And now for something completely different

Let me preface this by saying I think it's a terrible thought to have and I feel guilty thinking about it. I'm not trying to devalue these circumstances. But while Philosophy classes waste time on rhetorical questions we'll never have to answer, I consider how we would deal with things that could actually happen, however unlikely.

A couple summers ago I heard of a boating accident involving a seventh grader from the next town over. The child had jumped off the back of family's speedboat without knowing the propeller was still running. Her hair became entangled and she was dragged into the blades. It was a fatal accident.

When I heard about this I pictured the scene of the accident. I imagined the transition from careless fun to pure terror. There would be a moment of confusion right in between. But somebody had to look over the back of the boat to confirm it.

I hope it wasn't one of the kids. If a parent had looked over they would have, though emotionally devastated, made sure the siblings didn't see it. Something like that could scar a kid for life. But if a child did look over first, the parent would have looked too anyway. They're not gonna take their kids' screams as confirmation of fatality. I guess I'm just saying I hope as little people as possible had to see it.

But what I always wonder when this thought crosses my mind, is what the family did at that point. When something awful happens at a kid's sporting event the child will be whisked away in an ambulance and the parent will ride along or follow. When something terrible happens in your own house you'll call 911 and all sorts of uniforms show up. If someone has died, the cops will direct you away from the body as the paramedics load it into a body bag and bring it to the ambulance.

In both of these cases there's an act of finality. The body is taken away. I don't think people appreciate that action. What would it be like if someone didn't take the body away?

That's what I think about. What if there was no one else on the lake when this accident happened. The family witnesses the tragic slaughter of one of their own and then what? Do they just drive away? Do they wait for someone to show up? Do they call 911 when they know she's clearly dead? Do they bring the body into the boat?

In moments of death our instinct is to fight for survival, be it ourselves' or others'. Rarely do people calmly assess sudden mortality. Even after all hope is lost we look for something we can do for the victim. We close their eyes, we clean them off, cover them up and lay them in a respectable position.

I just wonder what it felt like to not be able to do any of that. The circumstances of that boating accident have made me think a lot about how we react to death. I've never really experienced the death of someone close to me (I'm not close to many people) so it's something that intrigues me.