David Gray

The first suicide I ever saw was a suicide by hanging. I had spoken with the deceased only two days earlier when he unsuccessfully attempted suicide by shooting himself in the chest with a nail gun. In his successful attempt, he tied a rope around the bannister to the basement stairs, walked down the stairs until the rope was taut, and eventually died. I remember wondering what could have made him so distraught that he chose to die when at any point he could have walked back up the stairs and lived. Unfortunately, that was not my last suicide. There were many in my seven years as a police officer. The ages of the victims ranged anywhere from the twelve year old son of a childhood friend to a recently divorced seventy year old.

As helpless as I felt when dealing with suicide victims, I came to realize that I could not help somebody that was already dead, which more often than not was my first contact with the victim. I felt infinitely more helpless when dealing with people that were still alive and suffering from schizophrenia or other psychological disorders. There was literally nothing that I could do within my police training to help the majority of the people with whom I had contact. From my own experience, police officers come into frequent contact with the mentally ill and are woefully unprepared and lack the training to deal with serious mental disturbances. Life circumstances changed and I found myself able to go back to school. Based on the experiences that I had as a police officer, and the number of years I spent as either a military member or a civilian working in support of the military in the USA, Europe, and Asia, I chose to pursue a degree in psychology. As an Air Force veteran and former first responder, these populations are whom I care about most deeply. My research is based on finding more efficacious treatment for this population after experiencing trauma at work.

July 2016