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Editorial
Fallout from tragedies spreads wider in close community
Saturday, July 21, 2012 • Chris Taewa
The Gisborne Herald received an emotional phone call from a father involved in last Saturday’s tragic accident which took the lives of three of our young people.

It was not a father of one of the victims, it was the father of a police officer who attended it.

He told us his son had dealt with several deaths in the space of a week, including a suicide.

This proud and loving dad wanted to stress that the effects of these tragedies were far-reaching. He couldn’t imagine how dreadful it was for the families of those killed but he was experiencing the emotions of others in the fallout. And it hurt him, deeply.

It was a phone call interrupted with tears and apologies as he collected himself several times. Apologies, we told him, were totally unnecessary.

He spoke to us of how he struggled to comprehend the abuse his son copped in his day-to-day job. Of the duties his son had had to carry out in the aftermath of this parents’ nightmare — from attending the scene of such a horrific multiple fatality to that knock on the door every father and mother dreads; and every police officer never wants to do but knows they will probably have to.

In a small city like Gisborne, almost all of us can’t help but be pulled into such a tragedy. Six degrees of separation do not exist here. We would be lucky if we get past two.

We all know someone directly connected to those killed. We all feel at least a degree of their loss.

Rumours ran rife after the accident — stories intensified by that double-edged sword known as social media networks and exacerbated by media scrambling to be first with the news.

We can decry them all we want but for now our anguish and anger are better channelled into support for the families and friends of those still coming to terms with losing their loved ones.

And, as a father of a policeman swept up in this tragedy would no doubt appreciate, we should spare a thought for them too.
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