I went to a job a while back where a child drowned during a swimming lesson.
You never want to deal with a job like that.
And I know the swimming teacher because she is from my part of the Ruralshire border. She is no longer teaching. The other children were very quiet. Their Balkan nannies rush them home in German cars. Even the Paramedics, usually 100% reliable with a smile in the worst situations, would not make eye contact.
Everyone involved is devastated to some extent for the rest of their lives.
CID send a Detective Inspector to decide whether it is suspicious, or a “Sus Death” as we call it. He deploys his experience and knowledge through a three pint filter (well, it is after 4.00 pm) and decides against any escalation.
The child’s mother arrives and there is a scene of hysteria by the ambulance. The DI watches in silence. “There’s nothing for me here Gadget” .
There’s nothing here for anyone, I thought.
A crowd of Emergency Service workers and other parents stand around the mother. Everybody cares and everybody understands.
Was first on scene to such a job a few weeks back. Horrendous, she was already dead. My first child death. Not ashamed to say i shed a few tears along with the Paramedics. Exactly as you described it. Tragic accident.
I thought i did’nt care a lot about the stuff i do and deal with, but apparently i still do which is reassuring. I’ve not been bled dry of all humanity just yet.
A heartrending story written in heartrending style, compassionate and pinpoint accurate as usual.
I’m surprised to hear you still have anaesthetised DIs. To each of their credit, all ours are spot on. Though I remember as a probationer I did a prison visit with my then DS. We stopped at the pub for 90 minutes on the way back, on OT, having four pints before he drove the CID car back to the nick. Many, many years ago. The job has gone down the tubes in many respects but I gladly don’t see those sort of shenanigans going on any more.
Keep up the good work brother Gadget. And steel yourself for the next tragedy.
Not exactly the same.
It was a warm summer’s afternoon and as I pulled up to the house a large family bar-b-que was apparently coming to an end, the patriarchal figure was waving goodbye to happy family members who were climbing into cars.
My partner said “they don’t know” obvious really but it seemed right at the time.
The son had died in a mountain biking accident in another part of the country.
What was love filled collection of people destroyed that moment for parents, sisters, brothers and children of various ages.
The patriarch could not hold it in and cried his apologies TO ME! For having to deliver the message.
You’re right, there were no words, and the feeling of intrusion was almost too much to bear.
I guess all emergency services workers are anaestetised to some extent - the job would not be possible otherwise.
It’s the swimming teacher who has probably had the most trauma to deal with.
I know many will say “what about the parents?” but they have support from friends, family and bereavement counsellors.
The swimming teacher has to deal the tragedy - and all the possible accusations of blame - and her natural feeling of responsibility - and the “only ifs” on her own. She’s the forgotten victim.
No wonder she no longer teaches.
I’ll have to disagree a bit with caravanparkmanager, I’ve dealt with two infant deaths, both messed me up for a while. One case of SID and the other a fatac and no amount of training or preparation can help you come out the other side the same person before you went in.
Adults make their choices and have at least had the chance to live a bit, even if they never actually did anything worthwhile in some cases. They were two more infant deaths than I ever wanted to deal with and I sincerely hope the last two I ever will.
I can live in hope I guess.
No parent should ever have to outlive their child but as you said guv, everyone is ripped apart in one way or another.
Well written as always Gadget.
I’m pretty lucky, in that I don’t get affected by deaths and dealing with the families any more. I’ve had the misfortune to deal with two baby deaths in the past few months, and although not pleasant it hasn’t effected me dealing with them, or the families.
The only bit I really dislike is having to search their bodies to look for signs of foul play or abuse; pure dread at what I might find.
Area
You’re right Mounty. Haunts you forever and ever.
one of my cousins was killed by a car when he was 7 - i was the same age and i will never forget how the adults were. no parent should have to bury their child. you write about this, as you always write, sharply and with compassion.
Such a sobering blog entry. Tragic.
Those of us in the Emergency Services know exactly what you’re saying.
Does the wearing of a uniform give us the courage to act professionally, or is it a cloak to hide behind, or both?
In my 22 years I’ve pretty much ‘been there, done that’ but as a Traffic FLO, I can remember every single fatal I’ve been to, like it was yesterday.
Went to one which came in as a crash between two lorries. When we got there we found a family car, crushed between the 2 trucks. In the car were Mum, Dad, 8yr old daughter and 6 week old son. All dead. When the Fire Service cut them free, I had to tag each body as it was removed from the wreckage. The baby was still in his car seat, which was folded double and almost completely flat, such was the severity of the impact. I shall never forget the Paramedic, gently cradling the body of the little boy whilst I placed a tag round his tiny ankle. We both looked at each other with glazed eyes and said nothing. Words seemed inappropriate.
Don’t know what else to write.
Yours, and these other stories are so sad. I’ve got tears in my eyes now.
But I think sharing them is healthy for us all, for many reasons, including mutual support, but also, well, just appreciating what we’ve got while we’ve got it.
A while ago I went to a triple drowning.
Two primary school aged children had fallen through the ice on the canal. I was in the second panda to arrive at the scene. By then there was no sign of the kids. Just a hole in the ice on the canal basin. Two old men were standing on the ice, right beside the hole. Looking in to the water. They turned out later to be either relatives or family friends of the kids.
Along with the other three cops who had arrived I shouted at them to get away from the hole. The ice was obviously thin. They didn’t listen. Next thing more ice broke and both the old guys were in the water.
Two of my colleagues tried crawling out over the ice to pull the old guys out. Then they were in the water as well when the ice broke again. In the meantime I’d updated our control room with the situation and told them we needed the fire service with ladders.
The fire service would have arrived in something like 5 or 10 minutes. That perod was the longest ten minutes of my life. Our panda had a rescue line in it. I tried throwing that out but time and time again it snapped when I tried to pull anyone out. It was thin line capable of pulling someone through water but not strong enough to pull them up out the water on to the ice.
All this time the two cops iin the water were struggling to keep the two old guys and themselves up out the water. I can still see the look on their faces. The thought that they might not be coming out of this one.
The fire service arrived and got everyone out the water. One of the old guys was by now dead. The kids bodies were later recovered by divers.
Over my service I must have dealt with scores of sudden deaths but only a handful stick much in the memory. That incident though was more than 20 years ago and if something reminds me about it I can still see it all in pretty good detail.
Perhaps because as has already been said, no parent should have to bury their child.
I can remember a similar incident a few years ago where thankfully I did not attend the scene. A girl had been on a night out and at the end of the evening had been in the wrong place at the wrong time when an unrelated argument resulted in a car speeding away from a car park, running her over in the most horrendous circumstances. She had been with her sister at the time who saw everything. Because my partner and I were not at the scene we volunteered to go to the hospital to help with the sister of the deceased.
When we arrived there were several A&E staff and ambulance crew trying to calm the sister down. We assisted and eventually a mattress was brought so she could be laid down on the floor and restrained to stop her thrashing about and injuring herself. My partner and I plus an A&E staff member physically held her down on the mattress for about two hours while she shouted, screamed, swore and said some of the worst things about us I have ever heard in my 12 years in the job. When she wore herself out and calmed down to a certain extent the staff were able to give her some medication to help her sleep. Before we left she apologised to each of us for her behaviour and for what she had said.
I still get a lump in my throat and I have tears welling in my eyes as I type this because I could not comprehend what she must have felt and she had no need to apologise.
The fact that I had not seen the deceased or the scene does not take away from the fact that I will remember the devastated sister probably having seen the worst thing in her life apologising for her actions. I still don’t really understand why this is so poignant to me but I will never forget.
As a Trainee Tech its the one job you don’t want to gain the experience of. UnfortunatelY, I plan to stay in this job a long time so I know it’ll tough to avoid.
Nicely written Gadget, thank you
I remember going to do an infant death message one Sat morning on earlies.
Remember pulling up a little way from the address, double checking all the details, getting myself presentable, you know, hat on, wipe over the boots and ensuring that there was no ketchup on my shirt from the bacon buttie for breakfast.
Then up to the door with a firm knock and what seemed like a long wait, half hoping no one was in. Sadly they were.
A lovely old woman, in fact the perfect stereotypical lovely old dear (no offence), greeted me with a warm smile and ‘Good morning Officer’.
I can remember seeing the life drain out of her as I told her her grandson had died.
I remember sitting with her, her husband had gone out for the morning papers, she told me all about the little lad, showed me a picture. What do you say? What can you say?
The effect of the news on the husband was much the same. The british steeliness came through though with the offer of a cup of tea within a matter of minutes.
Me? I just wanted to get out of there. I know that seems bad, but thats how I felt.
Being thanked for delivering such news on the way out was probably the strangest thing.
I got into the car, drove to out to a piece of ground overlooking the river and just had five mins before resuming. I welled up a little, what if that were one of my kids?
Then on to the usual sh*te as the underclass start to bicker and argue about fags and text messages. None of it important.
Great song.
http://www.last.fm/music/Elliott+Smith/_/Everybody+Cares,+Everybody+Understands
x
Been there. I remember reading a trite but apt comment;
‘Why can’t we win the ones involving kids?’ I wish we had.
PTCOP - I guess you were being thanked for the way you delivered the message - for your sympathy and understanding - for caring.
metcountymounty - I didn’t mean to underestimate the trauma that you are put through in your job. However, you go through it with the support of colleagues who share similar experiences, and without that support it would be even worse.
As a mop, it’s good to know that you guys are out there, looking out for us, and that you care. Deeply.
Gadget - thanks for sharing.
Couple years back, teenager drowned in a heavy swell, his father had tried to rescue him but was beaten back (and nearly carried away himself) by the undertow. I sat him in my car, wrapped him in a foil blanket and sat with him while the coast guard tried to recover the body. Then to have to sit in a car with this man and answer his question with “Yes, I’m afraid he is”. An hour later, in the back of an ambulance, by now wrapped in my fluorescent to keep him warm against the gale, one arm wrapped around the man’s shoulders, talking gently and steeling him for the act of identifying his son. Paramedic pulls the blanket back, and I instantly felt all the rigidity go from his body as he slumped against me with two words “OH, Mark!” Then having to ask him the question formally, and get his confirmation that this was his son. Hold him tightly to stop him falling and say “That’s it Andrew, that’s enough, come on, let’s get you away”.
A couple of hours of my life that were traumatic but, paradoxically, the most satisfying in retrospect, This is what I joined for. This I can do pretty well. This I don’t shy from, however sad it is.
So it goes. . . .
Huge respect for those of you who go out and face these events as a calling when others would shy away. My father was a Special and my best friend is a paramedic, and both have had quiet nights chatting over a pint where their simple stating of facts made my day’s worries from the office seem so insignificant. Another profoundly touching post IG.
Reading the post and all the comments makes me understand, as if I weren’t aware enough all ready, the debt we all owe to you guys. Not only do you have to put up with the graft, the brawls, the many and variable difficulties of the job, but at times like this, the comments make it clear the toll it must take. All the same, having family who have been there, the difference your professionalism and dedication in cases like this makes to the families is evidently immense. We are so lucky to have such people as yourselves out there when we need them.
I have dealt with several deaths in this situation and numerous death messages. A couple that stick in my mind was having to go to a holiday unit and locate the NOK of a family that had been wiped out in a fiery car crash on christmas day. He was the sole member of the family left after that.
Another one was a 3 year old child that had drowned in a back yard pool but had been revived. He suffered profound brain damage and will never recover. I sometimes reflect that perhaps he should have been let go. I met the mother a few years later, the marriage had split up and the mother was the full time carer and she looked haunted over what had become of her life.
I attended a sudden death on a golf course where a 42 year old man had dropped dead in front of his mates whilst on the 9th tee. There being no problem with ID (as his mates were able to do this) I got the address for NOK from them and as I was leaving, one of his friends told me that the deceased had been pronounced bankrupt and had lost his buisness the previous week, the buliding society were just about to repossess, his teenage daughter was anorexic and that his son had just been diagnosed with a serious illness. So there I was about to put the icing on the cake, so to speak. I took a tutee with me who as the front door opened, whispered to me that she couldn’t do the death message, leaving me to ‘do’ the buisness. Not a day I would wish to repeat!!!
IG - I found your post extremely moving, as I did all the ones from your colleagues and other members of the emergency services. Many years ago my brother was involved in a traffic accident, he ran over someone lying drunk in the road in a concealed dip, late at night. My brother was sober and as you can imagine absolutely traumatised. The local cops were just brilliant. He said the way they dealt with him made it easier - if dealing with anything like that can be made easier. I’m just a MOP but please believe that us ordinary decent folks are so grateful to you and thankful that it’s not us who have to do it!
SCC I agree with the last 3 lines at the end of your post.
Of all the things I’ve done and been involved with in my 13 years, albeit part time, it is moments like those that do give the most satisfaction on reflection.
It’s always about thinking how would I want the news to be broken to a member of my family, and how would I want them to be cared for I guess.
I always find that after these tragic incidents it’s my friends and colleagues that help me cope.
It’s an amazing bond, not one always understood by some outside job, unless you’re in a similar services (ambo, armed forces etc…
and it’s not something that we should allow people to drive out of this service or any other.
What a well-written piece, and so true. I always hated sudden deaths (once had 3 seperate ones on a Sunday morning!) and found dealing with the relatives distressing. Somehow, I just put a shield over my feelings and bottled it all up, leading to problems in later life.
Ex-RUC @27 how true your last comment is. As police officers’ we are no more than punched bags who are expected to absorb life’s ups and downs. Little do they know.
My last comment is not a mistake . I do mean PUNCHECD BAGS. Not punch bags.
Gadget - no idea if this rings true with other readers, but I started to read the other comments and just couldn’t.
In the nicest possible way, I don’t want to read about more examples of what I have to deal with. After number seven I decided I had enough…
Every Christmas Eve , I still hold a thought for the family whos Christmas I ruined 21 yrs ago when I knocked on the front door and told them that their 18yr old son had died in an accident……….
Never dealt with an infant death, thank god! Just hearing them on the radio is bad enough. We had a house fire on our patch the other day with two dead toddlers that was enough to send the entire office into silence and shock.
I think it doesn’t matter if you cope with it by, not talking about it and remaining ‘detached’ from such horrific incidents, or by discussing it with someone else who understands what you have witnessed; just so long as it is the right way for you, the risky bit is if you assume ‘I am a police officer, I must think/feel/deal with this in a certain way’, if you get that wrong, there is a pretty good chance ‘it’ will ‘ambush’ you latter (as in Ex RUC @27)
As a member of the public, who has been unfortunate enough to witness the aftermath of 2 fatal road traffic accidents, please never underestimate the difference you folk make to those of us who just happen to find our in the wrong place at the wrong time, because as the wave of emergency services floods in, the MOP’s get swept away, it’s so outside our experience it can make it very difficult to deal with and make sense of, a few words can make all the difference, thank you.
Then along comes a Frank McCourt and it’s business as usual.
This is yet another case where a few tears should be shed, highlighting as it does the demise of a once proud Police
Force laughingly substituted by a “Service” that is so conspicuously deficient.
A few years back a young fella got impaled on a concrete post after having been racing at 100mph + losing control on a windy icy night .
It was obivous he wasn’t going to live long .
I had been dealing with the young fella a fews weeks before interviewing him re a small matter .
So having the house number on me I had to ring as no-one was free to personally call as it was the usual Saturday night mayhem .
So having to ring his father at 2am and try to explain you only have got so little time to see him , the long lingering silence on the phone from him whilst I slowly explained without saying much about it .
father & mother arrived at the A&E some 20 miles away to hold their son for about the last 2-3 minutes of his short life .
about an hour after the deceased’s brother arrived with a tow rope as he believed it was a minor accident . He had a few soups . His friends in the car thankfully took control after being stunned themselves with the news .
The driving winds off the Lough wasn’t noticed that night other than blowing the signage & no waiting up the road every five minutes .