Hospice and the Undead

Cops use humor to cope

The vast majority of cops use humor to cope with the heaviness of the job. Cops can be quite brutal with each other in an open forum.

To the casual observer, it can come off as cruel.

We use our unique and sometimes twisted brand of humor as a form of mental stretching.

Like donning psychological armor in preparation for battle. Or steeling themselves to the potential horrors they may see on their next shift.

I, like most cops, loathe being in the non-cop family setting when someone innocently asks if you have any good “cop stories”.

If I’m in a foul mood I’ll usually pull out an archived, “dead baby story,” or some other ghastly incident to get them to leave me alone.

If that doesn’t work then I pull out what I like to call any number of show-stopper-cop tales.

What’s a show stopper you ask?

Well that’s any of dozens of memories I can pull from my cop-brain library that involves someone dead and maggots.

I know, LMAO right..

After they are done recoiling in horror, I will politely ask for seconds if it’s a meal setting.

As for the following story, it’s 100 percent true.

Some of you reading this may think that I’m an idiot and not funny at all.

And for some of you grammar extremists (Sorry, my brother, the liberal, would be offended if I said Nazi), give it a rest.

This story isn’t just based on a true story. It actually happened.

Enjoy..

Hospice and the living dead

Cops deal with death on a daily basis.

All kinds of death. Murders, suicides, accidents, natural etc.

It is hard to find humor in death.

Well, unless your a cop.

It was a fall day, must be 10 years gone by now. I was a supervisor in uniform patrol when dispatch sent one of my officers to a deceased person call.

The only information we were given was an elderly person had just passed away at home.

As protocol, any death that occurs outside of a hospital usually prompts a police response. Our main purpose when responding to a deceased person complaint is to contact the primary doctor and help the family with funeral arrangements.

Oh and to also make sure the death was natural and not murder.

“Local Cop Arrested for Panhandling”

The officer arrived on scene and after 15 minutes, asked that I respond as well.

There was nothing alarming in the officers tone on the radio. Sadly, this is considered a routine call for cops working the streets.

I arrived and met the officer at the front door. As he was briefing me, I could see the deceased lying in a single bed in the front room. The officer was running down the checklist of what he had done so far.

Routine call

Up until this point, the call was routine, nothing out of the ordinary.

Suddenly, the dead person opened their eyes and suddenly sat upright, staring directly at me!!

The officer could see none of this as his back was to the so-called decedent.

In what felt like a slow motion scene from a Will Ferrell movie, I began pushing and pointing over the shoulder of the officer shouting “H-E’-s A-L-I-V-E!!!”

The officer, a rookie, immediately hooked his arm underneath my right shoulder. With his other arm he reached around my back into a modified bear hug. While clenching me I could hear the officer in a frantic tone shouting “Sir, no, stop, Sir, please stop!!”

My first thought was how did this officer pass the academy.

And why would he be so easily fooled into thinking that this person was actually dead. It was a good thing that I had responded to the scene. I pretty much saved this person from being buried live.

While I was mentally patting myself on the back for being such a terrific officer and supervisor, the officer blurted out, in front of the entire family..

“Sir, SIR, that’s not the dead person, she’s in the other room!”..


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6 Comments

  1. Ha! I could see that happening. Good one. Too bad it has been edited and filtered for the wear. Errr… the “too impressionable”. Thanks.

  2. Actually as a nurse I love that story I worked hospice for quite a long time and there are stories I can tell that people no one thinks is funny I read tell those stories to my son who is now a cop and he finds them hysterical so I think there’s some similarities there in our senses of humor

  3. The opposite of the call I went on where the guy died in his chair with his feet up on the hassock watching tv in the living room. He was holding a TV Guide magazine. I was in the kitchen with the widow when my rookie partner walks in the house Andre overhear him ask the stiff, “Excuse me sir, can you tell me where the other officer is?” The widow and I just looked at each other. I think she cracked a little smile.

  4. First off… I laughed this is def a story for the books.

    Two, I agree with not being in the cop setting and people trying to drag out a good story and using one that often makes them not want to talk to you again lol. Sometimes with family, unprovoked, I’ve said something that makes them go “your sick” that at work would of been a good laugh… but if they can’t take
    a joke, fuck em, it hows we cope lol.

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