Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire First dead person that you ever saw.

The first was at an open casket funeral when I was about 9 years old. Since then I've lost count. Car crashes, shootings, drownings, suicides, homicides.
Last one was my Dad about 3 years ago.
If it never happens again, I'll be just fine with that.

Don't remember the first dead body which would have been in a casket. But do remember watching my Granddad taking his last breaths while I stood at the foot of his bed when I was 16.

The first dead person I saw was one of my Great Grandfathers in a casket. I was 4 but I remember it. First person I saw die was at the lake, I was about 16 and he just fell over and some other people were giving him CPR. Last person was July 4, 2021. We got an emergency call about an elderly gentlemen and we did what we could.

Sad thread.

It not only drags up memories of the first dead person I saw, but every single one afterward.

Too many.

I was 6. Our neighbors, an older elderly couple in a 1950’s era car got hit by a train at the train track crossing a block from our house.

At aged 7, my Great Grandfather. He had a stroke or heart attack on his tractor while plowing the field. We found his tractor circling with him slumped over.

My mother. I watched her die. Seems like those I've seen pass, man or beast, you can sense when they've gone.

The one that I remember most and years before my mother:
Resevoir outside Duchene, UT. Lights underwater on a blocked off road to the reservoir. Turns out that some chick about to get married drove her pickup into the reservoir. Never saw the body. They found it the next day.

The next day I learned how horrible sage-fed beef roast was.

Probably my Aunt Maud, I was 6.

Most impressionable was my friend, he went out with his brother and they got involved in a drag race. I went on the run with my dad not knowing it was John, I watched him die. I was 15.

Other than old dead relatives at the funeral home when I was a kid, it was a dead guy in a hospital room when I worked on the hospital maintenance crew in high school. I was like "look that [bleep] dead."

My first wife.

It happened after the birth of our second child back in the 80s.

I remember rolling over in the middle of the night wanting to tap it .... it had been months. And, well, she was dead.


I divorced her a few years later.

Went on a call with my ex-FIL who was a part time King County sheriff in a very small town, people called in that there was a van sitting in the woods where they were picking morels. We got there and the van door was open, he went in to check it out and there was a dead guy inside, firefighter that committed suicide with a 25 auto and did a rather poor job of it as he ended up bleeding to death before he was found. It was pretty gruesome as the birds and small animals had pretty much made him unrecognizable, I had to go inside the van to help my FIL take pics and transport his boy to the aid car. Been a few more over the years but that was the first dead person I had ever seen not in a casket.

First was my grandfather when i saw his open casket at about 11, another i remember was a women babysitting next door neighbor kids, she had fallen down the stairs, i came by as they were taking her out of the house.
my mom, my brother.

Up close and personal....my son. He was a passenger in an auto accident. Then, three weeks later my best friend. 2003 was a very difficult year.

Probably someone at a funeral, but the first one I remember was a woman who stroked out while riding a bike. I was 6 or 7. She wasn't wearing a helmet and hit hard. My dad had been a firefighter paramedic and tried to save her. He didn't succeed.

Too many to recall. When my first grade teacher told us to draw a picture of what our dad did for a living, I drew a picture of a casket with a body in it. Everyone got a kick out of it and I didn't understand why they thought it was so entertaining.

I was 18 or 19 and had joined the local volunteer emergency squad. Elderly lady stepped into the street from between the snow banks and got hit by a car. Literally knocked some of her brains out.

Motorcycle wreck up the street from our house. Remember mom jumped out, me right behind her. Poor kid was laying in the intersection bleeding out of his ears, nose, mouth. He lived 4 houses up from us, probably 18 at the time.

Damn… just, damn….

About 10, in a funeral home.

Side note:

Spending a lot of time in the military makes you see things you wish you had not. Natural death from old age or sickness doesn’t bother me. Other forms of it, bothers me a lot.

Dead priest that rode a motorcycle. We had to view the body and do the Rosary in catechism class. I was 8 maybe.

This is not a story that I share with my family...

I found my dad at his house... Sitting naked on the floor at the foot of his bed after 3 days. Thank goodness it was cold out.

It was the last day of deer season, Sunday night. Dad was cooking soup on the stove and had the TV on and wood stove going strong.... I sat with him a few minuets catching up and chatting about nothing. He actually got a small buck that year, early in the season... so he was feeling pretty good. I would always stop in every few days and check in on Dad.

Later in the week.... I was going to stop by and check in on him on Wednesday but got busy... so, I stoped in to visit with him on Thursday night... as soon as I opened the door I knew something was bad, it was November... he heated his house with wood and it was always warm at dad's house... when I opened the door, the TV was on and it was cold in the house. I looked over to the stove and the batch of soup he was cooking Sunday night was still on the stove. I moved thru the house and found him sitting on the floor at the foot of his bead. He had pulled a blanket off the bead and wrapped himself up and seemed to be accepting of his situation.

After looking over the situation... I couldn't find his phone. And, I didn't have mine. So I had to go 4 miles back to my house to call the coroner. I was told by the operator that the coroner was in my area and was at a site where a man was killed in an accident and it would be a while before she could get over to my Dad's house. So I went back to Dad's place and waited with Dad. 4 hours later... 1030pm at night, a Sheriff squad pulled in followed by a plain van.

In them 4 hours I was waiting... I saw blood smeared on the floor on a pattern. I was able to put together what happened.

Some time on Sunday night, he turned off the soup. left the TV on... went to bed. Then, at some point he got up because something was wrong with his hart. He had one leg amputated at the knee some time ago and an open sore on the foot that he had left. In a panic he was looking for his phone and pulled out his sock drawer and pulled all the socks out looking for his phone... then crawled leaving blood streaks from his open sore on his foot, across the floor of his house out into the garage to the drivers door of his truck, either trying to get in his truck and drive to help, or he was looking to see if his phone was in the console of his truck. Not being able to get in his truck from his hands and knees, he crawled back into the house leaving streaks of blood from his foot on the floor back to the foot of his bead... too weak to get back up into bead... he pulled to blankets off the bead and wrapped him self up and died.

It sounds like a sad story of a man dyeing alone... but really, knowing my dad... he would be just fine with it. I don't expect it to be much different for me when I go,,, me and my dad have the same personality.

Cleaning out his house... I found his phone in his sock drawer... he just didn't dig far enough to find it.