When I started as a social worker, I didn’t want to take on what others wouldn’t. I just wanted to do the hardest job I could think of. To build my confidence enough to handle anything that came my way in the future. If I could do this, I could do anything.

I chose Crisis Response.

The First Call

I remember my first call. My heart was racing as I read the information from dispatch: 68-year-old male found without pulse. Caller refuses to perform CPR stating, “He is dead. He is cold.”

When we got to the apartment, I felt dizzy because of the smell and probably wrapping my head around the concept of dead bodies. I tried to hide the fact that I wanted to throw up, but I was reacting. My partner had explained in detail everything to expect, but it didn’t prepare me for the gravity of the family, the dead body in the room, all the procedures to remove him.

It’s funny, but I only remember standing outside afterward. The building was stucco. Beige. It sort of matched my feelings. I don’t remember anything else except trying to maintain my composure while propping myself against that building.

By the second call, I was physically fine. But learning and confidence came with time.

The Work

We worked out of a firehouse. Calls came over the intercom: CR78, Crisis Response Seventy Eight. A 73-year-old man found blue and cold. Caller refused CPR… and then the address.

We’d run to the van – no lights, no sirens – and drive as fast as we could. Sometimes 45 minutes away. One person navigated and read the updated messages from dispatch. The other drove. Radio crackling: “What’s your ETA? Fire and police are stuck on scene.”

We couldn’t use sirens. So we sat in traffic while people waited.

The short calls were always the worst. Just one sentence from dispatch, no follow-up. That usually meant unexpected death.

It was rare that we got to sleep. Most scenes were about three hours until the Medical Examiner arrived. We couldn’t leave a body with a family. So we stayed. Firemen and police loved it when we arrived. They could hand the emotional family off to us.

We comforted. Offered snacks, water. The most important thing was getting them information and resources. This was a first aid situation, not therapy.

Learning Situational Awareness

One call taught me everything about reading a scene fast.

Elderly man, dead in the garage.

My partner and I arrived before the police. The grandson was blocking the door to the house, screaming. Fists balled, eyes wide, stance wide. His body in fight mode.

I stepped closer to de-escalate. That’s when the police rounded the corner and drew their weapons. They only heard aggressive screaming. Now we had an even worse situation.

I had no exit. Car to my left, police behind me with guns drawn, teenager blocking the door, wall to my right. The boy saw those guns and got more aggressive.

I spoke to the police on his behalf: “Sir, he is very upset and is not processing his feelings well. I don’t think he means harm toward anyone, but he just found out his grandfather died. Let me take him in the house and listen to him.”

I nodded at the boy – aggressive nodding, eyes wide – so he knew to take the cue.

He did.

We went inside. I handed him a drink, offered food. Offerings are a universal language.

Then: “What are you feeling?”

That started a two-hour conversation.

What You Absorb

A man who’d recently gotten housing after being unhoused.

Nobody had heard from him for a week.

Welfare check.

He was dead.

There is a stench of death that can never be erased from a person’s awareness. This one was off the charts.

He had a small Chihuahua in the apartment. The brother was holding the dog in the courtyard below. The dog had nibbled a little when he got hungry.

The Chihuahua ran across the table. I smiled and moved closer as he licked my face.

It smelled of death.

Literally in this situation.

I had a sudden realization about what just happened. Had to swallow my reaction. All I could do was laugh at myself.

Dark Humor as Survival

We were called to a discount hotel. The maid opened the door for cleaning and found two bodies on the floor. Neon spray paint in yellow and orange, red all over the walls: “Die like a rockstar.” Big letters. Multiple places.

The couple had taken heroin and tried to overdose. They’d pinned their driver’s licenses to the wall with hypodermic needles so they could be identified. They’d planned this.

The damage to the hotel room was incredible. I’m sure they thought they wouldn’t have to deal with it.

Watching Narcan revive a person within seconds is amazing. It had to be a shock to them. “Did I die?” “Is this the afterlife?”

None of the issues this couple had should be minimized, but… closing your eyes to die in a blaze of glory with a smile on your face, only to wake up and be walked to an ambulance. Charges being pressed. Going into a mental health hospital. Coming off of drugs. Paying the expenses of trashing a room.

Sounds about right for a rockstar.

Humor was a survival mechanism then. Humor still is a survival mechanism in a world where I hear the worst of the worst.

Finding Beauty

I made a point on every difficult scene to view the world like I was taking a picture. I strategically looked for the beauty even in the worst of crisis imaginable. When I remembered the scene, I would remember the moment I kept.

Like the death of a man. I was at a distance watching his sister and wife touch foreheads over his body, holding hands. It was a photo moment I will never forget.

That’s what I held onto. Not the body. The love.

Learning There’s Nothing to Say

A father ran over his daughter with his truck. A lifted truck. No backup camera back then.

She was dead on scene, but they always took children to the hospital for the family’s sake.

Before we left for the hospital, the grandmother was highly anxious. I was trying to calm her. I was new. I didn’t know to keep my mouth shut in these situations yet.

I said something to her and she replied aggressively:

“I will never forget this day, never! This is the day that changed me forever.”

It was quite profound. All I could do was agree. I think that day changed me forever too.

They had taken the father into custody. Possible charges for manslaughter.

The Mother on the Floor

We were called to the hospital for this one. It was rare that we would go to a hospital. As we walked through the automatic sliding glass doors, you could hear a primal wailing. I knew this was going to be bad.

Police, fire, hospital staff surrounding a woman on the floor. The fire department pulled us aside: she was cooking in the kitchen, turned around for what she thought was a short period of time. Her toddler had gotten through the dog door, fell into the pool, and died.

This was a no-talking-unless-asked-a-question situation.

While she was wailing, I slid down the wall next to her, handed her a water and tissue. Nothing was said.

Two hours of witnessing.

Grief always comes in waves. The body has to take a break, then it resumes. She was a thin woman with her head in her bent knees. She would stop briefly, but it would start back up within seconds.

How does a mother get over that?

They don’t.

I did not cry because I was taught that my job was to hold the space for her. She needed a witness, but I think if I had cried it would have been absolutely called for.

We left and she was still at the hospital. We gave her resources, but even resources and referrals to grief groups seemed trivial.

There is nothing you can say to a grieving mother who just lost her child. You just sit beside them. Get them water or food. Absorb the pain as best you can.

This is what being a witness means.

What It Built

By the end of the four years, I never felt apprehension going to a call. I had confidence and exuded it. I learned that confidence helps people in crisis.

I think that is what I was looking for.

Unshakeable confidence. The kind of presence that maintains a scene no matter what you walk into. So that every job after – addiction work, hospice, the highest level men’s prison – nothing could shake me.

And, I achieved the goal.

What It Cost

It was toward the second year when I developed pain in my body. All over my body.

I would later be diagnosed with idiopathic small fiber neuropathy. I feel that the crisis response work affected me on a cellular level. To work in the energy of trauma for 12 hours or longer a day took its toll.

I didn’t realize it then, but trauma affects everyone in the room.

The pain came in waves just like the grief. I would flare and it was as if all my muscles were suddenly tight. So much spasming and sharp pain. As the nerves die, they cramp the muscles and seize. I kept going, never thinking to be gentle with myself.

Was It Worth It?

I wanted to build unshakeable confidence. I wanted to know I could handle anything that came my way.

I got what I wanted.

I can walk into any room, any crisis, any level of human suffering, and I don’t flinch. I know how to hold space. I know how to be a witness. I know when to speak and when to just get someone water.

But my nervous system has been talking to me for almost 2 decades.

Four years of sitting in rooms full of acute trauma – mothers wailing over dead children, fathers charged with accidentally killing their daughters, the smell of a seven-day-dead body, teenagers screaming with grief – my body absorbed all of it.

The strategy worked. I built myself into someone who couldn’t be shaken. I just didn’t know the foundation would have cracks in it.