It was late 2012. A man had been found dead in his home. It was clearly suspicious yet nobody had pieced together exactly what had happened. Our radios came to life once more and informed us that there was a fire in a large detached house. We raced to the scene.
Upon arriving I noticed a large house completely ablaze. The London Fire Brigade (LFB) were arriving at the same time as us. A neighbour ran toward us screaming that their was a man trapped inside. A few of us entered the house, with LFB, and dragged a screaming man out of the house.
He was badly burnt all over. I could smell his burning flesh. He was still conscious and begging us to let him die. I'll never forget the way his white skin had burnt away revealing the muscle underneath. We applied burn packs to help the wounds but the male had to be restrained as he tried to pull them off. Flames were still licking up the windows in the house as the LFB tackled the enormous fire. Luckily, there were no other houses around the property which could have been effected. The LFB did a fabulous job that day. We didn't know that the male was trying to kill himself. We thought the fumes had caused him to become delirious. I was with him, with a large team of firemen, paramedics and police for about 30 minutes as we restrained this badly burned man so that he could be appropriately treated.
He died from his injuries later that day.
As it turned out, the male had recently broken up with his partner and that morning had travelled to his home and stabbed him to death. He had then gone to his own home. He had poured petrol everywhere, sat on his sofa and set fire to his house.
People often think of suicide as selfish. I don't. These people are in crisis and desperate and need help. Nobody will ever know exactly what that young man was thinking that day (he was only 23). Whatever he was thinking was not normal and he destroyed two young lives in a matter of hours. He also gave me something to think about, as well as a lot of other Emergency Responders.
Anonymous Bobby
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