Death Notification Letter To Friends: Fill & Download for Free

Probably more than 60 and fewer than 100. Death notifications are truly one of if not the worst part of the job. I awakened to a reoccurring nightmare of one such call tonight as I do many many nights.I can't tell you how many times I've stood outside darkened porch of some poor family at 3:00 in the morning waiting to ring the doorbell and trying to gather my thoughts on what I will say when they come to the door.I'm always very aware that the people inside are living the last few moments of happiness in their life that they will probably ever truly have. Until you've had to look a mother and father in the eye and tell them that their child was killed and will not be coming home again is one of the most horrific things that a person can be asked to do in the line of duty.Even worse is that we really can't use euphemisms of any kind like they have are no longer with us for example. You must use the word dead or died or killed. Saying passed away or some other kind euphemism often seen in everyday speech just doesn't do the job. The loved ones will not even hear it or comprehend subtlety. For the loved ones in shock you must say “died, dead or killed" simply so their mind can even comprehend the message. This makes it even more difficult because you naturally want to be delicate. In our training we're taught that delicate wording and euphemisms just don't cut through the shock and trauma the loved one is experiencing.Anyway, it's truly a soul-destroying moment for them and to an extent for us. After one child who died in a particularly horrific way, I recall sitting in my squad car for what must have been an hour. I could hear laughter and joy in the living room as I walked up. It's impossible to explain the feelings that I get when my duty requires me to tear someone's soul and put them in pain that will never end. Often I would sit in my car after and just cry. The time I'm speaking of in particular that always comes to mind (and my nightmares several nights a week) a beautiful 8-year-old boy was eaten alive by a pack of feral dogs in a Park. I lied and said he died of a dog bite and went quickly with no pain. A blatant lie but of course every loved one’s first question is “how"? If you ever tell a family member that there has been an unexpected death in the family and they don’t demand to know how and where it’s almost always true that they killed them or knew in advance. Off topic but interesting.Regardless of cause the most common means of death in order of frequency were vehicle accident, medical issue, miscellaneous accident and murder). Seemed like murder made it much worse by the reaction. People are always scared their loved ones will get killed in a collision or drop dead of a heart attack. Murder is time brutally cut short and many times is associated with for lack of a better term, a “worse death”, involving more pain, terror. When they told me my Grandfather dropped dead in a Wiggly Wiggly from a massive heart attack it didn’t haunt me like it would if someone had killed him.You soon learn there is no way to ease their pain and the best method is to be brief, direct, absolute and straightforward…then leave them to their grief. Honestly they don't hear a word you say after “they're dead and how it happened”.People have literally no idea how difficult the job is. If they did people that despise us would be a very infinitesimal minority instead of the enormously popular hobby that it is today. I'm retired and haunted nightly by such things as this topic as well as seeing horrible images in my nightly dreams of things like a young boy totally devoured by dogs like a pack of hyenas eating a gazelle.I know this is off-topic but it is after 4 a.m. as I write this. I awoke to a dream of a time I arrived at a vehicle accident just in time to watch an elderly woman confused and sitting in her car as flames reached her and she burned alive 3 feet from me while making eye contact and screaming in agony. The flames that started in the leaking gas tank ruptured when her son-in-law rear-ended her after he was rear-ended by a drunk and slammed into her car by the force. I broke the window and was 3 seconds from cutting her seat belt and yanking her head-first out the window (the door was inoperable). Then as I reached in to use my seat belt cutter I always carried since my Fire Rescue/Auto Extrication days, it was as if a man with a flame thrower standing in the rear of the car suddenly blasted her, engulfing her body and the front seat in a huge volume of intense flame so hot I was burned on my face and arms standing outside the vehicle. As the flame totally engulfed her she kept gripping the steering wheel and turned to me and gave a haunting scream of intense agony. Her grown son-in-law was standing at my side. Knowing if I had taken the correct on-ramp to I-70 I would have been there just in time to pull her out with no injuries. Ten seconds between life and an agonizing death.An hour later I was at a nearby Fire Station with this man who essentially rear-ended and killed his mother-in-law (not his fault but still) giving him emotional support as he had to call his wife. Imagine explaining to your wife you crashed into her mother and she burned to death as a result of the collision.I ended up taking him to OT Hodges (a local 24-hour diner that Cops, Firemen and Drunks frequent at night to get chili, chili cheese fries, dogs and coffee). We just sat there in silence for what must have been two hours after I was off duty trying to process in our minds what we had just seen. He was barely able to function and I was slightly better because I wasn’t related to the victim we had just watched be cremated alive 36 inches away. I took him to the Adams Mark (a luxury hotel by the Arch downtown) and had a Concierge friend of mine check him into a suite with gratis room service. I made sure department trauma counselors and Red Cross disaster response professionals got over to see him in those first critical hours the next day as well as contacting the Police in his hometown to make sure the wife received help as well. I don’t know why it never occurred to me to get help. I think I thought that it was just part of my job and I needed to “suck it up” and deal with the calls on the job myself (i.e. push those horrors into a dark recess of my mind and ignore them).I could go on and on. Last messages from husbands for their family as they lie bleeding to death in my arms. One time working as a Firefighter on a nearby departments ambulance to accumulate medical experience necessary in Trauma to be qualified as a Paramedic (Granite City Illinois) taking down the last words of a man cut in half by a truck’s rear bumper. He was on a loading dock and would die instantly when the truck was moved which was the only thing keeping his organs from his bladder to his diaphragm from falling out when it backed into him pinching his waist line between the bumper and the dock. Delivering those last words to the wife and children. Talking to a man on a roof and not finding the words that would convince them to not jump followed by the horrible thud sound of a man hitting concrete. Cutting a family out of a car crushed between two semi trucks compacting it to a 5 foot by 5 foot cube, removing the parents and two kids one piece at a time - the biggest chunk the size of a soft ball. The last gasps of breath of a teenager, shot I was holding as he died. The sound of the blood pooling in their lungs as they slip away first looking at me …then off into the distance right through me. You know when people are dying when you have seen it happen a lot. I always tried to keep them calm and kind of, I don’t know how to describe it in a word…be there as they died. I always try to prompt them “do you wan’t me to give a message to anyone” (they don’t always know just how fast they’re circling the drain and often won’t realize that if they have any last words they should be now …kinda thing).Really watching what must have been over a hundred people’s life slip away waiting for an Ambulance after every conceivable way to die from falling off a roof to being shot or hit by a car. Not to mention just the average things that stick in your mind like finding the eyeball of a guy who died after a head shot from a 12-gauge and having to pick it up and bag it. Finding fingers and legs/arms and other parts on the side of the road after motorcycle accidents and having to drive them to the morgue to put with the rest of the body. Being at the morgue as a Detective having to watch a victim be autopsied so I can maintain the chain of evidence and collect the bullets pulled out of them to bring to the ballistics lab for analysis. I luckily didn’t do the Morgue thing often. I wasn’t a Homicide Detective and rarely had business at the Morgue. The place creeped me out. They’re pretty gross. Our was built in the 1920s or something with weird old tiles and greenish fluorescent lights. Picture the Morgue in 7 Deadly Sins with Brad Pitt.I avoided it when possible and was lucky I spent a lot more time as a regular Beat Cop in there than as a Detective. One gross thing people don’t know Cops do is get called to any body that is found. Someone finds an old man that lived alone 3 weeks in a 98 degree room dead. Usually the smell 3 floors away initiates the call. Then the Cop has to sit there. With that body. That decaying, slipping, oozing maggot infested body for hours of just “maintain the scene”. What you’re really doing is just waiting for the Coroner’s guys to get around to coming and collecting the body cause our Detectives are done. So whichever Cops particular Beat that is, he wins the “you’re gonna smell that body in your nose and not eat right for a couple days contest”. Best way to deal with dead body smell is a 3 pronged attack. 1. Vicks UP IN that nose. Not on your lip like on TV. 2. Take coffee grounds, put them in a pan and turn heat on medium. The smell of burned coffee cancels out dead body. 3. Cigars. Smoke em up. Cigar smoke + burning coffee + vicks up in that nose and you can sit and have your bag lunch watching the guys TV with him in the other lazy boy.I read so so much rage and hate for Police here in Quora and it really does hurt and aggravate those open wounds we suffered protecting the very people who live to insult and hate us. People we would give our lives to save.I saved so many more lives as a Cop than I ever did as a Marine, Paramedic and Firefighter combined and am left with the nightmares, mental and physical wounds (spinal cord injury and chronic pain for life) but it is the ingratitude and hate of Americans that is my most horrific wound.Sorry for the rant but it's just where my mind is tonight as I try to center myself and get through the flashbacks as best I can. I know there are bad people in every profession but if just one reader sees this and has just a small moment of empathy and connection with the pain we bear in the emergency services it will be well worth it.At least I’m still alive and coping. I have lost many many friends/co-workers who couldn’t cope. One of my best friends packed up all his belongings in his home and wrote and addressed several letters to family and friends. He took report sheets from work and wrote his own death report for the officer that would get the call for his suicide so all they had to do was sign it. He left us a case of Scotch with the letters to his families as well as belongings he wanted his Detective Squad to have. Things from cash to gun/photographs of sentimental value, etc. He drove his car onto the Poplar Street Bridge over the Mississippi between St. Louis and Illinois. He left his wallet, side arm, badge and ID on the seat of his car with a note giving his address and instructions making identification and the investigation easier for the responding Cop…then jumped off the bridge into the icy swift current of the Mississippi channel in December. In the end all he cared about was the impact it would have on the Cops that caught his case and making it easier for us.He worked as a City Copper for over 30 years and absorbed more poison and trauma than his mind could cope with. He was a wonderful man. He was my friend and I considered a mentor. He left me a note apologizing in his way and warning me to get out when I felt the job was beginning to overwhelm me. It was the final lesson of an old school Cop who made sure his life saving experiences were passed on to a newly minted Patrolman he took under his wing right out of the Academy and guided for years until he couldn't take the suffering the job caused a day longer. He said he lived years longer than he might because he knew the effect his suicide would have on me and some others. I ended up disabled years many years later by a good hit to the back by a man on PCP (or in some kind of extreme diabetic crisis) who was freaking out in bezerker mode in a fight that lasted 15 minutes and ended up injuring my spine. I was forced to retire (because Police are not covered by the Americans with Disability's Act and having a Detective that walks with a limp and a cane can’t be tolerated (I really hated retirement for like 3 years before I learned how to find self imposed structure). This happened long before I experienced more mental horror than I could cope with. To put things in perspective this is a bad night but more often than not I’m good. These things, images, memories and emotions sometimes just hit you. I have a really great family and have been married 30 years (which is why I’m probably not that bad off).Best job I ever had. I miss it everyday. Having worked every job on the other end of the 911 line it was the one where I had the most power to save lives and help people. As a fireman/medic I could only wait for disaster and try to mitigate the harm. As a Cop I could intervene and stop the most evil monsters lurking among us from walking free and preying on the people I swore to defend. I only wish people wouldn’t lump in all 1.3 million of us with the truly tiny percentage that tarnish the badge and disrespect the honor we worked so hard to uphold. For a comparison with another profession…Physicians, MD’s kill over 250,000 Americans each year due to incompetence and professional errors. Police kill fewer than 100. Imagine hating your doctor because you heard that they’re all incompetent and cursing all doctors for the actions of the bad ones. Yet Police are frequently grouped together as malicious and brutal killers and the tiny bad percentage of our profession is no where as lethal as Doctors just as an example. Yet hate and derision for us is literally an American pastime.You would never dream of lumping your Doctor in with the others that kill a quarter of a million (the numbers they maim from malpractice and improper med doses could be in the millions) and number in the tens of thousands if not more in terms of numbers that kill and maim people with incompetence and lack of skill/training. For every Cop that makes a mistake that kills a citizen there are thousands of Doctors that kill…and not just one or two but repeatedly kill hundreds or more in a career, maim thousands and are never punished or lose their credentials. I offer this not as an excuse for the terrible and disgusting behavior of the minority of Police we all see caught on camera, but as a comparison to other professions and how they’re treated as compared to police despite their racking up hundreds of thousands of kills compared to fewer than 100 questionable deaths Police are responsible for. Not making excuses, just comparisons to show the absurdity of the obsession/hate/disrespect for my profession. I have lost 5 friends gunned down in the line of duty. I lost 4 friends as a Firefighter killed in buildings they were in rescuing victims…1 ran out of air or burned to death and 3 at one time, crushed by collapse of walls and floors. I can't begin to count the number maimed and disabled like me. I won’t even address the PTSD, suicides and mental trauma on both the Police and Fire side.Sure, we can all be assholes but who else would sign up for this gig? If you like getting shot at, punched in the face, chase cars through the streets at 100 mph, running to the sound of gunfire against a human tidal wave of people running the other way….you’re gonna probably not be Mr Rogers. The guys I know in Police and Fire are Sheepdogs. Born to protect the herd. A lot of us have some jaged edges and could use some more “how to talk to people” training. Very very few of us are sociopaths of the ilk you see on YouTube. There is a middle ground. You don’t want the same type of person that is a kindergarten teacher patrolling the inner city answering very kinetic, high intensity and often very violence in progress calls that come out every single night in most of America.Thank you for bearing with me on this rambling and emotional answer. I hope it gives some perspective on the real harm and collateral damage the relentless hate directed at us and our noble profession causes. The vast majority of us are good people trying to do a critically important job under impossible conditions made so much worse by hatred and prejudice.*Edit 9/16/20 Since June 1st this year my department alone have had 9 Police shot in the line of duty with 1 dying. 10 shot and 2 dying if you count a retired city Police Captain who was now working for another department who came back to the city to help stop the riots and was murdered by looters at a pawn shop. He was a friend of mine. The last kid killed last week, shot in the forehead leaving 3 kids. Barely on the job a year and was trained by a good friend of mine I went to the Police Academy with. When one of us dies we have family like connections to each other. I feel so bad for Cops today and thank my lucky stars I left with a pension before people stood outside the hospital where two shot Police are in surgery fighting for their lives chanting “WE HOPE YOU DIE”.Crowd gathers outside hospital, chants 'We hope they die' after 2 LA County deputies were shot It was incredibly difficult job. Now it’s actually impossible to do correctly.

I’d always been in favour of vaccines, but a couple of experiences really drove home why they’re a good thing.The more recent of the two experiences was simply that I got paid to do the research and, in the course of doing so, I talked to a man who knew his stuff.Specifically, I was hired to write audiovisual and interactive exhibit scripts for a huge science museum in the Middle East. As part of the work, I had to take a whooooole bunch of complicated bioscience and make it simple enough for kids of 8–11 years to grasp.Then, to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood it horribly, I had to run my scripts past actual scientists.One of the exhibits dealt with vaccines and how they work. They made me run my scripts past a real live immunologist, who explained the whole thing to me with admirable patience and clarity. He also took the time to rip apart every last anti-vaccine campaign argument I’d ever come across. It took him ten minutes.But the other, earlier experience was spread over a couple of decades. When I was in my early 20s I was head over heels in love with a girl from Bath. A few days after I’d seen her, happy and healthy, she was dead from meningitis. Then, in my mid-30s, my son was born, and was later vaccinated against the same strain of the disease. It occurred to me, when I saw the notification letter, that my wife would never have to ring round all my son’s friends to say he’d died of meningitis, that there wouldn’t be a girlfriend sobbing for hours.That’s the truth about vaccines; they protect against disease, death and broken hearts.

My parents chose a cult religion over a relationship with me. Let me explain. My parents are Jehovah Witness. I was raised in this religion. I was baptized at age 15. I was not a willing participant but my father wanted to be considered for an Elder position and having all his children in his home baptized would look favorably towards being considered. I knew when I was a young child they beliefs were false and a lot of things didn't add up and the rules they expect you to follow change -a lot.When I was 8 my little sister was born and my older sister (then age 12) and my self were sent to stay and my JW grandmother’s home over night. My step grandfather was not a JW- he was a huge drunk and that night he drank so much and decided to try and molest my sister and myself. He tried to force me to give him oral sex and the only thing that saved me was that I was sharing a bedroom with my great-grandmother. She woke up during him molesting me and got him away from me. I didn't know this at that time but he had already gotten to my older sister and done sexual things to her. My grandmother was in another room trying to calm her down but couldn't. Finally my Grandmother relented and called my parents at 2 am in the morning to come and get us.My parents did come and pick us up but did absolutely nothing, to him or my grand mother, no talking with them and the molestation or even contacting the police. The Jehovah Witness belief is there has to be two witnesse’s to the actual act itself in order of the complaint to be valid for investigation.https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwieq5qKzu_bAhVhCDQIHbVkA98QFghKMAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2F%40wesharetoinspire%2Fquestioning-humanity-the-jehovahs-witnesses-two-witness-rule-ed3b2f5aa6a1&usg=AOvVaw1KbaSd6gfObmXhiFtzEiAaYears go by and my father will never talk about this incident when I question him. My sister has some issues and blocked out part of the sexual abuse ( I find out step grandfather had been sexual abusing her way before he got caught). my older sister finally admits to all about 25 years later. I finally had enough and publicly speak out against the JW religion|faith. Because I was baptized my parents are told they can no longer see\speak to me or my children ever again unless I go back to their faith and take back what I've said and claim I was lying. For those of you familiar with the JW’s I am now considered Apostate (and Proud of it!!)At the time of writing this I have not seen any of my family (they are all JW) in 13 years. I have seen my step mother out in public several times and tried to engage conversation and she refuses to speak to me or even acknowledge my presence (once, telling the person she was with she didn't know who I was at one exchange). I sent letters to them for about 10 years and not one response. Right before I was officially shunned 13 years ago my father came to my home asked me to take back what said when I said no- he told me he loved me, told me I made my choice walk out of my life for good.I have children of my own- almost grown adults now and there is NOTHING they could ever do that would make me turn my back on them. It is really sad because my children don't and won't ever know their maternal grandparents. ALL THIS FOR WORSHIP OF A CULT. I hope its worth it to them.******Edit update 3/10/2020******On 3/9/2020 I received a phone call from my SIL (this is the one married to my BIL-my nephew’s father)She tells me my father is in Hospital and dying-he has heart failure and is not expected to make it-the irony is that not one person from my family could reach out to me-not a call or text (they all have my info) to let me know-they are so brainwashed they can’t even see me enough as a person that has a dying Parent also-Yes it hurts to an extent but I also tell myself my father chose to exclude me from his life once again over a CULT.******Edit Update: 1/6/2021******My Father passed away 8/14/2020- No notification from the family at all, I had to hear my father passed from a childhood friendMy Older sister passed suddenly (aged 52) on 12/27/2020- Again, no notification from family. Found out from same SIL that is step mother to my Nephew- I found my sisters obituary online and the family only listed her name, birth and death dates, no nice words or mention of her life, her son, life accomplishments- Nothing at all. Such a shame- Really hurtsAnother situation that has happened with the JW’s:On 2/9/2020 they came and rang my doorbell-I didn’t bother to answer because -you do you, I’ll do me-two days later my husband gets a handwritten letter in the mail-it was Addressed to him so naturally he opened it-then handed it to me-it was a letter written by a JW with some of their literature enclosed. This JW put her name on the bottom of the letter but the return address was the local cult congregation address…..this was to much you come to my door, When we don’t answer-take the hint JW’s! But oh no, They take it a step further and find out the name of the homeowner and send a letter-Complete violation of privacy.Thanks to the good ol’ internet and social media I find this JW’s full name, FB account and her home address-I then send her a letter-not rude but letting her know it is absolutely not ok to try and shove their beliefs via mail on people when we don’t answer the door. I also included the Wikipedia page of Charles Taze Rutherford (the founder of said religious cult) and some of his very immoral actions-look him up it’s worth the read even if you have no JW connections-I kindly let this JW know her actions are not ok and they can easily be found and if a person wanted too they could easily show up on their doorstep-how would that make them feel-just sayin’! I also sent a copy of the same letter along with their religious propaganda back to the same address that was on the front of the original mailed letter. Maybe they will get the message?