Coroner's Journal by Louis Cataldie Page A

The smell of cooked human flesh only becomes more intense when we disengage the two little corpses from each other. No one says a word—the furrowed brows and grim facial expressions say it all. The corpses are handled ever so gingerly—a last act of guardianship over these bodies. It’s about honor, respect, and spiritual values.
    The little bodies are stiff and hot to the touch. It appears as though the brother was indeed trying to protect his sister. They are frozen in time, like the bodies at Pompeii consumed by Mount Vesuvius when it erupted.
    The little girl is not as burned as the boy. His body and a pillow offered some protection to her. All of us want to think that he was trying to protect his sister. It’s part of trying to lessen the horror for her, hoping that someone would champion her, since her mother obviously had not done so. Maybe it is the responders wanting to think that deserted kids somehow get by taking care of each other, or wanting to think that the little girl received some comfort, hope, a semblance of protection that made her death less horrific for her. Maybe it’s just that everyone needs a hero and we all tend to look for one. The Hero with a Thousand Faces comes to mind. I don’t know. It is what it is.
    We will never really know. I can only imagine the fear and horror these two babies must have gone through. I envision them trying to get the door unlocked and then having to retreat to the corner of the room. Screaming for their mother and dying there in the corner, just a thin glass pane away from safety. What is that . . . a half-inch? A quarter-inch of glass away from being burned alive? Questions that will never be answered come to the forefront of my thoughts, but the big one is: Why? A quarter-inch and they are out of harm’s way. It’s like being tormented or taunted—such a violent, undeserving ending. In that split second, questions that span the time of our existence on this planet rush forth—questions of religion and spirituality. But . . . deal with it later. Back to work, Cataldie!
    We pick them up, put them in the child body bags, and take them to the van. There is something innately wrong with even having child body bags. That always bites at me.
    We call it decompression. A term we took from deep-sea divers. When you are under so much pressure for so long, you need time to decompress before you go back into your real world or into your “normalcy.” So, like a diver, you need to come up slowly and stop at checkpoints to adjust along the way back up. Our checkpoints might be going to the Waffle House to talk before going back home. It’s a way of trying to leave the job at the job. In reality it just allows you some functionality. You never totally leave it—“it” being the job and some horror or tragedy you just dove into and came out of. Decompression helps, because if you don’t decompress the pressure builds, and the explosion is released, accidentally, sideways on an innocent target. Let me give you an example. I have a really rough day. I walk in the door. De asks me: “How are you, sweetheart?’
    And I blast her: “ What the hell do you mean by that. I’m shitty. Get off my ass!” I just vented sideways. If you don’t decompress, by talking about it and processing it, it all goes underground and comes out in suicide, addiction, divorce, gambling, extramarital affairs, fighting, and other risky behavior. Critical incident stress debriefing is a similar tool whereby responders gather up after the incident and just share what they saw, heard, smelled, felt, experienced. You don’t have to talk. But you have to go. The only way to take the stigma out of a cop or fireman seeking help sometimes is to make it mandatory—that way you don’t appear to be the weakest link. There is a social worker to facilitate the process.
    It’s about midnight when I get back home. Sleep is