Unexpected sad find this morning

[Joe]

I saw a person laying on the front lawn of a house on West Beach Road early one fall morning - the car door was open.
But I figured that he was a tourist who had came back from the bar, and was passed out drunk. I didn't stop to investigate.
I think he just dropped dead - the ambulance and a bunch of cops were there on the way back.

[Green Light]

That's very tragic. An 'oligist once said: " Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem." My condolences to the family.

[justplugit]

Originally Posted by Swimmer

Plugger, make sure your O.K. with it. I know how sucky this is, so make sure you talk it out bud.

These traumatic things can come back to haunt you for life.
Like Swimmer and Westhavendave said.

[BobT]

I've pulled a few bodies out of the water when I was in the CG in St. Pete. They would jump off of the SkyWay Bridge. We would land the chopper in the water and taxi over and pick them up but a couple times they were in the water so long the arm would come off. Time for the boat crew with a net.

[Joe]

I don't see how doing those kind of things can be a positive experience, but that's why they call it 'service.'
I read a story about a kid who came back from Iraq, settled in Vegas in a seedy part of town, got a job at a casino. On the way back from work he killed or wounded seven local gang-members who had harassed him the night before. It was self-defense, no charges filed. The survivors said he took pleasure in it. There are some traumatized people floating around with real short fuses - be careful about arguing in traffic.

[WoodyCT]

The ones I don't get are the ones who do it in front of loved ones.

Had a guy in New London a few years back who stopped his truck on a highway overpass, got out, walked over to the passenger side, and jumped off into the I95 rush hour traffic below while his wife watched in horror.

Mental illness is treatable folks, so don't hesitate to reach out for help when things look bleak.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Swimmer]

Originally Posted by WoodyCT

The ones I don't get are the ones who do it in front of loved ones.

Had a guy in New London a few years back who stopped his truck on a highway overpass, got out, walked over to the passenger side, and jumped off into the I95 rush hour traffic below while his wife watched in horror.

Mental illness is treatable folks, so don't hesitate to reach out for help when things look bleak.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

I went on one suicide a few years ago where the son was in his bedroom downstairs in a rasied ranch, and the father was just down the hall. The son yelled to his father, " hey dad, look at this". When the father poked his head around the corner the son allready had the handgun to his head, he then pulled the trigger.

[HighTide]

Originally Posted by BobT

I've pulled a few bodies out of the water when I was in the CG in St. Pete. They would jump off of the SkyWay Bridge. We would land the chopper in the water and taxi over and pick them up but a couple times they were in the water so long the arm would come off. Time for the boat crew with a net.

Same thing when I was at Castle Hill in the late 80's. A guy went missing, they found his truck but divers found him two weeks later off of Oceancliff. We brought him back in on a 41, not a pretty sight.

[Joe]

The thing with mental illness is not everyone thinks it's real, so they are callous and do more harm than good when someone comes to them. Not everyone recognizes counseling and psychiatry as valid alternatives to problem solving. Those that apply broad-brush reductive reasoning to anything they can't touch or spend often equate mental illness as a cop-out for laziness or lack of masculinity.
If someone picks a person to witness their suicide, that person could very well be complicit in some way that we'll never know. We'll only get one version of events: the abridged and sanitized version.

[The Dad Fisherman]

knew an 18 year old kid that commited suicide, took his mothers cellphone and put it in his pocket before he hung himself. the mother couldn't find her phone, dialed it from the house phone, heard the ringing and when she went to the ringing found her son....truly effed up....good kid too.

I've personally known 3 people that commited suicide.

A friend of mine killed himself when he was 27. I used to hang around with him and his cousin....his cousin was one of my best friends growing up. He summed it up best at the wake. He told me he felt like "Dragging his ass outta that box and kicking the chit out of him".....people don't think about the people they leave behind when they do it.

its very sad

[Raven]

I had this friend who was from Plymouth Ma.

we met out in California (a friend of a friend there)
knowing i was from Mass we became great friends....

He used to repair type writers for a living
and as that industry crashed completely
with the advent of computer word processors
his life was nearly over...that and he had really
bad ankles Both of them actually...

One Day he asked my wife and i to go on a ride...
we did and we had a super great time....laughed alot
and had a very memorable occasion...unforgettable!

Then he left southern Cal and returned back home to plymouth
where i later learned he had pinned a note to his self
and turned on the gas..... ending his life.

he wasn't about to spend the rest of his days in a wheel chair
is all i can figure ...that.... and his career had ended.

i quite often remember that ride we took as it was later
that i totally realized it was all pre meditated.

It was His way of Saying Good-bye

[Typhoon]

One of my friends just got on Boston Police dive team. Fantastic job for about 95% of the time. Lots of training, ride around on a boat all day, go diving. It's the other 5% of the time, you're pulling bodies out of a quarry.

[Swimmer]

Originally Posted by The Dad Fisherman

..people don't think about the people they leave behind when they do it.

its very sad

Yes they do think about the people they leave behind and many times that is exactly why they did it to begin with. It is the ultimate form of control. It is without question the most selfish act a human being can commit. It is the "I'll get them stupity at its worse". People committ suicide where they either loved to be or where tyhey hated where they were. Most often it is where they hated to be.

My brother-in-law on a personel note, other than my on-duty experiences spent two with with his sister, my wife, and his three kids at the Mount Desert Island Campground back in 1995. It was a joyfilled two weeks. He was in the process of getting a divorce, and he new the kid would go to the mother. He was out sick from his job, due to depression, because of everything that had been going on. I am still pissed at him for this. The day he got home from the camping trip, August 23rd, with us, he dated and started writing the suicide note. I and his sister, had just spent an enormous amount of money, which was no big deal on him and his kids, my nieces and nephew. We talked and talked and talked. His brother talked with him just about every day. We took a gun away a few months prior to this vacation just in case. He had no money to purchase another one. A gunshop in Maine sold him a gun on credit the first week in December. He killed himself December 15th. The note dated August 23rd was on the table bside the bed. He did it then to make the biggest impact on his soon to be ex-wife, his kids, and the rest of the family.

I have seen this professionally so many times, I never lost any sleep over, regardless how it happened. Yes, you do get used to it Westhavendave. When it happens within your own family you dont ever get over it. My wife agreed to handle his affairs after the will was executed, and yes, insurance policies do pay off after suicide. My wife handled the trust until the youngest, his son turned twenty two. So for approximately twelves years everyday I had to deal with this in one form or another. My wife had to buy cars for the kids. Pay for semesters in college that emotionally we new they would never make it through the first semester and didn't. We had to deal with the minor car crashes, the drug abuse by two of them. Normal passings go away, but suicides never do.

[FishermanTim]

I found a body when I was a teenager fishing Jamaica Pond.
I was playing the "Wouldn't it be freaky if" game in my head when I saw what I "thought" could be a torso floating with legs dangling down, and when I got close enough for a positive identification (of what it was not WHO it was), I was sufficiently freaked out enough to probably break the row-boat speed record for the half mile.
I ended up LITERALLY rowing the boat up onto the dock, where I processed to let the authorities know what and where I saw it.

Apparently the older man (old for a teenager) had been mugged and dumped into the pond!

As for suicides, there are those that do so because they want to leave a lasting impression on the surviving family and friends (truly selfish). This is usually true for high ranking officials that don't want to spend the rest of their life behind bars and opt out instead.

Then there are those that are truly suffering and don't want to be a burden to their friends and family, and assume that their death will be seen as a selfless act. Even though their intent is to lessen the suffering of their survivors, it ends up doing just the opposite.

The best you can do is realize that not everyone can be saved or wants to be saved, and no matter what you try to do you can't change these facts. Also, remember that just listening to someone that is heading down that dark path can sometimes make them rethink where they are going and what they will be doing!

Hopefully you won't be carrying this memory around like a weight around you neck!