A life, ended.

I’ve watched a lot of people die. More people than I care to count honestly. In my former life in Emergency Medicine, you almost got used to it. Most of the time, it was a mere formality, watching the line on the monitor go flat, and with it, a soul slipping away. It was routine. Print out a strip, hand the run sheet to the charge nurse, hit Starbucks on the way back to the station.  Just one of a dozen calls that day.
 
Then there were the times where you arrived to a living, breathing, talking human being, and delivered a corpse to the hospital. Those stuck with you. Those were real.

But yesterday, I watched a life end. There was no trauma, no heart attack, the line didn’t go flat.

I sat in a courtroom in Orange County, and watched Andrew Gallo’s life end.

51 years to life. 51 years to life for the deaths of three people in a hit and run DUI crash.

A 24 year-old who will spend the next half century in jail.

A lot of my life is viewed in black and white, through the viewfinder of the camera, disconnected from reality. Tunnel-visioned in on the task at hand. Cut-aways, B-roll, audio, no time for emotional investment. I bear witness often, but rarely testify.

Yesterday was different. I was only there to run a live shot, which wasn’t going to happen for hours. I took the last empty seat in the back row, next to a friend, furiously scribbling notes for her story. I was directly behind Gallo, a clear view up the aisle. I became oddly fixated with the sign “defendant” on the table in front of him.  His foot twitched, nervously tapping up and down. I f as the families of his victims fought through the tears, pleading with the judge to sentence Gallo to the maximum sentence allowed. I caught slight glimpses of his face as he turned away. He motioned often to the Bailiff for tissue. His foot continued to twitch. I kept reading my friend’s notes.

The trial had played out in the media. I had seen Gallo many times before, but never in person. The prosecutor, the judge, the families of the victims, all characters in a tragic reality show played out a minute and a half at a time.

People I didn’t know sobbed about victims whose names were familiar, but I had never met. It echoed through the courtroom. The young man in front of me buried his face in his hands, openly weeping. I pondered his connection to the victims. Stories that had no meaning to me, of childhoods, laughter and dreams painted a picture of three people, anonymous before today. I hung on every word.  I still didn’t know who they were.
Gallo’s foot twitched. I kept watching his foot. Did anyone else see his foot?

His life was about to end. It was only a matter of time.

I started to think about what was going through his mind. He sat there, “defendant”. A life in prison only moments away.  What is he thinking? Life in prison. I studied his blue dress shirt. The last dress shirt he would ever wear. What can he be thinking? I kept glancing out the window, maybe in my own desperation to cherish the world outside, knowing that all it would take is one bad decision, and it could be me, “defendant.”  What would I be thinking if I knew my life was about to become a 6 foot square box for the next half century?

The Judge allowed him to address the court, to apologize to the families.  I listened in soundbites. My personal biases keeping me from absorbing a single word. It was the first, and last time I would ever hear his voice.

Then, the executioner’s blade fell, “51 years to life in prison.”

The sobbing from the gallery overwhelmed the silence. He stood, the bailiff shackling his wrists, and he was led from the courtroom, disappearing through the door, heading for a life in prison.

I watched as a life came to an end.