What's the most horrible thing that you have ever PERSONALLY witnessed?

Me: A fuel tank explosion at OSAN AB in 1986





http://kalaniosullivan.com/OsanAB/OsanSongtanc1.html

I had met the lone GI that was killed and few months before, and my friend who was part of the clean up crew, said that there were body parts all over the place.

count 'em, four. :grr: They were giving this Latino guy, I'd guess about 5'6", a beatdown, in broad daylight, at the corner of 148th and Amsterdam. A crowd was gathering. Someone had brought a camera. Me, I wussed out and kept on going to the subway.

when I thought he was still alive.

There is nothing in the world worse than losing your reason for living, and having to witness that fact.

:hug:

:hug: Too many horrible things go on in this world. That had to be horrible for you MrS.

I am so sorry. :( :hug:

:hug:

Respectfully,

Radio Lady and Audio Al

And somehow make it through to bedtime. I'm numb and then sometimes I'm not. Thanks for asking.

:hug:

:hug:

:hug: Thanks sarge.

with much love :hug: :hug:

:hug:

:hug:

:hug:

I wasn't present when loved people died (parents, sister, BIL), so I guess I'd have to say watching our 19-year-old kitty Fergus die in my arms at 3:45 a.m. on August 29, 2003. His little head just flopped back and he was gone.

Can't forget this moment of horror - 12:00 p.m., January 20, 2001. I'm hoping 12:00 p.m. January 20, 2009 will soothe all of our aching hearts!

:cry::pals:

Pick up of a hit and run on the Tampa Bay causeway. Monster hit a Greek family vacationing in the area. Killed the father and 8(?) year old daughter out right. Bodies hit by a vehicle traveling at 60mpr plus don't look so good. Mother was critically injured, multi fractures to the legs, internal injuries of course, face messed up. She was choking on broken teeth. We tubed her, MAST pants, IVs running, etc; we got her to the ER alive, but she didn't survive the night.

What haunts me she was semi-conscience, crying and babbling in Greek through the blood in her mouth. It must have been about her husband and daughter. I wish I could have said something to help her.

I do not think I could handle the pain and the human misery you must have seen. :hug:

Did what we could. Most of it wasn't terrible, usually just sad and, truth be told, sometimes stupid. "What the hell were you thinking?!" Occasionally funny, usually involving sex. Interesting write ups, "What's another word for ...?"

But to see an entire family wiped out. That was a bad one.

I am in awe of emergency workers, and firemen. I've needed them a couple of times, they're why I'm able to walk and type now. Nurses are next on my list.

Good for you and the job you do!:applause:

I don't do it anymore - age caught up with me sometime ago. It's a young person's job. But yes, the paramedics, EMTs and firefighters deserve all the attaboys/girls you have.

came into their lives at ages 2 and 3.

Now that their biological father has died from lung cancer (12/01/06), it is especially poignant.

I wish you and your sister all the best.

Cordially,

Radio Lady

I stopped hating him long ago.
Now I just pity a man so twisted up inside he took it out on the people closest to him.

rebellious.

He was a handsome and intelligent man, but very unstable emotionally. He took his pain out on his wife (my mother) also.

The story is that my mother wanted to get away from him when I was a tiny girl. However, my grandmother was unwilling to help her out in any way. Mother was 18 when she married my father, and 19 when I was born. My parents lived together for 41 years full of unholy hell while he railed against her family and his fate. He died of heart disease at age 76; my mother followed three years later, succumbing to atherosclerosis and high cholesterol at age 71.

I am their only child, and I am sometimes filled with guilt and grief. I wish I had been a better daughter, but I moved out of the family home at age 17, and couldn't reconnect adequately with them for the rest of my life due to the lingering disaffectation, plus the thousands of miles distance between us.

You asked about grief counseling for someone age 11. Is that your sister?

Cordially,

Radio Lady in Oregon

Is this the same (11 year old) you were speaking of in your other post? What a horribly sad thing.

Because as much as he was a terrible person sometimes, he was still her daddy.

The back of the truck impacted the windshield of her car with such force that I believe she was decapitated. Her car was on an inaccessible road (another portion of a cloverleaf of a big Boston highway) -- Rt. 128 exit off Weston Road -- that I could only hear what was happening and see the collision from afar.

I drove to the next place I could find a telephone and called 911. They told me help was already on the way.

Murder another policeman. They filled him with so many holes he had absolutely no chance to live.

The kicker is that it was the ONLY day in that policemans entire long career he had NOT wore his bulletproof vest.

was it an accident?

I saw the whole incident from beginning to end. It was no accident, it was murder.

I will try to remember as much detail as I can.

Here is a recent news article about it.

http://www.record-eagle.com/local/local_story_133095513.html

It is filled with errors, which is the modus operandi for the Wretched Eagle.

basically, Clark (unarmed), the guy they say shot him, had at the point of the shooting gone inside his house from the porch after talking to an unarmed Sgt. Finch who, when Clark turned his back and walked into his house, ran onto the porch and started shooting at Clark (with a weapon he had concealed). At which time the entire block, filled with police, started shooting at the porch. Sgt Finch was the only person there. I was across the street the entire time because I just happened to be walking by on my way to the convenience store before heading to the beach when this incident began and was pushed behind a tree when the cops showed up.

here is a small diagram I just did to make some sense of what IO said above.



That being said, I was there and Clark never fired a shot. The only people that fired a gun that day were the police. Additionally, the police claimed that Clark had fired at them with an M-16 variant called an AR-15. I know damn well what an M-16/AR-15 sounds like, I spent time in the Marines. The only shots I heard that day was the pop pop pop of pistols, not the crack of rifle shots. The Police were firing so many shots at the front of that house and Sgt/ Finch that some of them had to reload. At the time the issue side arm of the Traverse City Police Force was the Beretta M9 which has a capacity of 15+1 9mm bullets. I saw some cops put 30 bullets into the front of that house while the Sgt was the only one standing there.

Also indicative of their guilt is the IMMEDIATE renaming of the law enforcement center after the murdered police officer. I agree with Clark, the Traverse City police force is a bunch of crooked fucks. he had done nothing wrong that day, crazy yes, but not Illegal and definitely not deserving of being shot at. It is also very suspicious that the only day in 30 years he did not wear his bulletproof vest was the day he was shot by his fellow officers.

I tried to contact his defense lawyer to offer my testimony, but was told they did not want to talk ot me. The police also did not let me talk to reporters after the event by escorting me past them and taking me home.

After that the wretched eagle was not interested in reporting the truth either.

I was on a city bus and a middle-school aged kid got off and ran in front of the stopped bus to cross the street. As he did this, a car came up beside the bus at about 35 mph and hit the kid and he rolled up over the car and landed behind the car. I'm not sure what ever happened to him but it was a pretty unnerving experience.:scared:

:hug:

I'm sure I would be living with that every time that I was behind the wheel.

They were still warm.

We got there about 20 minutes after the crash.

I was 10 yrs old and we were driving through town when we went around a corner and saw a tragedy occurring. A man was kneeling on the lawn and he was engulfed in flames. His wife and son were standing there screaming and other onlookers were standing by doing nothing, probably too frightened and shocked to take action.

My father leapt from the car with a blanket and rolled the man in it, extinguishing the flames. The man died the next day. That was 40 years ago and the image of that poor man engulfed in flames will always be with me.

I can't talk about my worst things right now. I'm trying to maintain cruising altitude/attitude.

just north of Birmingham AL. I reached over to grab a drink when I looked up I saw an suv coming toward me from the southbound side of the highway. It hit the median and started flipping. I was practically standing on my brakes and holding onto the steering wheel as hard as I could. By the time I got my truck stopped the car was less than 100 feet in front of me. I set my brakes and jumped out of my truck. When I got up to what was left of the car the driver was crawling out. She just looked at me and asked if I had seen her husband. I said no but I will go look. I went and looked in the car but he wasn't there. Me and another trucker found him about 100 yards back in the median. He didn't make it.

for what folks have had to see and go through. :grouphug:

He just went smack and the truck kept going. This was Thailand in the early 90's mind you.

at my first call. Just awful.

bleeeech.

engine to smash into her door.

and Hurricane Katrina and all of the devastation and destruction and heart break.

:cry:

One I can imagine, but the other seems... unusual?

It was horrible. :cry:

:(

I was picking dog hair out of my clothes for weeks.

Right in front of my workplace. It was awful; even more so because my boss' seven year old daughter saw it too.

didn't see the towers collapse, but I saw the aftermath and building 7 collapse.

After that it would either be

doing CPR on seven your old girl, who did not make it

or cutting the bodies of two teenagers out of a car that hit a large oak tree doing better than 60 mph

Watching a man say good bye (he had terminal cancer) to his two daughters for the last time, before we took him to the hospital

treating a man that shot himself in the head, and still managed to live for an hour

treating a woman that was hit by a car, on the highway. To make it worse this happened in front of her young kids.

at my soaring club.

NTSB report: http://ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20001212X21474&key=1

He had no business flying that day.

Probably the worst was a couple of years ago when a log truck rear-ended a garbage truck while a man was on the back of the garbage truck.

The logs ended up like pick-up-stix on the highway. The man was crushed under the logs.

We had to bring in heavy equipment to get the logs off the highway. The body had to be removed in pieces.


When I was a kid, my father was assistant fire chief, and I went everwhere with him. We went to a house fire in which an elderly lady was trapped...she perished in the fire. Seeing my dad and the chief bringing the body out was traumatic for my 12-year-old mind. I've seen much worse since, but that really stuck with me.

I've seen plenty...

The worst however was a family of four badly burned after a horrific car accident.

The children were burned over 55% of their bodies and they were toddlers. :cry:

I came home after that shift and cried for two days.

One made it, the other didn't. Both parents lived, but with life changing injuries.

That once hale, strong, hearty man. Wasting away to 100lbs. Babbling incoherently at times. Not recognizing his own family.

That was the most horrible thing I've ever seen.

:hug:

:hug:

Been there, too...

:hug: I'm so sorry.

her car was smashed up and on fire, she, I think, was still alive, the whole car was smashed up and wrapped around the tree. People stopped and got out, but couldn't get near the car. I remember standing there watching her, pretty much burn up if she wasn't dead already, it seemed like forever before the police arrived.

:thumbsup:

My mother was at work and it was a Saturday afternoon. First she said she had a horrible headache and asked for a cold rag. Then she said she was going to throw up and wanted me to get a bucket. Then she slumped over in the chair, with a horrible gurgling noise coming from her throat.
I had always been terrified that I'd come home from school and find her like this. I was surprised how calm I was, making all the phone calls and waiting for the paramedics. It's almost been 30 years, but I remember it like it was yesterday.

Mom retaliating. Lots of bloodshed in my house growing up.

:hug: to you all. I thought I had something to say here, but I absolutely do not, thank god.

She was working on another kid, and this pregnancy had some little problems in the beginning, but no one expected a miscarriage. Anyways a few months after, she was already pregnant again and had her fourth and final beautiful child.

As bad as it was for me to hear she miscarried, I could not imagine her feelings at the time. :(

thats hard thing to answer, I've witnessed so many.

Right now, what sticks out in my mind is a 16 year old girl. I had gotten a call, it was late.. maybe around midnight. It was a young girl who advised she needed to talk to an officer. After getting the information, I drove to where she lived and met her on their front porch. She was just a little thing.. 16 years old, small and scared. She was bleeding from her lower lip and several other bruises. I won't go into the details because it hurts to entertain these memories, but she had been raped. A neighbor entered her house and, well you get the idea. Why this stands out in my memories as one of the most horrible things I've seen, and I've seen alot was because of the absolute emotional pain this child was attempting to deal with. I'll never forget trying to comfort her as she cried and cried. I'll also never forget paying this neighbor a visit, or when I indited him to a grand jury, or when I stood with her as we sent him to the penitentiary.

sidenote - She is doing fine now; she is one of the most brave and strong individuals I ever met.

:cry:

As a mom, that kills me. I am glad she is okay now and I am glad for people like you.

I'm nothing compared to that girl and so many more like her who are hurt or abused. I think God gave me one calling for this life, and thats to, in reference to children, do whatever I can to help as many as I can before I leave this world. Theres just so many that I'm not sure I'm even making a dent.

behind bigger footprints than we, ourselves, can ever imagine.

You made a dent just by doing this one thing... I am sure you are leaving a wake behind you, a wake of people who are better for having you in their lives.

Gunshot suicide that ripped a guy's head off above the jaw line.

A double suicide where a young couple hung themselves with extension cords.

A morbidly obese shut in who died in her trash pile of a home that had her flesh on her legs gnawed off to the bone by the rats that lived in the trash piles.

A car wreck victim that rotted in his car for a week during a sweltering summer before anyone found the car.

The worst thing I've ever witnessed though didn't even involve a dead body. I witnessed one of my students (I teach emotionally disturbed students) trying to kill himself. I managed to get the tie he had knotted around his throat cut off before he passed out.

I got called from the Health Department to assist at a "motor vehicle accident". I didn't know it involved a bus full of handicapped kids. Some trucker had fallen asleep at the wheel and hit the bus broadside at 50+ mph. When I got there, the roadside was littered with small bodies - most of them still alive, thank the gods. Worse, the bus was on fire, and you could hear the trapped kids screaming. It was like a war zone, with Life Flight helicopters evacuating the most seriously injured. There wasn't a heck of a lot I could do with a stethoscope and a bunch of bandaids - I wound up just holding the hand of a little boy whose bone was sticking out of his leg. Fortunately, he was in shock and didn't notice his injuries. He just kept asking if his teacher was okay. She didn't make it.

A bunch of guys with a welding torch cut through the side of the bus, and started hauling the kids out. The self appointed rescuers were all white: the kids were almost all African American. It was unreal: this was a small town where racism was very much alive, but these men were risking their lives to save a bunch of black kids. Whenever I want to give up on humanity, I remember that.

at the Del Mar Fair in Del Mar, California. It's the annual county fair for San Diego county, but it's as big as some state fairs. I think he was still basically unknown in California even though he was governor of Texas at the time. A group of people with him at the center passed by and he was shaking hands with people as he went. Someone near me said, "It's President Bush's son." He had already started campaigning for President by that time. I remember thinking at that moment, "He's running on his father's last name, and his father lost his re-election, so how could that help him?" I didn't even think about him again until the next year, when he won the primaries.

Aided in recovery efforts.

She kept having strokes and operations. She had a brain tumor removed. Over several months, she had strokes and another part of her would be paralyzed.

The last three days of her life, she was doing Cheyne-Stokes breathing.

This is the most horrible sound I've ever heard. It's a feedback loop attempting to regulate oxygenation of the blood, when the breathing center of the brain is starting to die.

It consists of about a minute and a half of shallow, fast breathing, alternating with a minute and a half of deep, fast breathing.

I was not there when she died.

It was 14 months from the time she was diagnosed until she died. She was only 42. And she worked for the head of Pathology in the largest cancer hospital in the world.

:cry:

I still miss her every day. It's been almost 18 years since I lost my best friend in the whole world.


My parents and I were utterly destroyed.

I know that is hollow sounding but no one deserves to die that way. :hug: to you and :hug: :hug: to your parents.

An odd and interesting remark:

One of the doctors she worked with said, at the funeral home, "It was weird to see this beautiful, healthy woman, and look at her CAT scan and know that she would be gone before very long."

One of my friends said two very wise things: 1)When you get to be the age she was when she died, you will be depressed, because you will go on past that;
and 2)Your parents won't live long enough to get over her death.

Dad died in 2000, ten years and one week after the day of her funeral. He was almost 89.

After my sister's death, Dad said, "Every day I wake up, and then I remember that Karen is dead, and I think, "Shit".

And this was a man who never cussed beyond "damn".

Mom followed two years later, at 81.


Those were two very true concepts.


And yes, it was tragic.

About 15 years ago, at about 3 a.m., the wasband and i were driving home on a 6-lane road in Charlotte, when we saw a cyclist on the opposite side lose control in the inside lane and drop his bike under the last set of wheels of a tractor trailer truck. The truck just kept on trucking.

We u-turned in the middle of the road (slinging dirt through the grass median), and went to see if he was alive, and to find a pa-phone to call for emergency assistance. The poor guy was mangled like a rag-doll that the dog chewed, and had no vitals. The cops who arrived on scene got a description of the truck from us and then loaded the cyclist's body into the ambulance for the slow ride to the morgue.

I have to presume that they didn't find the truck, else at some point they would have contacted us about testifying in court.

I stood there and couldn't move. It just, I don't know, it was just too horrible. I was frozen. They never identified the guy and I still think about his family not knowing what happened to him.

Khash

Parking lots filled with satelite trucks, satelite trucks on the lawns, satelite trucks triple parked, people with microphones and cameras chasing people crying or hugging up and down the streets.