Going Downhill Emotionally

My first next of kin notification happened early in my career. I had to tell a wife that her husband died at a scene of a motor vehicle accident. I met her at the hospital, which probably made it worse because that was a place where patients should still be alive, but her husband had already passed away.  

I thank God for the nurse who said she would be there with me in the room to help ease the wife’s pain when I delivered the news. I began telling the wife that her husband was involved in an accident. Then I paused, unsure of how to give her the rest of the message. Suddenly, the thought occurred to me to just spit it out and tell her that her husband had died. So that is what I did, as painful as it was to say. 

The scream this woman let out represented the agony of her soul coming straight out of her mouth. I don’t know how else to explain it. The only other time I heard something similar was when I had to tell a wife that her husband had drowned in a freak accident. He was on his fishing boat and got his leg tangled in one of the trap lines. It dragged him underwater, and he drowned before the other crew members could rescue him. I made the notification at her home, and I remember she dropped to the floor and let out a similar gut-wrenching, soulful scream. 

After delivering this type of bad news, the police officer has to go on to the next call or investigation. There is no time to become emotionally involved with those who have just lost a loved one. However, before I left such a notification call, I always made sure the person receiving that dreadful news had some emotional support. Some people wanted their priests, pastors, or family members. I made sure we never left a person who received that news by themselves without anyone to lean on. 

After completing such a difficult task, an officer simply cannot afford to go to another house on a totally different type of call and bring the sadness he or she just experienced with them. Emotionally, you must wipe the slate clean and move on. The next call might be a domestic violence incident where you arrive to see the wife with one side of her face all swollen and bruised. While your first instinct might be to beat the living crap out of the husband, you have to hold that emotion inside. You must remain professional and arrest the perpetrator. Totally different emotions from the previous call, but professionally keeping those feelings inside and not letting them show. 

As I’ve mentioned before, the same holds true when facing fear. There were many times I went to unruly scenes where everybody had been drinking, a crowd had gathered, and police officers were outnumbered 10-1. In such situations, you feel insignificant but cannot show any fear whatsoever. I remember once going to such a call on the reservation. A crowd of 50 to 70 people had gathered in the street, and some fights had broken out. The scene was escalating, and there were only five or six officers on the scene. We managed to arrest a couple of the worst offenders, which is how you basically take the steam out of the crowd. Arrest the worst people or their “leaders,” and then everyone else will usually disperse.  

As I was getting back into my cruiser, I started closing the door when all of a sudden, a guy appeared right beside me, preventing me from closing the door. I recognized the look on his face and his body language. Fists clenched, jaw tightened, and eyes that told me that he was just waiting for the right moment and the courage to punch me. I had my right hand on my Mag light (flashlight), and I was getting ready to fight back, my heart pounding at 100 miles-an-hour. I knew I was in a bad spot. I was trapped in my cruiser, virtually alone, because most of the other officers had already left to transport those we had arrested. My fear, although masked, was real.  

One of the officers still on the scene came to my rescue, quickly grabbing the subject, giving me the chance to spring out of my police car and help my partner gain control of the guy. Once we had the man restrained with cuffs and put in the back of my cruiser, the fear began to dissipate, and I experienced an adrenaline dump. By now, my voice was shaking, every part of my body was trembling, but I knew I could not let this show. I could not allow the subject to think I was scared. What would my colleagues say if they saw the fear in me? Maybe they would not trust me as much because they were afraid I might back down the next time we had to grind our teeth and go at it against a hostile person.  

So, I acted as if it was nothing and merely business as usual. Just another day at the office. Except it was not. I’m not a psychiatrist or psychologist, and I am only basing this on my experience and from reading a lot of articles about PTSD. I’m sure every one of those five or six officers at the scene probably had some level of anxiety and fear. But they were likely good at hiding it, just like me. Keeping those emotions intact.