Three fourths of the way through my 8 hr shift I found myself thinking, with satisfaction, that I hadn’t had a bad call since that man found his wife hanging a few weeks back. I quickly banished the thought from my mind for fear of jinxing myself. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite undo the taboo fast enough. It is an unwritten rule of survival in the communications center – never talk about or let your brain entertain thoughts about your good fortune when it comes to calls – never know when the gods might be listening.
That song “If you’re going through hell, keep on going, don’t slow down, if you’re scared don’t show it and you might get out before the devil even knows you’re there.” Yep, that pretty much describes the unwritten rule.
When the phone rang shortly thereafter, I unwittingly answered it as that is what I’m trained to do. On the other end was a hysterical older man. He had gone to check on his son-in-law because he hadn’t heard from him in two days. The front door was unlocked so he went on inside. In the bedroom he found his son-in-law, along with the two dogs that lived there, dead on the bed.
The caller exited the house without touching anything – having the good presence of mind that it was probably a crime scene. He said his son-in-law was depressed and despondent after becoming separated from his wife, the older man’s daughter. He said the boy had often threatened to commit suicide but everyone figured if he talked about it, he wouldn’t do it.
I managed to calm the man down enough to get the pertinent information from him and then stayed on the line with him so he wouldn’t be alone. You see, the son-in-law had the caller’s four year old grand daughter staying with him and the man couldn’t find her. I told him maybe the grand daughter was staying with friends – I prayed she was somewhere other then in that house – but when the rescue failed to transport anyone, I knew she had been.
The son-in-law had sealed up the house and let it fill up with carbon monoxide. The dogs were on the bed near the man. What the caller, thankfully, didn’t see was the bulge under the covers beside the man’s body. I don’t think I could have calmed him down if he had known his grand daughter lay dead in that bed.
I spoke to one of the deputies later, he said the whole scene was worse then awful. I can’t imagine how the deputies deal with these events. I felt sorry for him – it had to be a rotten part of the job.
Everyone in Com waited to hear the fate of the child – we didn’t get confirmation for over an hour that she was dead. Waiting for such news is difficult for me. The supervisor came to talk to me about the call. She was great – asked me if I was alright. I told her I was and even though I’m angry and sad that someone could be so damn selfish, I am relatively alright. She said the caller was lucky that he got me when he called – that many call takers are so hardened and insensitive. On the way out the door at the end of our shift, someone said I must be a suicide magnet because I’ve had calls on just about every kind.
I hope the caller gets the emotional support and therapy that he would need because he had already started blaming himself when we hung up. Somewhere along the way, my emotions drained away leaving me with a numb emptiness to compliment my throbbing headache. Once again I wonder how the human race can possibly not only survive but also thrive.
I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. –E. B. White
