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 final story in the four-part series involving KHP death notifications. 

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

‘They know why you’re there’

Technical Trooper Nick Wright

Technical Trooper Nick Wright recalls a crash where a 17-year-old had been killed because a 16-year-old crossed into his lane and struck him head-on just before he was to exit. She was allegedly speeding and texting.

It was Wright’s first death notification in which he was the lead investigator. What Wright remembers most is the follow-up investigation a day or two later at a home where some of the 17-year-old’s family had gathered. Maybe 15 people joined around a dining room table – all of their eyes on him. He remembers the father saying he couldn’t sleep. The father was obsessed about how the girl came to be where she was when she lost control. Wright recalls them being a loving, forgiving family.

Now, every time Wright drives past the cross put up near where the two cars collided – it’s a neatly weeded roadside memorial, “I think about it,” he said.

In another crash, a young man had become intoxicated and was found in his wrecked SUV at the bottom of a steep embankment. After he died, Wright and his patrol partner pulled up outside the mother’s home. She was standing at the screen door. When she saw the troopers, she collapsed to her knees. “They know why you’re there,” he said of those moments.

He introduces himself the same way every time: “Hey, I’m Trooper Wright. Can I come inside?”

With the grieving mother, he remembers getting her tissue from the kitchen and maybe a glass of water. Still, years later, he can see her home. “I could almost draw the inside of her house.”

He was relieved when a chaplain showed up to help comfort her. He explains that when giving death notifications, he and another trooper go in as a pair. “We kind of pick who’s saying the words before we go there.” He’s been with the KHP for 16 years now. So he feels like he should offer to say “the words” to the loved ones if he’s with a less experienced trooper. It’s part of his personality, he said. He’s a greeter at church. “I’m kind of a people person.”

About “the words”: “You cut straight to the chase,” he said. If he’s notifying a young woman that her father has died in a crash, for example, he’ll say it as clearly and clinically as possible: “I’m really sorry to tell you, but your dad’s been killed in a crash.”

The reactions vary. Some loved ones pass out, some fall, some sob, some deny it, some get angry. Anything can happen.

 “You learn to talk to people,” he said. “You are greatly affecting these people’s lives.”

He remembers hugging a family before he left. Most people in law enforcement, he noted, don’t hug on the job. Still, he said, “You can’t be robotic. You just have to be a person to them. You are delivering the worst news to this person. There’s no good way you can do it. … I remember choking back tears.”