[The Great RJ]

In my days as a paramedic there was nothing worse than to be called to an attempted suicide when the procedure went wrong and the person did not die but was left in worse condition. Often the advice in these books does not include information on what can go wrong. Imagine botching your suicide and then ending up on a respirator in a persistent vegetative state or with complete renal failure and on dialysis. Even a shotgun blast to the head may not be immediately fatal ..knew some paramedics who had such a case.

[Michael Barnes]

I knew a guy years back that tried suicide with a shotgun. At the last moment, he flinched and ended up blowing his jaw off along with some lower pieces of his skull...He survived that attempt. I don’t know what happened to him after that...

[penowa]

When I was growing up, one of my best friends was a girl whose father committed a botched suicide by shooting himself in the head when she was a toddler. She and her Mom used to visit him in a local nursing home every Sun. after church. Nearly every week, we would talk on the phone after she returned home. She would vent about her pain at seeing him in his condition and how it tore her apart to go there even though she had no other memory of him. She was 26 yrs. old when he finally passed away from a medical complication, and she was scarred for life.

I'm sure he never considered the pain he would cause his loved ones beyond the initial shock of his death, and I always wondered if he was ever aware of the tragedy he had caused.