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Notification of a loved one's death.....not like the movies at all

Locust Fork
Recently we had a relative that passed away in a car accident (her fault) and it has been a total wake up for me as far as what I need to do to get my family ready if anything were to happen to me.

Something that stuck with me though was how they notified the family of what happened. It was so heartless and blatantly cruel how it was handled. You think an officer comes to your door and as kindly as possible tells your loved one this horrific news, but that is not what happened to my Aunt. She got a knock at her door VERY EARLY one morning by a police officer who asked if she knew my cousin. My Aunt replied that she did, the officer handed her a card and told her to call the number on the card.......and left. My Aunt called the number and hears a person on the other end say....."Birmingham Morgue". She couldn't handle it.....she hung up and frantically called her son who thought she had fallen and was hurt from what he was hearing when she called him.

This just plays over and over in my head. How can someone hand a tiny white haired lady a card like that and walk away knowing what has happened. She has a cane, limps when she walks, looks almost like one of those garden gnomes and would pass for one if she were just a few inches shorter. I'm a HUGE supporter of our police and I sure hope this isn't customary. I fight the urge to go talk to them every time I think about it.
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Comments

14 comments

Date Votes
  • Henry0Reilly
    Our most recent experience was as you suggested this should have been, 2 officers at the door. While it was not good news the aunt who passed was elderly and my wife was relieved it wasn't news about one of her children.
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  • buschmaster
    I would go talk to them about it. maybe they would set it right, maybe they wouldn't, how ugly it gets is entirely on them and it sure could get ugly.

    seen it happen before. they sent a chaplain. though a different state and decades ago. wasn't like this, all I can say.
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  • Okie Mom
    I would be talking to the Chief of Police or the Mayor or someone. That is NOT the way to handle a notification of death.
    If I remember right during the war 2 uniformed officers came to the door and always stayed until someone could stay with the person that had lost someone.

    But, people have become so uncaring in the world these days.
    I am very sorry this had to happen the way it did.
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  • mrmike08075
    I have a document on file at the hospital / and copies in my cancer go bag that establish certain rules and lay out a few instructions...

    Like if I am in the hospital and die over night they are to hold off notification till after 8:00 am

    That chaplain devices and church staff volunteers are not to bother my relatives - unless such assistance is specifically requested...

    Are any of you organ donors???

    Guess what happens if you are brain dead at 2:00 am - the staff starts asking about harvesting hour body the same time your loved ones ate notified of your condition and how it happened...

    Who are your doctors allowed to notify - who is your emergency contact - do you have a living will or religious procedural objections...

    Who gets you personal items your bag and wallet and jewelry...

    Funeral home arraignment instructions - mortician Info...

    Do you have an std or an arrest record??? Talk to your family now or they will be shocked again after your death when the secrets see the light of day.

    Etc...

    Mike
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  • Alpine
    That is not how it was done when I was working. We would first go to neighbors house and inquire as to family or friends.

    Then with that info we would go to the house and ask if we could talk inside. We would ask if someone could be called to come over, and then deliver the bad news. We would stay until someone could be with them.
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  • pulsarnc
    I don?t know what jurisdiction this happened in but it really sounds like the officer may have dropped the ball . A phone call , or better yet a personal visit to his/ her boss sounds in order . I have had the unhappy duty of being on notification teams a few times and it is one of the most difficult things I have ever done Went back and reread your post Kasey. . I am pretty certain a police force as large as Birmingham should have a better protocol for notifications than what you described . A trip to city hall is definitely in order
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  • Grasshopper
    Well, I can beat that. My wife found out her SISTER passed suddenly on...???????????????...FACEBOOK! She lived out of state and she was getting condolences from friends. Say what?
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  • spasmcreek
    i have watched 4 die and had several phone calls telling that relatives or friends had just passed....helped get one on the gurney and out to the hearse...visited several just before they passed and talked to them hoping they could hear how i valued knowing them.....social media just a few days ago saw news and pics of a classmate ran over and killed by an unknown vehicle.....saw one set of vehicle tracks past my place after a blizzard and followed them to find a older neighbor stuck and almost frozen and got him safely home....and there were others i have wished i could have done more
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  • mjrfd99
    In FD/EMS I've had to tell many their loved one didn't make it.
    Probably one of the harder things to do in in the business.
    Old and sick people die. It's just a fact of life.
    The children we couldn't save still haunt me.
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  • Mobuck
    Less than a month ago, I got a phone call from a local woman who asked me what relation I was to so and so and then suggested I call the county Coroner. Turns out my Cousin was killed earlier that afternoon in a car accident and the Coroner had called all over the area looking for next of kin.
    I wouldn't call us "close" but we worked/farmed together 50+ years ago and talked occasionally so it was a definite "wake up call" to hear of his death in such a way.
    Then the really tough part began. Another distant cousin and myself were the only family who came forward to set up the funeral and burial. That was more difficult than one might expect. Making funeral arrangements for someone you don't really know that well and choices that should be made by close relatives/friends. In the end, he received a decent burial close to his Father and when the estate is settled maybe there will be enough $$ for a small stone marker.
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  • Maalox
    My Grandfather lived out of state and when he passed, iI was notified about his death by a police detective by phone. He was polite and professional in the manner he approached it.
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  • spasmcreek
    friend of mine looked up an OLD relative and found news print he had he had died near an old spanish mission in new mexico in the 1870s.....article said he wandered out in a blizzard in his long johns and froze to death....said he died from to much coffin varnish (booze)..buried in the cemetery yard of the mission where by custom graves were NOT marked so the native Indians could not get revenge on a certain individual...
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  • bambihunter
    Grasshopper wrote:
    Well, I can beat that. My wife found out her SISTER passed suddenly on...???????????????...FACEBOOK! She lived out of state and she was getting condolences from friends. Say what?

    My sister and her husband went with us on a family vacation when i was a kid. She was trying to call home on a pay phone (this dates me doesn't it) to check on her daughter left with her husbands family. She tried a few different times without success. When we were at a campground in Ouray CO, as she called around, a lady walked by, giving her a really odd look. She then loitered by the pool. My first thought is she wanted to rob us or something though that isn't a likely scenario there at that time. Turns out, she was from the S.E. Missouri area and had left the day before. The name of the town she had mentioned on the phone, along with their name had apparently been splashed all over the local news back home. Her mother-in-law and father-in-law had been abducted, driven 100+ miles, murdered, and left in the trunk of their car. Needless to say, our vacation got cut short.
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  • mrmike08075
    Having essentially being on at deaths door - in the process or boarding Charon's ferry and handing over my token to the riverboat operator on the Styx...

    When you go to meet with your doctor or have a consult with one of your doctors or have an appointment to go over some test results or arrive at a prognosis and the physician in question is accompanied by a seated quiet taciturn senior nurse you might want to run in the other direction or prepare yourself - bad news is coming...

    When they will not supply you with answers or info over the phone and insist that you have to come in to the office for a consult with a doctor - when you can hear it in their voice be prepared bad news is coming...

    Though early on I did have a gastro doc call me on the phone and say "I only have a minute before heading in to a scheduled operation - you have cancer - terminal cancer and it's bad - you don't have much time - call your primary care doctor immediately" followed by a hang up...

    I have seen death sentences and bad news dispensed badly and unprofessionally - and I have seen it handled with love and care and compassion...

    Sadly I have seen death discussed badly far moe often then handled the right way.

    I can see it coming now - can hear it coming - can read the signs and pick up on the body language and karmic vibrations...

    When it's children - even more so when it's girls - I have a hard time with it.

    Identifying the corpse or receiving the belongings is often very difficult.

    Hearing the we did everything we could we exhausted the possibilities and used all possible techniques and equipment...

    That preface to notification seems surreal and time seems to stop - it triggers an out of body experience...

    Mike
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