1. I watched a kid kill himself at school. Gunshot to the head. He painted the wall behind him with his brains.
“I watched a kid kill himself at school. Gunshot to the head. He painted the wall behind him with his brains. Ran to get help came back after running for help.
At a closer look to see what I could do to help stop the bleeding I saw how the front his skull had completed fractured. Couldn’t recognize him anymore. I knew him, had class with him for three years. Only after someone showed me a picture of who he was did I realize it was him.”
2. I saw someone die with their guts in their hands once. It looked like he was trying to put them back in.
“I saw someone die with their guts in their hands once. Big ol’ truck hit a motorcyclist and, well… yeah. It looked like he was trying to put them back in.”
3. His brains were coated on the asphalt for about 100 yards.
“I saw a motorcycle accident without a helmet. His brains were coated on the asphalt for about 100 yards.”
4. Their bodies looked like they went through a meat grinder.
“Fucked-up mangled bodies of two young Panamanian boys who found a grenade and played with it. It was left over from the US invasion in 89. Their bodies looked like they went through a meat grinder. I still have nightmares of it.”
5. I can still remember the smell and see the maggots.
“One September day me and my girlfriends little brother found a guy who had shot himself in the head in the woods. He had been there for at least a week. This is was almost 20 years ago. I can still remember the smell and see the maggots.”
6. Dad drowned both little girls in the tub. They were both still floating there, one face-up, one face-down.
“I was the second to respond to a homicide scene.
Father and Mother going through a bad divorce, two young daughters 5 and 3.
Dad was supposed to drop the kids off but never showed so Mom called the police. I responded to find the most fucked up thing I have ever seen and will ever see.
Dad drowned both little girls in the tub. They were both still floating there, one face-up, one face-down. The house was untouched, you could see that dad set the one girl up to draw with her crayons on the living room floor to wait her turn, while he drowned her sister.
The screams from the street when they told the Mom will also haunt me forever. You could hear them a block away.
Dad was found hanging in the attic. It took an incredible amount of effort to not just shoot the dead body for the hell of it.”
7. Bellies opened up, sawed-off body parts, internal organs bursting, brains dripping.
“During internship back in 1983, received a truckload of corpses of four guys hit by an incoming train as they walked on the rail tracks. I had to go through the heap of mangled bodies. Not even one corpse was intact. Bellies opened up, sawed-off body parts, internal organs bursting, brains dripping. I was not new to blood and such gory stuff, but that was a whole new level. I placed them in four parts as best as I could by their clothing or what was left of it, skin color etc. No one knew how could it happen?”
8. I could see all the exposed meat and bone and there was a trail of blood.
“When I was 4 or 5 I was on a wagon ride with one of my cousins. There was a hole in the wagon floor where it had been built around the tractor for the event…I think it was Christmas in July.
Well this other little girl was sitting with her legs dangling in the hole and she kept putting her foot on the ridges of the tire because she could. She would move it to a lower one at the last second over and over again until one time she didn’t time it right. As a result her leg got caught.
It twisted her leg underneath the make shift wagon between the wood and the tire. It took a few seconds for her to scream and at least a full minute more (felt like longer) for the driver to realize it wasn’t just a kid being a little shit.
By the time they stopped and dislodged the girl’s leg it has torn all the skin off her ankle and up her leg so I could see all the exposed meat and bone and there was a trail of blood the few feet behind the truck before it had stopped.
I was scared so I got off and my cousin lost me in the chaos. So I was traumatized and then totally lost and terrified for like an hour. Woo. Fun times.”
9. Watching my dad roll off the couch dead.
“Watching my dad roll off the couch dead when we thought he was taking a nap.”
10. Empty eyes, the nose was pretty mangled, only one ear was still attached.
“A face on the street.
A suicide vest bomber had blown himself up in a marketplace in Kandahar. By the time my team got there to do the post-blast analysis, they had cleared out all of the dead and wounded, but not all of the dismembered body parts. And then, off to the side of the street a little way from the blast site, a mostly intact face. Empty eyes, the nose was pretty mangled, only one ear was still attached. Our best analysis was that it was the bomber, and when he’d detonated his vest, the blast wave came up from his torso, cut the skin around the edge of his jaw and just peeled his face off.”
11. He pulls his dad’s gun out from under the covers, shoved the gun in his mouth and shot himself before I even had the chance to react.
“My best friend in middle school was depressed and wanted to kill himself. He decided to invite me over to ‘talk.’ In the middle of us talking, his parents in the other room, MID SENTENCE of me telling him why I felt like his life was worth living he pulls his dad’s gun out from under the covers, shoved the gun in his mouth and shot himself before I even had the chance to react. His parents came running in, everyone was screaming, all I remember was the world felt like it was in slow motion, my ears were ringing, and how I couldn’t stop looking at him, I was in shock. Felt like I stood there frozen forever but it was probably only a few seconds. I still think about it every day and what stuck with me most was the amount of blood. It’s nothing like you see in the movies and it literally comes out of everywhere….I’ll also never forget his dad screaming at me about how I didn’t stop him. ‘WHY DIDN’T YOU DO ANYTHING?!?!” “WHY DID YOU JUST LET HIM DO THAT?!?!’ I didn’t know…he had me come over for talks all the time before this. I’ll also never forget having to go into the police station to make a statement and how they questioned me as to rather I knew he was going to do it. Like I was in on it. I felt terrible already and that only made me feel worse. I get it’s a process but I really felt like they were attacking me instead of helping a kid who clearly was in need of a therapist. They also made my parents leave the room and questioned me alone and that was scary.”
12. I found a rotten dead guy floating in the shallows.
“I was working along a river as a cleaning crew when I found a rotten dead guy floating in the shallows. He was completely white except with dark purple lips.
Bonus: it was my birthday.”
13. I hear another bang, and another kid goes down.
“I live in Eugene, Oregon. I witnessed the Emerald Park shooting in 2016. I was sitting at a bench, minding my own business when I hear a ‘bang.’ I look up, and a kid at the skate park went down, and there was an older man with a rifle. I hear another bang, and another kid goes down. I take cover behind a concrete pillar. I glance around the corner and see the gunman running away, so I take flight in the opposite direction, and sprint to my house. I heard one more gun shot on my way back. 2 dead, including the gunman, and 1 injured.”
14. His brains were coming out his ears.
“A guy going over a hundred MPH on a motorcycle went head on into an 80s Camaro, flew through air about a hundred feet and landed in my driveway. His brains were coming out his ears. My roommate had just had CPR training and started to check him. “He’s gone, dude.” Luckily the guy in the car was OK.”
15. The boy fell out and got hit by the bus. Horrible.
“I saw a lady pushing her buggy/stroller with her wee boy in it, he wasn’t strapped in, she went to cross the road and but didn’t see the bus coming, pushed the buggy down the curb and the boy fell out and got hit by the bus. Horrible.”
16. He was broken backwards. His body was in an L shape.
“Saw a guy laying on the ground, broken back. He was broken backwards. His body was in an L shape. He was dead. He got hit by a truck. The driver stopped. Cops hadn’t even been there yet. It was also nighttime and he was wearing dark clothes. I think it was an accident. I couldn’t sleep for a week.”
17. Her brains were all over the floor.
“Girl jumped off a building in school. Her brains were all over the floor.”
18. His head was gone. Nothing from the neck up but part of his tongue.
“Got a call of possible shots fired near a big football stadium in my town around midnight. Usually these end up just being fireworks or, less often, a car backfiring. (Protip: Supersonic rounds have a very distinct “crack.” Subsonic rounds will sound pretty close to fireworks. If you hear the latter from a distance, you could be safe. If you hear the former from a distance, take cover!)
It was in my patrol district so I took the call. It was raining, cold, pretty dreary. Now, this was during football season, so there were a lot of these big tents set up all around the stadium.
I made a couple loops around the stadium. Nobody to be seen. I was about to radio it in as unfounded when I saw the silhouette of a man sitting in a folding chair under one of the tents.
I parked, got out, and approached slowly. It was very dark and hard to see him clearly, but it looked like he was slouched over, hanging his head. I didn’t want to use my flashlight for fear of giving my position away if he was up to something. As I got closer, I called out to him several times. He didn’t respond. Probably drunk and passed out, I figured.
I walked closer to him, approaching him from behind. Got under the tent. Put my flashlight on him, and immediately realized why he wasn’t responding. He wasn’t slouched over, hanging his head. His head was gone. Nothing from the neck up but part of his tongue. A shotgun was on the ground right next to him, so it wasn’t hard to figure out what happened.
After I called it in, I noticed that I could still feel raindrops falling on me. I hadn’t really thought about it, considering it was raining, and obviously I had more pressing matters on my mind. But why could I still feel raindrops falling on me under the tent?
Turned my flashlight up and immediately realized it wasn’t rain falling on me.
That uniform got thrown away.”
19. She had been stoned to death because her new husband reported that she wasn’t a virgin on the night of her wedding.
“When I was in the Army (2007-2011) I deployed to Northern Iraq (2009 -2010) and my area of operation was north east of the city of Mosul. One day, we were doing a mounted patrol (in vehicles instead of on foot) of a village that was within our area. When we rolled through on this particular morning, we saw the mangled body of what looked like it could have been a girl or a woman. There were dozens (maybe over a hundred) of rocks of all sizes around her. Her entire body was smashed, her face was so destroyed that the only thing that revealed her gender was that she had long hair (her hijab was not on her body). Our platoon leader later asked what happened to the local leader, but he brushed it off and said it didn’t concern us. Later (a few days or a week) our platoon’s translator said he spoke to some Iraqi soldiers from the town and they said she had been stoned to death because her new husband reported that she wasn’t a virgin on the night of her wedding.
I dunno if it’s true or not, but I still think about her destroyed corps frequently. No matter what she did, even if she murdered someone, no one deserves to die like that.”
20. I wasn’t really prepared to see her skull when I did.
“I saw a lady fall over on the street, she wasn’t old, drunk or being silly, she just tripped. She fell exactly her body length—0.5 cm from the sidewalk, towards the sidewalk. Result was that she her forehead scraped the (quite high) sidewalk, scraping away her skin and hair, leaving a large flappy thing that was folded back onto her head with bone visible.
When I saw her trip over I ran to her instinctively, but I wasn’t really prepared to see her skull when I did. Out of reflex I kinda folded the flappy thing back to cover her skull and held it there till the ambulance came.”
21. Male hit by speeding pickup and thrown into oncoming traffic, picking up pieces of brain and muscle/bone for about 50 meters.
“Can’t remember all of them but the few that come to mind off the top of my head…
Lady dragged by train, bilateral amputations above both knees, eviscerated, partial decapitation etc.
Male hit by speeding pickup and thrown into oncoming traffic, picking up pieces of brain and muscle/bone for about 50 meters.
Drunk homeless male wanders into freeway at night, hit and dragged by truck. Same as above but about 100-150 meters.
Male sitting in car behind truck on freeway, truck carrying 30 tons of cargo coming up behind, brakes but cargo shifts and inertia pushes rear truck into front truck with the car sandwiched between them. The only identifiable body part was an arm since it had been resting out the window.
Multiple new born babies abandoned in the rubbish, most recent was only found about 3 days after the fact when a stray dog was seen carrying it down the street.
Biker taking a 270-degree onramp at way over the limit hit barrier, decapitated and sprayed brains and blood over a large area. Bike was found 300 meters away.
Old gent pulled over by police at Christmas roadblock, cleared to leave and a youngster in his brother’s 7 series BMW runs through the speed camera at 160kph, sees the cops, runs and hits the old bloke at upwards of 260kph. Youngster uninjured, old bloke DOA on his way home to his family.
Then there’s a jumble of incidents in my head that have sort of blended together. I used to write them down after work with the aim of one day writing them up properly but stopped after a while. There are many more but can’t recall specifics….
Lost count of the decomposing bodies pulled out of rivers as part of our water rescue unit, those are the worst due to the smell.”
