AerialFire Magazine July/August 2020

In this business, if you make it through your career without losing someone you know, consider yourself very fortunate. It is even worse when the people you lose are close friends or even relatives.

A few weeks ago, I received news of the worst kind. A friend in California called that afternoon to tell me that one of my friends didn’t make it home. My buddy Roscoe died in a fatal crash. The loss made that much harder as it took the lives of two linemen in addition to him that he had been carrying as human external cargo.

The loss of Roscoe hit me like a brick, as he was one of the genuinely amazing friends I had that woke up every day excited to be alive and even more excited to fly a helicopter. A passion that recently secured his ultimate career goal after he secured a pilot position with PJ Helicopters. This job was not only his end goal, as it would lead to an aerial firefighting role but put him closer to family in Northern California.

The unfortunate side of being one of the first to know about the loss of a friend in the age of social media is racing the clock to let other friends in your group know what happened before the news hits Facebook. Such is the love/ hate relationship I have with the social media juggernaut and people’s eagerness to talk about a crash.

Just a few short hours later, randomly scrolling Facebook and trying to comprehend Roscoe’s loss, I see a post from someone in Alabama praying for the well-being of the officer shot in Moody, Alabama. My heart immediately sank as one of my close friends serves as a sergeant in that department.

I immediately text his number and sent a screenshot of the post just asking him to check in when he could to let me know he was ok. I knew something was up in my gut as he was usually lighting fast to respond to texts. Still, given the circumstances of a shooting, I knew that things could be chaotic based on my own law enforcement experience. I

waited another hour before I started texting other friends in our group, worried it could be him.

It would only be another 30 minutes before my worst fears were realized. Confirmation came that Stephen was indeed the officer killed after responding to a domestic call at a Super 8 motel where the offender opened fire with a rifle through the wall, giving him no chance to react.

With all the hate directed towards law enforcement lately, you would think that all cops are bad. Stephen, however, was to law enforcement what Roscoe was to helicopters. He was a ‘cops cop.’ He was the guy you could come to with all your problems, and he would help you solve them. He was the kindest guy you could ever meet in or out of a uniform.

His kindness for those he served as a police officer, only surpassed by his love for his new wife Michelle and his grown boys. One in the Coast Guard Academy, the other recently graduated, now headed to his first duty station.

I took solace in the fact that although it was a crushing blow to lose two amazing friends in one day, that a week prior I had dinner with Stephen and Michelle and the last thing we said to each other was “Love you, man” as we hugged it out before we went our separate ways.

I missed that chance with Roscoe, our last conversation on Snapchat being the universal hilarity of mocking one of our other friends via meme form.

This loss has taught me that you should never miss an opportunity to connect with those who make your life better, be it through shared life experiences, humor, or caring, those people can be gone in the blink of an eye. Don’t skip that call, text, or email. It could be your last.