The Victims of Suicide
Yesterday I found myself caught in a traffic-jam. No movement took place for almost an hour.
The cause? Read and see for yourself:
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/02/man_struck_and_killed_on_rt_78.html
Man struck and killed on Route 78
by George Berkin/The Star-Ledger
Thursday February 07, 2008, 9:52 PM
A 42-year-old Westfield man was killed on Route 78 in Hunterdon County today when he got out of his car and was struck by a dump truck, State Police said.
David W. Gorczyca was driving east in Lebanon Borough about 11:15 a.m. when he pulled over and stopped his 2005 Saab on the right shoulder of the highway, Trooper Steve Kempinski of the State Police barracks at Perryville said.
NJSP and emergency personnel on the scene of a fatal accident where a pedestrian was struck on Rt 78 Eastbound at mile post 20.4 in Lebanon.
For an unknown reason, Gorczyca got out of his car and went onto the eastbound lanes of traffic, the trooper said.
The victim was then struck by a 1995 Mack dump truck driven eastbound by Edward J. DuBoyce Jr., 37, of Hackettstown, the trooper said. The victim was struck at mile marker 20.4, the trooper said.
Gorczyca was pronounced dead at the scene. No additional details were released by State Police.
I'm reminded of so many suicides found and discovered by others... stories told to me that made me shiver and cry.
I'm reminded of the suicide attempts found and brought to a hospital for repair and recovery.
I'm reminded how little we know, sometimes, what goes in the mind of those not looking past the here and now.
I'm reminded there is a simple fact-of-life people tend to forget: for each body lost, there is a person who found and saw the end result.
Suicide -- could there be a greater, sadder loss to be found by a loved-one or complete stranger?
Does that image ever go away for the ones left-behind?
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How did it feel? As the cord
How did it feel?
As the cord pulled tight.
Did you feel at peace?
Or put up a fight.
Hung by the neck,
Suspended in space.
Grotesque swollen tongue,
A blue marbled face.
That’s what you left
For me to find
Embedded forever,
Scarring my mind.
Hiya Kerry, just reading your post made me physically hurt and confirmed to me that the hurt and confusion when a loved one kills themselves never, ever lessens. Over time the thoughts and images stop bombarding you daily but the moment a thought of it is triggered the pain of it is as strong as the day it happened.
Does the image ever go away. NO. I think Ive told you this before but I have a horrible fear of wind chimes (those dangly things people hang from doors and windows). My fear is so bad that I wont shop in the town centre incase I bump into one in a shop window. (crazy I know). My sympathy goes out to the mans family.
Flashbacks
For the longest time, I couldn't eat pizza or tomatoes, because they would remind me of fresh wounds. I learned to develop a sick, twisted sense of humor to help me with the grief that builds inside. It helps, but doesn't erase the reality behind the stories.
I believe this is a topic that needs to be discussed, desperately, because those images, sounds and smells don't go away. I believe they get embedded in our life, and ressurrect themselves by simple unrelated life-events.
The article I included does not mention the Other Victim... the truck driver who saw the eyes and face of the man standing, in the middle of the street, waiting for it to be over.
How does a person get rid of that memory?
scary
It's scary dipping into that unknown, and not knowing what will be found on the other side.
You know it's scary and creepy, but you also know it has to be done. Maybe a life can be saved; maybe not. But something has to be done to clean the mess. Someone has to clean the mess. It doesn't clean itself, does it?
Witness to the scene
Fatal I-78 collision haunts truck driver
'All I could picture was this man's face,' Ed DuBoyce Jr. says of pedestrian he struck.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
By TOM QUIGLEY
The Express-Times
LEBANON | Ed DuBoyce Jr. feels like he can't wake up from a horrible dream.
The moments leading up to Thursday's crash when a Union County man ran in front of DuBoyce's dump truck as it rolled down Interstate 78 are still crystal-clear.
"I tried to go to bed last night and all I could picture was this man's face," he said.
DuBoyce of Hackettstown said three dump trucks were ahead of him in a small eastbound convoy heading to a construction site.
One driver noticed what appeared to be a disabled car on the right shoulder and radioed the other truckers, DuBoyce said.
"We all pulled over to the center lane as a courtesy," he said.
DuBoyce said he noticed the man putting his jacket in the trunk of the 2005 Saab.
"Our eyes met and he just ran into the middle lane," a shaken DuBoyce said Friday, a day after his rig struck and killed David W. Gorczyca, 42, of Westfield, N.J.
"I'm just at work," DuBoyce said. "Just driving along on another fine day."
DuBoyce -- whose late father drove trucks until his death about two years ago -- said he swerved the fully loaded truck to the left to avoid hitting the man. It happened in seconds, he said.
"I locked up my brakes and was part way in the fast lane," he said. "But everywhere I went he was right there. I almost dumped my truck trying not to hit this man. He would not let me."
DuBoyce said he didn't understand what was happening.
"I was horrified," he said. "I couldn't believe it happened."
He believes Gorczyca committed suicide.
When asked if Gorczyca intended to kill himself, a sergeant in the New Jersey State Police Perryville station said the investigation to determine what happened is still continuing.
DuBoyce -- a truck driver for seven years -- said he recently put his late father's truck in his own name and obtained his Department of Transportation number and certification.
"It was the proudest day of my life, I could help my mother pay her mortgage and help my family," he said.
But the 37-year-old DuBoyce said he's not sure if he can get back in the truck when state police return it to him.
He said police also took blood tests. He said he uses neither drugs nor alcohol.
"I have a clean record, I never had an accident," he said. "I hit a deer, but that was back in 1989 I think. I never had to put in an insurance claim."
He said his family recommended he seek counseling and he intends to take that advice.
"It's like a horrible dream I can't wake up from," DuBoyce said. "I'm just lost. I wonder how the man's family is."
Reporter Tom Quigley can be reached at 908-475-8184 or by e-mail at tquigley@express-times.com.
This car accident reminds me
This car accident reminds me of many friends I have lost, due to car accidents. Some were accidents, others were intentional suicides. I was told I'd find a way to make peace with the losses, but I never really allowed anyone in to know how many losses there were.
Each death-count and story I read reminds me of those who didn't make it.
I was told "things will get better", but they don't. There are creepy reminders that keep the ghosts of the past in place. Only I know those ghosts include a family that may or may not be still living. There are ghosts to a childhood I lost and tried to escape, but escape never worked. I would always be found by the phantoms that followed me.
Death has it's own weird time-table with me that doesn't change. We're born, shit happens, we die. I don't understand why someone would want to impose MORE shit on another person, unless they have a lot of hatred inside them.
There's nothing elegant about a body in mangled bloody pieces, left for someone to discover and clean. It's like saying to the next person, "I left this for YOU to figure out, asshole".
Left-Behind
I had an uncle who was found by his wife, in the basement of their house. I was in High School at the time, and although suicide as an attempt was nothing new to me (a cousin had tried several times, but failed each time), "success" was a new twist to the story. It was said he had left a note for his wife and daughters telling them the news of an illness was too much for him.
He was scared, so he took control of the situation, before it was too late.
I don't know who took the body down. I just know how traumatizing that must have been for his wife. I'm sure she would have rather have tried to take care of him if he was seriously ill, but he didn't leave that as an option.
Looking back, I wonder if he thought he was sparing her the cost of high medical bills.
The sure as hell gives new
The sure as hell gives new meaning to deadbeat dad!
I used to think it took a lot of courage and bravery to kill yourself. I mean, inflict so much pain on yourself, knowing it was going to kill you? That's insane. But now I'm seeing how suicide is really a coward's way of saying "I can't handle my problems, so I'm just going to end them all".
It's also really sick to think how money is often at the root of these situations, too. If you don't have money, life isn't worth keeping? Worse yet, is how deep this gets because so many lives are lost to adoption and foster care simply because one person has money, and the other doesn't.
Money can't buy happines, but it can damn well save lives.
Pay-Back's a Bitch
I found two articles that are worth mentioning, because they relate to the dynamics of depression and it'll side-effects on a relationship between two people.
The first is a description of a study done on the stress of debt:
The second portion comes from a recent easy-to-read article about couple's spending habits:
Looking at these articles, it's easy to see how an unexpected illness or injury (or dare I say "pregnancy") affects the financial troubles and emotional tear-downs of so many.
Depression and how it kills
I remember when I was younger, and I wanted to tell my a.mother about the abuse that was taking place in our house, she stopped me before I could say anything and told me, "I would die if I knew your life was less-than perfect".
Enter the guilt and shame of what I wanted to discuss, and thus ended my part of that discussion because it became all about her and her need to be perfect.
That conversation has haunted me many times, and all the so-called perfection and the silence and seclusion that went behind it was driving me crazy. She knew, and she wanted to be protected from the reality she helped cause. There wasn't enough money in the world to take away the pain inflicted on me, but I had to be the brave little soldier for her sake.
Suicide seemed like such a good answer to pay her back for her refusal to see the damage, but knowing me, I'd fail and have to live with the misery of inflicting such torment on the woman. She just wasn't worth the effort, because either way she would be the victim.
I'd be damned to let her be the victim in my pain.
Oddly enough, my anger towards her has kept me alive, but killed our relationship.