Police Officer here, while working on a northern aboriginal reserve where the police are essentially the fire dept, ambulance and police, I had a call that still haunts me to this day.
I was early in my transfer to Gods Lake, a remote community 500 miles north of Winnipeg. There are no roads in, except during the winter months when the ice road opens up. The only reliable way to get there is by plane.
One spring evening, around supper time we received a call at the office from a hysterical woman. She was crying and screaming, and all I could make out of what she said was "my baby, oh my baby, please help us". I was able to also hear what area of the reserve she lived in, there are really no street names or house numbers. Makes finding places extra stressful.
As we are speeding down the road, my partner and I were discussing possible situations, with unknown situations its nice to have some idea what each of us will do once we get there. On a daily basis where unfortunately alcohol and drugs are a problem we dealt with a verity of violent calls. As we approach a group of people standing on the road, they were frantically yelling us to help them. The group pointed and ran with the police truck towards a house.
We exit the vehicle and I recognize the house immediately. I know the family very well. I now think back to the woman on the phone and realized it was the mother of the family. The eldest son meets us at the door and says to us its my sister, his sister is 11 and I was her DARE officer. My heart sank.
As we entered her room there she was at the bottom of her bunk bed on the floor, she had a scarf tied around her neck, she was wearing pink pajama bottoms and a white One Direction t shirt. Her lips looked cold, blood coming from her nose and mouth, eyes were open but there was no one there. Air was escaping and gargling from her mouth. She had hung herself by tying the scarf on the top rung of the bunk bed. Her mother said she was making dinner when her daughter said that she loved her and that she loved her brothers, she said that was going to her room to play before supper.
I cut the scarf off and we quickly brought her to the truck. I was driving the truck as fast as I could to the nursing station while my partner, who use to be an ems was preforming cpr. The drive which was probably only a few minutes felt like forever. Once we pulled up to the nursing station they took over and brought her inside. I sat in the bucket of the truck and just cried. I knew she was gone but I didn't want to believe it.
Sorry for the long reply, just reading these and being able relate brought it all back. Its nice that reddit can some times be used as a place to sort through and talk about issues bothering us. Especially now that PTSD is being recognized in first responders.