I don’t know what to say to you, LNO, but I feel like I have to say something. Egad, guy, I feel for you having to have that experience.
Maybe this thread should fade away…
Oh, god.
{{{LNO}}}
I’ve had a few briefings that mention that I (and anyone else in the US military) can be ID’d by only three ways: DNA, foot/fingerprints, and dental records. I’m seriously considering a tattoo with my name and social to shorten the process.
I did have the experience of discovering my aunt’s neighbor’s corpse. The elderly lady was always out at a particular time, to check her mail and water her lawn. My aunt one day noted that her mail had piled up a little, she hadn’t been seen lately, and her car was still there. I sorta knew the lady, so I knocked on the door. I ended up going through the door 20 minutes later, and calling 911. She had passed three days before . . .
LNO, my apologies and sympathy. . . .
mm.
it’s given me a (perhaps irrational) fear and/or hatred of big cars. “Oh, I want to buy a Ford Explorer because I’m concerned about my family’s safety.” Unspoken corollary: “at the expense of whoever we hit.”
offtopic, sorry.
I’m mostly ok by now. I ended up adopting her dog, but fate has a cruel sense of humor; the dog was hit by a car a few months later.
<somewhat related joke>
Ole was recovering in the hospital from a car accident, and called his wife, Lena, to his side. “Lena,” he said, “I want a divorce.” “A divorce?!” she shrieked. “Why?! I’ve been with you through thick and thin. I was with you when we lost the farm. I was with you when Little Ole turned to drugs. I was with you when your parents died. I was with you when you fell off the barn and broke your back. Why do you want a divorce now?”
Ole paused, and said, “Well, I think you’re a bad luck charm.”
</somewhat related joke>
They say that being able to find humor in things is a good way to recover. Seemed to work for me, the bad luck charm in life.
{{{{ LNO }}}}
Just this last summer, my 13-year-old son found the body of his great-grandmother. He was pretty shook up about it for awhile, but he’s better now.
There was a car accident about ten years ago where this guy driving a convertible hit the back-end of a school bus. There were no kids on the bus and the bus driver wasn’t injured, but the guy in the convertible was decapitated. He hit the bus and then his car flipped over onto its top. When I pulled up to the scene, the police were just arriving, so I saw the guy partially hanging out of the car without his head. I didn’t see the head itself, I’m guessing maybe it was underneath the car still. That was pretty gross, to say the least. I couldn’t believe the amount of blood that was all over the road.
At work- about this time last year I think- I watched a lady blow out the back of her head with a 9mm S&W. There was brains and pieces of skull everywhere. This was about two feet in front of me. I was standing behind a bullet proof glass window so I did not get anything on me. But her head splattered all over the glass in front of me.
While she lay on the ground, most of what used to be in her head was now all over the floor in a huge jello- like pile… talk about messy.
What really pissed me off was some idiot teenager was at the shooting range today. He loaded the gun- and with the hammer back, a round in the chamber, and his finger on the fucking trigger, he looked at the gun. Then he turns the barrel toward his face to, I guess, get an overall view of the thing… damn idiot. He came within a sneeze of shooting himself in the head. It only would have taken five pounds of pressure on that trigger. If someone had bumped him or …
Damnit, I am not mopping up the next one…
I used to have a friend in High School named Justin Messick. His younger brother was a weird kid we called Scary Larry.
The Messick family (if you can call a group as fucked up as them a family) was down at the lake on vacation, when Larry found a floating, bloated body bobbling along near where he was swimming. It was nearly impossible to get him near water, even to shower, for months.
Right after he got over his fear of water, he found his mom’s body when she attempted suicide. She survived, but I don’t think his fragile psyche did.
–Tim