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One week ago today.
My neighbor of 30 years, walked out onto his front lawn, stuck a gun into his mouth and shot himself. I was watching the future markets on CNBC with my inner front door open, heard a crack, and saw him fall over. I ran over thinking he'd had another stroke. I saw what he'd done so I held his hand and talked to him, he was still alive. He stopped breathing, and I debated with myself about 10 sec. if I should let him go, but I started cpr and he miraculously started breathing again after about 20-30 seconds. My daughter was standing in the middle of the street(we live on a dead-end) with 911 on the phone, telling them he started breathing again. His name was Randy and he was 57; he'd had a rough 12 years, losing his wife to cancer, his step daughter(whom he helped raise) to kidney disease and his prev. stroke was slowly destroying his mobility. To his credit, he always worked in spite of his disabilities, mowed his lawn, and cleared snow with occasional help from some of us in the neighborhood. After a long 7 minutes, EMT's arrived, and I turned him over to them. Randy lived until the next day and was able to donate his organs to help others. We think now that's why he did it on the front lawn.
RIP Anthony and Randy. Suicide is brutal.
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One of the downsides of the Internet is that it allows like-minded people to form communities, and sometimes those communities are stupid.
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