Solved Murders - True Crime Stories - Facing Fear The Story of Missing Help at Gunshots and Healing Past Trauma #46

Starting point is 00:00:00 A few years ago in Los Angeles, I was jogging in a park called Echo Park. It's a beautiful, newly renovated lake and park near my house. Apparently it used to be shitty but the neighborhood is mid-gentrification. I was jogging in the park at midnight which was my normal time. It's usually just me, the homeless people, and some drunk kids. That night I was listening to music from my phone speakers. I wanted to be able to hear my surroundings when about 20 feet. to my left, up a little slope, I heard bang, bang, bang. My first thought was fireworks.

Starting point is 00:00:37 Our neighborhood had fireworks going off half of the year. Then two cars started to drive away fast, their tires squealing. Could that have been gunshots? I had a pit in my stomach and I thought no. I kept jogging. After 15 seconds I stopped and I started to think maybe someone got shot. But I was too scared to go back. I also didn't know if the cars driving away were the shooters or the people getting shot at. I kept thinking that it would be so embarrassing to go back if it was nothing. I stood a few hundred feet away and looked back to where I heard the sounds, I saw no one and heard nothing. I waited and waited. It felt like forever.

Starting point is 00:01:20 No one screaming, no one making any noise. I should go back. The police will be here soon, right? An ambulance? Finally, I saw the lights of a fire truck and ambulance. They went right to the place where I heard the bangs. I ran back and I saw a glimpse of them performing CPR in the back of the ambulance as they drove away. It became one of those things that kept me up at night.

Starting point is 00:01:47 Why didn't I go help? Why didn't I help? Why didn't I help? I was scared, obviously, but that wasn't good enough. My friend said obviously you didn't run towards gunshots. Sure most people shouldn't run towards gunshots, but I had just left my job as an EMT working 911 calls. The only reason I left that job was because I had injuries and I got Lyme disease. And when I was an EMT, all I wanted was to get a shooting call.

Starting point is 00:02:18 That or something cool like a stabbing you know. Not like someone with the flu or a fender bender. I never got that cool call, but one time we were doing CPR on a dead homeless man with elephantitis. I was in charge of the resuscitation bag and I slipped for just a second and when they pushed down on his chest his vomit sprayed all over my face and into my eyes. The alpha male mentality of those kinds of jobs is tough. I tried talking to my partner once after a particularly rough call but he didn't want to talk about feelings. I became an EMT because I wanted to help people. Not for the stories.

Starting point is 00:02:57 But gunshots while I was on a run felt different than when I was on the job, in a uniform, in an ambulance, with a partner, showing up with lights and sirens, and prepared to do that kind of work. I couldn't shake the feeling that maybe I could have helped. I was right there. I could have held an artery. Whether or not I should have helped, I couldn't figure out why I cared so much. Why was this eating at me?

Starting point is 00:03:23 I started to question myself. Was this me wanting to be a hero? Because on one hand I thought it would have been cool to come home with blood on me after my run, shocking my roommates. I think it's most people's mentality, maybe men more than women, but we want to save someone's life. You would feel like a superhero. But on the other hand I was glad I didn't go, I was already in trauma therapy for my own shit, more trauma was not going to help me. My father was shot when I was nine. He was driving home from the office in the middle of the night. His car was boxed in and he was shot by the Italian mob.

Starting point is 00:04:02 They killed him because he fought back when they tried to steal his business. He tried driving to the hospital but only made it a couple of miles before he crashed into a pole and died. I remember being told before school. The way I remember it I got up and asked to go play roller coaster tycoon. I either wanted to block it out or I didn't understand. I talked to my mom about it a while later and she said that when she told me, I actually ran away screaming. From when I was nine all the way up until today, I wonder what he was thinking about during his drive to the hospital. Was he thinking about my brother and I? My mom. I've always been pissed at him because when my mom left him he treated my mom, my brother, and I like shit, physical abuse and threats to

Starting point is 00:04:48 try and get her to come back. That darkness isn't the focus of this story. But maybe he was driving to the hospital holding a gunshot wound and he was sad. Maybe he realized he wouldn't get a chance to ever apologize or make it up to us. Maybe he died sad and alone. That hurts me. I unknowingly learned medical skills to help people like my father. It took me an embarrassingly long time to connect my shame of not helping the guy in the park with my father's death and how I wish someone was there to help my dad when he was alone, dying in the dark. I think about the guy in the park and I wonder if he had kids.

Starting point is 00:05:27 What if I could have helped him and his kids wouldn't have to wonder what their dad thought as he was dying? But I was too afraid to run towards the gunshots. My plan is to run towards the gunshots next time, maybe that was first time jitters, but we will see, won't we? The end.

Solved Murders - True Crime Stories - Facing Fear The Story of Missing Help at Gunshots and Healing Past Trauma #46

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