Dead man sits in car at fire station

I’m the Fire Chief at the local station. One day, the Fire Inspector— a friend of mine— came to eat lunch.

I had my first floor office window open, because it was a cool Spring day.  The air was pleasant, and the mood seemed clean.

“You’ve got a dead body out here in the parking lot,” he said, peaking through my window.

I laughed it off. First responders joke a lot about that sort of thing. We have a sick sense of humor sometimes.

“I’m serious,” he continued. “You need to come look.”

I could tell he was wasn’t kidding.

I walked around and met him in the parking lot— a large concrete area off to the side of our fire house.

He was right. There, in the driver seat of a small sedan, sat a dead middle-aged man— shotgun in hand.

We called law enforcement and discovered a suicide note in the vehicle. The man took his life there, because he figured we would be more adept at handling it than having his wife or kids stumble into their home and find him.

None of us ever heard the gun blast.

We rolled back the security cameras and determined the man had been there— dead— for about an hour before the Fire Inspector ever arrived.

And, during that time, one of our firemen had walked outside to talk to his wife on the phone (something they’re certainly permitted to do). It shocked him that he apparently took that call from home AFTER the man pulled the trigger yet never noticed the dead body the entire time he was out there walking around and conversing.

This was an odd situation.

We encounter death a lot.

•  We see death in burning buildings.
•  We see death in car accidents.
•  We see death as part of the 9-1-1 medical calls we respond to.

But this didn’t fit the typical “mold” of what we’re accustomed to. And, it happened at “our house.”

None of us were sure how to file it…

… and how to completely move forward from it.

There’s rarely a day when the guys don't take a look at the cars in the parking lot— just to check— before walking into the building for their shifts.