OK.....cop story.....Sad but funny too.....

We have a drunk in town....retired Marine....drinks about 2 to 3 fifths of Vodka a day.....(don't know why he is still around but...).. he gets drunk and lonely so he calls dispatch....rambles on until the dispatcher gets another call....we've always kind of humored him....got our of rehab a week ago...two months sober.....drunk since the day he left rehab.....
Last night he decides he is going to kill himself....ties a heavy duty electrical cord to the railing on the second floor apartment balcony and loops it a couple of times around his neck...calls me on his cell phone..asks for me personally...(knows I'm ex military plus I'll try to help him where I can)...says he's 'Done, can't take it anymore, doesn't want any of the neighborhood kids see him, wants me to call EMS but by the time they get there it will be done..I have the male dispatcher get on the line talking like me....guy is too drunk to realize that it's not me....I hustle over to the apartments and before he knows it, I'm below the balcony with him on the outside ready to jump...he throws down the phone and tells me to move....while I'm distracting him two other officers go into the apartment and sneak up on him and grab him...pull him over the railing...now he's hooked up and going to be petitioned for psych eval at the VA hospital....
Here's the funny part....had he jumped, he would have hit the ground before the cord even got close to tight...he had so much slack he would have hit the ground first......

I'm missing a 50' cord... what color is it? (Sorry, couldn't help myself)

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I'm callous. Firm believer that if some one wants to off themselves, let them. The ones that tell you are mostly in it for the attention. (Spoken as a former firefighter/emt)

I'm bad

but maybe he just wanted to hang around till the cops showed up

Later

Orange.......black ends.....

Dr Crankenstein said:

I'm missing a 50' cord... what color is it? (Sorry, couldn't help myself)

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I'm smiling.......

Hang around for the cops to show up....very good Skull...

Rev....very easy to become cynical when you deal with this crap day in and day out... this guy is like Otis in Mayberry.....a constant pain in our sides.....he's slept in our holding area several times....disorderly...but with the new VA courts, hard to get anything more than rehab again and again and again...you can only feel bad for someone for so long who won't help themselves....

Remind me to not have him sort out the bungee cord length for me?

IMO, the VA is a sad excuse for health care to those who served. They will run him through the eval, and send him home with a shopping bag full of pills.

No arguement there.....

Willowbilly3 said:

IMO, the VA is a sad excuse for health care to those who served. They will run him through the eval, and send him home with a shopping bag full of pills.

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My guess....he'll be there 72 hours tops and cut loose....VA courts try to do their best but are overwhelmed with Vets both old and young in the criminal system...the treatment centers are overwhelmed too.....We all know that...that's why we've tried to put up with all his calls and visits when he's intoxicated...how do they say it..."there but by the grace of God go I"....any other agency would have arrested numerous times for disorderly or misuse of 911....we took over 700 calls from him just over the last two months.....what other call center would put up with that? None...but honestly, he'll kill himself someday....either drinking or from self inflicted wounds...inevidable....all we can do is what we can....like I said, very sad ....

It's sad he feels that way about himself, it's good you were there for him.. Regardless, he is your brother and ours also, I pray he finds his way back to a place he can enjoy. Better to have him in the psych ward then in the hospital with broken bones.......Thank you !!!

It's hard to survive combat and even harder to survive the memories ???

I've had a few vets as employees. Some of the story's that I've heard it's no wonder they have mental problems. It sure did open my eyes to the sacrifices that are made and I now have more respect then ever for them.

That's kind of sad, funny, but sad.

I believe that a lot of late 40's/early 50's rods were built as a kind of therapy for shell shock (PTSD today) by WWII vets. Probably more than a few were built as suicide machines, too. To bad about that guy.

Blue