Your First Time

 Preface: I started in the fire service in 1990 and in Search and Rescue in 1992.  I have seen a lot, more than some, less than others, but still, a lot.  This post was inspired by a newer SAR person wanting to prepare themselves for the first time they were a part of a body recovery.  I didn't respond to the question, but many others did, sharing their own thoughts and experiences.  It brought up a lot of thoughts that trickled through my brain all day.  It brought up memories of so many that I wasn't in time to save.  I wasn't late, there just wasn't time to save them.  So, I did the next thing I could do.  Help to recover them so that their families could move on.   There is some graphic imagery here and if you don't want to know what it's like, then stop reading now.  I don't want to make your day unpleasant or cause your nightmares.  I just want...  I just need to share what is stuck in my head.  A great majority of the people I know have been there with me, if not in real-time, in their own experience in their own SAR/EMS/LE careers.  This may resonate with you.

How do you get ready for your first time?

How do you prepare yourself to see a dead body, to be a part of that recovery, for the first time?  How do you set yourself up so that it won't affect you, that you'll be strong enough to handle it?

The short answer is you don't.

Not really.

You think you can.  You think you can think about it enough, or research it enough, or look at enough pictures, or take enough classes that you'll be prepared.

It doesn't work.

Your preparation gives you the confidence, perhaps, to take the next step.  The confidence that you can do your job as a firefighter, a police officer, a paramedic, or a search and rescue team member.  

So that when that call happens for that first dead person you have to pick up, you can.

But

You'll never really be prepared.   Not for your first one anyway.

With each dead body, though, you learn how to control your immediate response.    For the most part, at least.  You'll be able to help get it into the body bag and zip it up.  You'll be able to help carry it in a stokes basket out of a canyon to an awaiting mortuary car.  You'll be able to stand there as a mother identifies her son.

You'll be better able to handle the next one.

If you take care of yourself.  If you learn how to detach.  If you let it out and not bottle it up. 

If you share your story.

Some, however, will stick with you.  Forever.

The first body I saw, I was 21.  I responded as a firefighter to a vehicle accident.    The story of how it happened was fantastical...  a feature-length action-adventure kind of movie story involving a bank robbery, a carjacking 30 miles away, a high-speed, road rage race through a tiny town, culminating in a pickup slamming into the fuel tank of a tractor-trailer rig.  A raging fire ensued.  The cab of the tractor melted.  That driver had made it out just in time.  The passenger in the pickup had been rescued by some very nearby road construction workers who witnessed the accident.  

The driver of the pickup...

He was 17.  Just a touch younger than I.  He had burned into a relatively unrecognizable, charred, curled-up ball. He was eviscerated, his intestines nakedly exposed to the world.  I remember picking what was left of him up, almost single-handedly, to put him into the body bag.   I remember trying to convince myself that the impact had killed him.  Surely he didn't burn to death.   I don't know the real answer.  It wasn't an answer I actively sought.

How did I cope?  I talked.  I shared.  My chief sat me down and allowed me to give the story to him.  He was there.  He had seen what happened.  He had helped get the body to the coroner's van.  He knew the story.  He knew I needed to share my story with him.   Especially if I was to do this again.

There have been many more that followed.  Most of them I must search my brain for because I have filed them away, neatly, and without reservation or a need to truly hide them.  With some delving, a few come to mind.

The 18-year-old male who drowned thinking he could swim "that" far.

The 30-something addict who did one too many lines and wandered about until he keeled over and died in a very awkward position in the thick brush, necessitating an even more awkward helicopter lift.

The elderly man who went out for his walk, and never returned.

The 16-year-old who was trying to save his father and brother.

One that has stuck with me forever... where nearly every second of it has stuck in my brain... where the sight of the widespread wreckage is crystal clear.... where the irritating buzz of the flies echoes in my head...  where the smell of fuel and flesh can be brought up just like it was happening today...

The plane crash had just two people but it took more than a day to recover them.

Can you be prepared for that first one?  Not really.   What you can do is take care of yourself so that you can be prepared for the next one.  

Not everyone can, but I'll do it again tomorrow if asked.  If needed.