Gimme Shelter
Aug. 7th, 2024 05:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tracker7No sense in burying the lede. One of our clients died recently.
DK was manic-depressive and his wife died a couple of weeks ago. He was put on our daily visit list, and today was my day to check in on him. Despite our best efforts, no one had been able to locate him since Friday (it's Wednesday, for future reference). I rolled in to the apartment complex and knocked at his unit, no answer. Went to see a neighbor who had spoken with me on previous visits, and after another attempt, we called the security office. This is at a public housing complex that is little more than storage for humans, and it's slated for demolition in the next 18 months. Security showed, and called maintenance to gain access to the unit. Officer went in, came back out after a minute, and motioned for me to step away from the other residents. I figured it was bad, and, well, yeah.
Talked with my supervisor, then with DK's therapist, and then with the EMS sergeant who responded. I'll probably have to talk with someone from the coroner's office, too, to provide some of my agency's information on DK. Supervisor had me come back to the office and file an incident report, and gave me the option to go home for the rest of the day. So, I did.
We're letting the rest of the team know tomorrow. I'll have counseling offers, and will probably sit for a couple of sessions so I don't look like a sociopath or something. I'm not without compassion, but ... well, ultimately this was someone that I was working with, and not one of the clients that I have real rapport with. It's a loss, and people cared for him. Poor guy. He was dead at least a couple of days, half-naked corpse on the floor of a sixty-year-old government housing building. DK was, in my experience, an okay guy, and I hope if there's something else out there, I hope he's at peace.
DK was manic-depressive and his wife died a couple of weeks ago. He was put on our daily visit list, and today was my day to check in on him. Despite our best efforts, no one had been able to locate him since Friday (it's Wednesday, for future reference). I rolled in to the apartment complex and knocked at his unit, no answer. Went to see a neighbor who had spoken with me on previous visits, and after another attempt, we called the security office. This is at a public housing complex that is little more than storage for humans, and it's slated for demolition in the next 18 months. Security showed, and called maintenance to gain access to the unit. Officer went in, came back out after a minute, and motioned for me to step away from the other residents. I figured it was bad, and, well, yeah.
Talked with my supervisor, then with DK's therapist, and then with the EMS sergeant who responded. I'll probably have to talk with someone from the coroner's office, too, to provide some of my agency's information on DK. Supervisor had me come back to the office and file an incident report, and gave me the option to go home for the rest of the day. So, I did.
We're letting the rest of the team know tomorrow. I'll have counseling offers, and will probably sit for a couple of sessions so I don't look like a sociopath or something. I'm not without compassion, but ... well, ultimately this was someone that I was working with, and not one of the clients that I have real rapport with. It's a loss, and people cared for him. Poor guy. He was dead at least a couple of days, half-naked corpse on the floor of a sixty-year-old government housing building. DK was, in my experience, an okay guy, and I hope if there's something else out there, I hope he's at peace.