[cripplecreek]

I had a girlfriend who's father was a first responder and fire chief with a small volunteer fire department. In one day he responded to a multiple murder where a disgruntled ex husband killed his ex wife, her boyfriend, her parents and himself. My girlfriends dad knew every one of them.

Later that same night he went out on a fire call where 7 people died in a fire and he knew at least 3 of the people who died there.

We pooled our money and sent him on a very long vacation after that.

[TomSmedley]

VFDs typically call together an "incident stress debriefing" after grisly tragedies. The most memorable day in my brief career as a volunteer fire fighter featured three structure fires in a department that usually got one a month. The middle fire involved kerosene space heaters in a trailor and three dead kids. I go there in time to see 'em shifting a tiny skeleton from the ashes -- turned out to be the family dog. I then spent an hour fending off the dogs and media camera men drawn by the scent of human tragedy. I had some really vivid nightmares over the next few weeks.

[texasflower]

Good heavens. Poor man. I have seen horrendous things in my 23 career, but I have never have personally known any of them.

Execept a repeat suicide attempter who finally and gruesomely accomplished his task.

But that's not hard. A personal relationship with a victim would be horrible.

God Bless you guys for taking such good care of him.