Comments on: “Coping with Child Deaths�?

By: Bridget Unnel

Bridget Unnel — Wed, 06 Apr 2005 19:33:54 +0000

I doubt I would have the right coping mechanisms to effectively do your job, children or retirees and all ages in between. Fortunately, there are people like you who can say otherwise. Thanks for keepin’ on keeping on!

By: Deb

Deb — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 03:56:08 +0000

I am unfortunate that I bounce around from A to B, more often than not in A.

I have never worked on a deceased child, but I did work for the Department of Public Prosecutions (much like the American District Attorney’s Office) in Australia where the case files of pedophiles, child molesters, child murderers and “daddy’s who loved their daughter’s too much” were an everyday occurrence and I was usually able to handle these cases as “just a job” until I had my own kids.

Then it got personal and I couldn’t split the two and I left.

Very insightful journal you have here and one I’ll be coming back to visit.

Thank you for sharing your views.

By: dotbar

dotbar — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 01:44:01 +0000

I think you can do all kinds of things in a pinch but it’s the emotional aftermath that would be hard to take for some people. I would probably cry through the entire thing and you would have to kick me out too! But I’m glad you can do it, because if it were my child, I’d want someone to be able to give me some answers!

By: Jack Cameron

Jack Cameron — Mon, 04 Apr 2005 21:27:34 +0000

I’m reminded of one of a scene from one of the more realistic cop dramas, Homicide: Life on the Street where the Lt. tells the husband of a murder victim, “You don’t need the detective to grieve. You need him to solve your wife’s murder.” The job is the job.

By: becky

becky — Mon, 04 Apr 2005 20:23:15 +0000

good for kicking the intern out. what does she expect?? i have not witnessed an autopsy on a childs death but seen a younger woman who died of breast cancer.. didnt phase me at all. none of them do.. i dont think i child would either.

By: Lysa

Lysa — Mon, 04 Apr 2005 18:59:18 +0000

This is why I had to quit going to school to be a mortician. I just couldn’t take it the thought of dealing with children. Unfortuntately, I didn’t realize it was hitting me too close to home til after I was exposed to it.
As a mom it was being faced with my own worst nightmare; The death of one of my children.

By: Terri Poposky

Terri Poposky — Mon, 04 Apr 2005 17:07:17 +0000

You gotta do what you gotta do! Some people are cut out to deal with child deaths and some are not. Some people do not understand how I can read about crimes without getting upset. It’s because I find them interesting, and to continue to read about the cases I have to separate my feelings from the interesting facts of the case. If I thought about how sad it was, or how much the victims would be missed, or how scared they were before they died, I would not be able to read the stories. I had to make a conscious effort to separate my feelings from the facts, and now that I’ve gotten used to it I don’t even have to think about it. It would be a different story if I were to visit a real crime scene and look at a real victim in a pool of blood… I would probably freak out at first, and then go through a process of separating my feelings from my “job”, if that were my job. One time I had a friend whose boyfriend was a mortician. She wanted me to see this dead man that she had helped her boyfriend make presentable for a funeral. Apparently his face had been smashed in from a car accident and they built it back up using plaster and working from a photograph of the victim when he was alive. She had to drag me in there, as I had second thoughts after entering the mortuary. Just the sight of the room gave me an eerie, sick feeling. I looked at the dead guy for about a half a second before darting out of the room. My friend was quite amused by my behavior.