For crash victims’ families, the moment of truth about the worst

Part of a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper’s job is notifying next of kin when a person dies in a car crash. One trooper remembers a mother collapse in a doorway. Another caught a mother crumpling to the floor. This is the third story in the four-part series involving KHP death notifications. 

Watch Trooper Dryden's video and read the story below.

‘Don’t beat around the bush’

Master Trooper Joel Dryden

Master Trooper Joel Dryden reminds himself that a death notification is prompted by an event so sudden, it’s not as if the loved ones can prepare for it. Families have so many questions about how and why it happened. They might keep asking the same question. “They’re still trying to make sense out of it. You don’t always get answers, and that’s also hard to deal with,” he said.

After about 17 years with the Highway Patrol, death notifications remain the hardest part of the job, Dryden said. He patrols Harvey County.

With experience, he decided he needs help dealing with a family. Chaplains are a big help; they assist by bringing in relatives and others who can help.

The academy instructs troopers, “Don’t beat around the bush,” he said. “There’s no way to say it that it’s not going to hurt,” he said. He uses words that are clear and to the point: like “killed” or “died,” not long phrases that delay the news.

He has a strategy when he goes to a family’s home: Coax them into the house, get them to sit down. But sometimes they don’t want to sit. “It’s like they know – ‘As soon as I go and sit on the couch, this is real,’ so there are some who really resist hearing the news.”

Once, he was getting ready tell a mother that her young adult son had died. She wouldn’t sit down, was “kind of forcing me to say it.” And as she stood there, “Just immediately her body went limp,” and all he could do was try to brace her as she sank to the floor. They just sat there.

“You end up putting yourself in their shoes,” he said.