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