So the day before yesterday we got called to a medical assist for a hanging.

Why did the need the FD at a hanging? Because the guy was behind a locked gate and far up a winding driveway. The ambulance couldn't get up there without us busting the lock.

When we arrived I left my crew to cut the lock and let the ambulance in. I went up the driveway witha paramedic to see if there was anything we could do.

We found the fellow in the horse barn. He was hanging and long dead, there was nothing we could do and so we simply did everything we could to maintain any evidence present. We did everything we could to make things easier for the cops when they got there.

I stood there and watched the horses in the paddock, walking over and nuzzling their soft, warm noses into him, he swung slightly at their touch. They knew him, and were friendly and kind animals.

I sent the rig back after they had done everything they could, I stuck around to give my statement to the police, and to help the coroner remove the body. When it came time I slung my shoulder under his hips, feeling his now-cold stiffening body against me. I lifted up and the rope slacked. The coroner stood on a stepladder and untied it. With the help of two cops we laid him on the gurney and wheeled him out.

I thought at the time that we could stand to learn some things from the horses. They weren't horrified or sad that they were witnessing death, they accepted it. Just another part of the picture.

I felt nothing. A death that years ago would have sent me into a week or so of introspection and awe was something that later in the day I forgot to mention to the woman in my life.

It left me wondering, and I still do. Was I unaffected by what I saw and did because I'm cold, unfeeling, burning out?

I'm not numb, I still feel things, feel emotion, but the presence of a dead man is so ordinary to me that I wasn't affected by it in the least.

Have I hardened?

Or have I accepted?

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