine such a thing happening to my children. I do not think I could go on if either of my children were to drown.

The enigma of death

Over the years I have come to accept that death is somewhat of an enigmatic thing. Death is sometimes a welcome relief from pain and suffering; sometimes a thief as it robs youth and cherished companionship; other times a punishment for crimes too heinous to relate.

Even with the benefit of a testimony of Jesus Christ, the Holy Scripture and Prophets, I do not claim to understand death. I am, however, aware of the temporary nature of our frail mortal existence and the need to prepare to meet God.

Finally, lest I leave on a morose or morbid note, I offer to you the hope that I cling to after witnessing so much death: God lives and Jesus is the Christ. Jesus died for us and provided a way whereby we can return to the presence of the Father.

John 14: 6

6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

11 thoughts on “I watched a man die

  1. Thanks for sharing this.

    A favorite song of mine was written by Jackson Browne about a friend of his who died. It says:

    I don’t know what happens when people die
    Can’t seem to grasp it as hard as I try
    It’s like a song I can hear playing right in my ear
    That I can’t sing
    I can’t help listening
    And I can’t help feeling stupid standing ’round
    Crying as they ease you down
    ‘Cause I know that you’d rather we were dancing
    Dancing our sorrow away

  2. Wow, Brian, that’s rough. I’ve seen my fair share of suffering over the years — injuries, people being shot, dead bodies, etc — but I’ve never witnessed a person dying in front of me. I like the idea that the person looked peaceful as he left his body.

  3. Susan- Nice song. Dancing our sorrow away…I like that.

    danithew- Yes, death is an awful monster. A fitting description indeed.

    Geoff- I was amazed to see how peaceful this man was as he died. The entire experience was sobering; even more so as I look back on it. I don’t expect that I will ever forget that day.

  4. I like a look of agony,
    Because I know it’s true;
    Men do not sham convulsion,
    Nor simulate a throe.

    The eyes glaze once, and that is death.
    Impossible to feign
    The beads upon the forehead
    By homely anguish strung.

  5. /shiver

    I’m not psychologically well prepared to watch a person die. I knew a wonderful young woman who was killed at a very early age and just seeing her lying in the coffin caused me to break down into silent sobs. The closest I ever came would be when I drove past a car accident that had just occurred and saw what appeared to be an EMT covering a person with a white sheet. I never saw the person, just the sheet coming down and I felt cold and miserable for a long time afterwards.

    I wish I could be a stronger person, but for some reason I’m just not wired that way.

  6. cew, I’m not sure you should look at it as not being a strong person, rather as you are someone who doesn’t have the tolerance for gore; nothing wrong with that at all!

    I sometimes wish I didn’t have such a strong tolerance for the gore I have seen. I’ve become somewhat numb over the years…maybe even less feeling?!?!

  7. Brian, as society deteriorates, we need cops like you (both part-time volunteer/sworn-in and full time paid/sworn-in) who can do their job UN-emotionally when tragedies such as deaths and severe injuries happen.

    I know that Indianapolis has to call out the reserve police/sheriff deputies for big crowd events and most winter weather storms.

    Wherever and whenever natural disaster strikes, there just aren’t enough emergency personnel to go around. So I’m glad there are people like you who volunteer.

    I’m of the firm opinion that our country doesn’t have enough emergency response personnel for major catastrophes.

    I learned from my skydiving experience that the ability to control one’s thinking and behavior while under the influence of adrenalin is a learned skill, and must be practiced or the ability fades away in time. It took a few days of skydiving after the beginning of a new season for me to get used to the adrenalin again.

    Just think of what God, resurrected beings, the pre-mortal spirits, and the post-mortal spirits (those who get to watch earth-life at least) see. I’m sure God sees every death, even a sparrow’s. And during the Atonement, the Savior saw/experienced every human’s suffering, even death throes.

    For us to be able to tolerate suffering and death, both our own and that of others, I believe that one needs to try to maintain an eternal perspective. Most people see death as an end, but it’s really just a transition. Seeing beyond the endpoints (birth and death) of mortality may be a key factor in how Heavenly Father looks upon those transitions.

    In a way, the experience you describe of the dying bicyclist ties in with Dutcher’s film States of Grace. Dutcher witnessed a drive-by shooting/killing on his mission in Mexico and was unable to save the victim. In States of Grace, Dutcher replays and “edits” that event, and the missionary saves the shooting victim.

    Acting out in the form of a flash-back and trying to rewrite or edit our memories of traumatic events is a symptom of PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

    So is that movie Dutcher’s way of editing his memory tapes of his mission? Is States of Grace his way of dealing with his PTSD?

    I had flashbacks, both in dreams and awake, of stressful points in my mission for at least 13 years. I didn’t realize they were flashbacks because I thought for it to be a flashback you had to actually think you were back there and were reliving it in real time. But, a “flashback” can be as simple as replaying the memory-tape in your mind, while still realizing that you’re in the here-and-now.

    What makes it an unhealthy memory, and the sign that one hasn’t fully processed it and put it to bed is if one repeatedly tries to “edit” the tape, and create a mental picture/memory of doing something else.

    So if you find yourself replaying your memory tapes of stressful or traumatic events, and in replaying them you try to “edit the tape” by altering your response in your mind, that’s a pretty good sign that you haven’t fully processed that event and put it to bed.

    The “failure to save” scenario is a common source of PTSD in cops, soldiers, and medical personnel. It can become a full-blown form of PTSD along the lines of being the actual victim, such as a rape victim. It’s even akin to “survivor’s guilt” such as the soldier who lives because he traded with someone else who took his turn “walking point” and got killed.

    For me, focusing on the Atonement and working to forgive people has been what’s enabled me to process the memories so that they don’t resurface unwanted on their own. My key mantras in that process have been: forgive them, forgive yourself, Jesus paid for it.

  8. Bookslinger, great comment!

    I don’t replay the event of this man’s death in my head, although the memory of the event is vivid when I think about it.

    Had he not been missing half of his head, I might have felt some guilt about not being able to save him.

    I was at an injury accident a month ago where I was first on scene. I basically stood by the car door of the injured person and tried to reassure them that paramedics were on their way and that everything would be o.k. I may be trained as a first responder, but beyond CPR and simple first aid, I am powerless to do much else.

    I haven’t given PTSD much thought, but I guess maybe I should.

  9. On my mission I watched a speeding car drive through a sidewalk cafe. I was in a car right behind the out-of-control car. A mess of dining furniture and bodies. My cab driver kept going, so I don’t know the body count. Maybe everyone was okay.

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