Deputies a Comfort in an Emergency

I want to remind Santa Barbara how lucky they are to have wonderful people serving in the Sheriff’s department. The police in the U.S. get so much bad press, but I was very grateful for the comforting yet professional way your men handled the emergency of my husband not responding one Sunday.

It must be a horrible part of their job to stay in the room and comfort a spouse in total shock, disbelief, and despair. They did not order me not to kiss my husband goodbye, but they gently told me that it was normally not permitted and that his body would have tubes down his throat from survival efforts. I felt gently and expertly guided to a choice, as the memory of how he looked when I tried to wake him was traumatic enough.

Then the Sheriff’s department chaplain arrived and was a wonderful comfort. How lucky you are to have such a man, whom I later learned is a volunteer.

Because we are from out of state, my husband’s body had to go to the mortuary, devastating to a spouse. Thanks to a detective named Chad (I do not know his last name), who helped me call our family doctor for my husband’s medical history, we were only in limob ’til late Monday afternoon.

The quality of any team reflects their leadership. Thank you all.