It seems that every night on the news we hear of someone shot to death. I wonder, after what my family has experienced the last two weeks, if anyone understands the aftermath.
Two weeks ago we had a tragedy in our family. My ex-husband and father to our three children committed suicide in the backyard of the home he shared with our disabled daughter and her two young children. He used a shotgun. My daughter found him. The word “tragedy” does not go far enough in describing this horror.
But what happens after the fact? I think the news stations should do an in-depth story on the aftermath. It’s not enough to tell the viewing public that someone has been shot or that someone committed suicide. They need to hear about the horror that follows. Reporting a gunshot death has become so mundane that we don’t even hear it anymore. It (sadly) takes a madman and the shooting of a young person and a politician to gain our attention nowadays.
Four and a half hours of questioning, pictures, fire, police, medical examiners, detectives and crisis teams kept my daughter with Crohn’s disease and her two young children trapped in the home where this happened. When they finally took his body away, we were told that a company licensed to do biohazard cleanup had to be contacted as soon as possible. We were told that the renter’s insurance would pay for it - after deductibles. We called the Farmer’s agent first thing the next morning. It took another 48 hours before we found out that the renter’s insurance was denying the claim and we needed to contact the homeowners. Nine days later, after a pissing match between the two insurance companies, the homeowner finally paid for the cleanup - out of pocket. That was nine days that my daughter and her children could not go out into their yard. That was nine days of blood, bone and brain matter baking in mid-seventies heat. And after the cleanup finally happened? Imagine the horror when my son decided to cut down the bushes (that we thought had been thoroughly cleaned) only to find that he was covered with his father’s remains. Imagine the horror of seeing spots of blood still left behind on the block fence ten feet from where this happened. That any of us even had to deal with any of this is incomprehensible. The cold and uncaring manner with which we were treated is unfathomable. My daughter ended up in the emergency room the day after we found out that the renters insurance was denying the claim. With Crohn’s, stress is the main catalyst for a flare. She was exhibiting all of the signs of PTSD along with the severe effects of her disease. How does a 28 year-old disabled single mother of two go on with her life after an event like this? The tragedy of losing her father in such a horrific manner is bad enough, but she is left to try to figure out how she will survive financially, where she will live, how she will manage to take care of her children and on and on and on.
The estimator from the cleanup company told us that in 30 years of doing this he had NEVER heard of a renter’s insurance denying a claim like this one. This was the insurance company that my ex-husband had used for auto, homeowners (and later) rental insurance from the age of 16 to the age of 60. And one of the main reasons for his suicide was the physical pain that he was in after being struck by an uninsured motorist while riding his bike. This same insurance company refused to cover anything but basic treatment.
There is a story here. Whether it’s a story about the after-effects of a shooting, the horrors of suicide, or the complete disdain that insurance companies have for their customers, there is a story. If your viewers were aware of the aftermath of a shooting, maybe it will make one person think twice about using a gun. Sometimes we need to be shocked and horrified before we think beyond the mundane reports that are all too common on the nightly news. Although I know that my ex-husband was not in his right mind when he decided that this was the answer to his problems, I honestly feel that if he had seen a report on the horrors that follow an event such as this, maybe he would have thought twice about doing this. Maybe not, but it certainly seems worth reporting.
