One night I get dispatched to see a guy who called 911 and reported that "something's wrong" with his roommate. I get there, and the caller is sitting on the couch, looking like he just saw the Frankenstein monster. He says he came home from his swing shift job and saw the light on in his roommate's bedroom. This wasn't unusual. He figured the roommate was getting ready for his night shift job, as usual. But when the roommate didn't come out after a while, he went in to check on him and found "something wrong".
I go in the the bedroom and find the roommate. From what we could construct, he had sat on the edge of his bed, leaned forward, put the muzzle of his Winchester .270 hunting rifle directly against his forehead, and pulled the trigger. What was left of him was on the floor in a pile of dirty laundry. The rest was splattered across all four walls and the ceiling. There was not a square foot that didn't have some part of him stuck to it.
I called my supervisor and an investigator to let them know that, indeed, "something was wrong" with the roommate.
3 comments:
Hope the 911 caller was treated for shock because your description of him sounds like someone seriously traumatized.
I agree with Anon 12:04. The roommate was traumatized, which was probably why his concern was understated and vague.
You don't really treat people "for shock" in the way you're thinking. There's no medicine for emotional trauma.
We used to think immediately talking about it helped (hence critical incident stress debriefings) but it turns out not so much.
You have to let people carry it until they feel like talking. Then they talk to friends or family. If that and tincture of time doesn't heal the trauma, then you need professional help.
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