Letter: Thought-provoking death

EDITOR,
There’s no way to make this lighthearted. I write to relate an event that still gives me pause, because it has happened in our town before. On March 14, I was turning home from a run up Bear Creek Road at its intersection with Highway 9. I glanced left as I rounded the bridge abutment, headed south, when I noticed a crumpled body under it. The jean-clad man was clutching something in his right hand, his backpack look like it had been rifled, and — when I felt him, he was stone cold. A passer-by gave me his cellphone for 911 and told me the man’s name was Eric Someby. He said Eric lived under that bridge but he had not seen him for a while. The sheriff’s deputy remarked that he must have been there for at least 12 hours because of the pallid skin and body temperature. Apparently he died of exposure or heart attack. I never found out what. I looked in the paper for mention of his passing. Nothing. Or maybe I missed it. I don’t know. But no one ever called me about him. I know life goes on and we all have issues. But death alone under a bridge, feet and seconds from passers-by, yet no one to help, really got to me. Not that I could have done anything. But the fact that this happened among us should give us all pause. Life is precious. There, but for the grace of God, go I.
Phil Johnson, Boulder Creek
Editor’s note: Mr. Somedy’s obituary was published in the March 30 edition of the Press-Banner. His full name was Ethan Grey Somedy.