BAD LIFE CHOICES BRING ON FAST DEATH

The Grim Reaper marches through the land. Whose son or daughter will he
take from the fields of the lush, towering foliage of life? Tonight, one
fewer voice is heard, one fewer person sits at a family's table. A young
man slumps as he is shot standing on a street corner. Hurriedly he is
rushed to the trauma center where I work.

Everyone rushes to try and revive him from the damage of the gun blast.
They work frantically doing everything they can, working so hard to save
someone even with the most remote of chances of surviving. Alas, the doctor
shakes his head - the patient is gone.The hospital chaplains stand outside
the family room comforting and consoling the relatives. The young man's
body is rolled away and put into a body bag.

I see this scene from week to week in the emergency room. I wonder time
after time who is next. Who is the next young man or woman our city will
lose? I plead with you, young man or young woman, do not use drugs. Do not
even think about getting into a lifestyle like that. Sometimes you get into
something in life and it is almost impossible to get out. "It won't happen
to me," you say. That's probably what the one lying in the body bag said, too.

And the families. I wish I could show young men and women the faces of the
mothers and dads crying and screaming, falling on the floor in agony when
the doctor tells them he did all he could but was not able to save their
child. Sons and daughters, would you like for that to be what your mother
and dad go through upon hearing you died from a drug deal gone bad?

Quick, fast money from drugs eventually can cause a quick, fast death. Find
a better way in life, things that really mean something - a home, a family,
a job and doing something you enjoy like fishing, swimming, baseball or a
family get-together.You will last longer and will be able to stay out of
jail. Find a church and get right with God. I write this to help some young
man or woman avoid losing his or her life violently. You can die before
your time.

The fast life is a fast way to nowhere and a fast way out of this world.
The hospital dispatcher just radioed me to 10-44. I know what that means
and I slowly make my way to a room. I unlock the morgue and several nurses
and other staffers put the young man in the cooler. The morgue cooler boxes
are cold and clammy and no one moves once you are there. When that cooler
door closes there is no way out. They lie there on a cold slab of steel in
a body bag, lifeless and motionless. They cannot speak, cannot call for
help; their mortal bodies lie forever still.

Death can come quickly when you are on the wrong territory. It can happen
anywhere, that is true, but it is a whole lot more likely to happen when
you are not where you are supposed to be and you are doing things you
aren't supposed to be doing. Guns and drugs and blood and tears. Will you
be the next one for whom I unlock the morgue?