L.E. Officers Train to Deliver Tragic News

Joel Samuels was at work when she learned that her husband had just died in an accident on Interstate 495 in the suburbs of Washington.

The company vice president took Samuels to the telephone in her office, where a Maryland State Police lieutenant told her what had happened: Christopher Esson Sr. was killed as he switched drivers on the way back from New York. As the vice president stood by, the lieutenant patiently answered all Samuels' questions.

Two-and-a-half years later, Samuels, 37, is still grateful that she got the news the way she did. "I've been here so long, these people are just like my family," she says of her co-workers. "I would much rather get that kind of news here than getting it at home alone. I found out later that (the lieutenant) didn't want to send a sheriff's deputy to my home to deliver the news. She helped a lot. By being polite, staying on the phone, going through the red tape to get to me. That was the right way."

Last year in the USA, 32,788 people died in motor vehicle crashes. That's 32,788 times that a parent, a spouse, a sibling, a friend had to be told that a loved one was dead.

The way that information is delivered plays a crucial role in determining how soon they begin to recover from their loss, according to a death notification expert and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), which trains police officers on how to notify relatives of crash victims.

"Nobody's ready to hear the news of a sudden, violent, untimely death," says Alan Stewart, an associate professor in the Department of Counseling at the University of Georgia who has studied death notifications for 14 years. "It makes it all the more important that the way a person is told the news itself doesn't traumatize them."

MADD President Jan Withers, who spent nearly a decade training police on death notifications, says, "When someone is delivering this information, if they're kind of curt, if they're not available, not giving complete information, doing it over the phone or if they give misinformation, all of these cause more trauma to the person who's just received this information."

MADD has trained police officers in death notification since 1988. In 1995, the organization received a Department of Justice grant to develop a standardized notification training program. The group trains 700-1,400 police officers a year.

One of them is Sgt. Bryan Pearre, 36, a Maryland State Police trooper who took the training about a year ago. "It was very helpful," he says. "You learn to be sympathetic. Not to go in and be the tough police officer that society thinks police officers should be. You need to show some compassion, be sympathetic with the family. Tell the truth about everything, but do it gently, and don't try to sugarcoat anything."

Stewart says a death notification lingers. "Oftentimes, people will never forget the way they got the news," Stewart says. "If it's done properly, they'll be able to go through it and go on through the mourning process. But a bad notification can get in the way of them going through the mourning process. It can create a sense of ill will toward the person who notified them."

The notification ideally should be given in person, preferably by at least two people, so one person can stay behind until other family members arrive. Word choice is important: "You don't want to knock on the door and say, 'Did you have a child named So-and-So,' but instead, 'Are you the mother of So-and-So?'" Withers says.

Samuels says the way she was notified helped her deal with the death of her husband, who was killed one month before their second anniversary. "It sets a process in place," she says.

Mike Cage, 48, of Minneola, Fla., says he learned in a very difficult way that his daughter had been killed. He and his wife, Dawn, were asleep around 12:30 a.m. on Nov. 29, 2008, when a Florida state trooper rang the doorbell. "He said, 'There's been a terrible accident, you need to get to the hospital as soon as possible,'" Cage says.

He says the officer told them their daughter Ashley, 16, who had been riding with her sister, Heather, 19, had been taken to the trauma unit of a hospital in Orlando. Their daughters had been hit head-on by a drunken driver.

On the way to the hospital, Cage says, "The same Florida Highway Patrol officer called and asked where we were. I told him, and then I asked him where Heather (their other daughter) was. He said, 'I thought I told you. Heather didn't make it.'"

"We were screaming out, yelling," Cage says. "We just didn't believe it. All kinds of thoughts are running through your head. Now that we knew Heather didn't make it, we were thinking what if Ashley didn't make it, either?"

Florida Highway Patrol policy "specifies that notification of next of kin of persons killed or seriously injured in crashes is to be made in person," says Lt. Jeff Frost, a spokesman. "Troopers are provided training on making notification."

Ashley eventually recovered. Cage still hasn't.

"For us to be told that way was just uncalled for," he says.