Retirement and death

[Falconis]

I had a discussion some time back on this subject. I was curious if anybody here could state how many people they know of died within 5 years of retirement.

I know from my department, it was a very high number that was going that route for a while. It seems to have slowed down a bit, but I was wondering if other agencies were experiencing a similar trend.

[Ron-Solo]

It is still common.

Sadly, it is guys who stay too long because they spent too much time at work, and ave nothing to do after retirement.

An academy classmate just died the other day, and he could have retired a couple of years ago. He died the day before his scheduled retirement took effect.

[Sideline Shooter]

I was told by a background investigator that FBI statistics showed a police officer in the US usually dies within 7 years of retirement from a 30 year career. Add 2.7 divorces also. Yikes! That was late 1990's info.

[Falconis]

sideline, how many annually within 7 years?

[Falconis]

@Ron, yeah I know what you mean. I remember we had one guy that could have retired last century while I was still working there. His excuse literally was, he was afraid he would keel over the next day.

[retired]

A little OT, but Ron, I didn't realize he was a classmate of yours. I don't know how well you knew him, since, as we both know, we often times drift apart from academy classmates due to the size of the dept. In any case, my condolences.

As to the OP's question; I went to 5 deputy funerals within a 12 month period from 2010-2011. All people I had worked with or for and all within the 5yr. retirement period.

I worked with one deputy (not one of the 5), who was dead within 6 months of retirement. He had worked that particular station from its opening date (14yrs. IIRC). He was divorced and for whatever reason (s) decided life was no longer worth living and ate his gun. He was a great deputy and a good man and it was unfortunate that he made that decision.

Today is the 10th anniversary of my retirement and thankfully I am still here; a little worse for wear, but still here.

[RickD427]

It is still common.

Sadly, it is guys who stay too long because they spent too much time at work, and ave nothing to do after retirement.

An academy classmate just died the other day, and he could have retired a couple of years ago. He died the day before his scheduled retirement took effect.

Ron,

Condolences, his death also took me very much by surprise. We worked together for many years at Lennox Station.

One of the best pieces of advice that my father offered to me was that if you refer to yourself by your working title, he was an aerospace engineer, you're not ready to retire. When you get to the point that you identify with something else (like being a fisherman), then you're ready. The retired LEO's that have lasted the longest all had some other passion that kept them going. Even when retired, you still need a reason to get up in the morning. The real benefit to being retired is that you just don't have to get up as early in the morning.

[Ron-Solo]

Today is the second anniversary of my retirement. I've been so busy that I didn't realize how quickly time flashed by. We've put 40K miles on the car, and there was no commuting to work involved in those miles either.

On another note, the retirement board is going to hear my disability case on Wednesday. Only two years and three months since I applied. Thankfully, I had enough years in for a regular service retirement. If they approve it, I'm buying a new gun to celebrate.

[Plinyyounger]

I'm out in two years and plan to live til 90! Exercise and beer! And a few extracurricular activities. No stress long life! Can't wait to take care of grand kids!

[Bobby Ricigliano]

I bought as much ARC time as I could afford (3 years and some change) I have about 11 years left and will call it a day. I take my job as seriously as the next guy but I will gladly hang it up and look at California in my rear view mirror as soon as possible.

[Falconis]

A little OT, but Ron, I didn't realize he was a classmate of yours. I don't know how well you knew him, since, as we both know, we often times drift apart from academy classmates due to the size of the dept. In any case, my condolences.

As to the OP's question; I went to 5 deputy funerals within a 12 month period from 2010-2011. All people I had worked with or for and all within the 5yr. retirement period.

I worked with one deputy (not one of the 5), who was dead within 6 months of retirement. He had worked that particular station from its opening date (14yrs. IIRC). He was divorced and for whatever reason (s) decided life was no longer worth living and ate his gun. He was a great deputy and a good man and it was unfortunate that he made that decision.

Today is the 10th anniversary of my retirement and thankfully I am still here; a little worse for wear, but still here.

That sucks. When I wrote this, I had the natural causes thing more in mind just because suicides seem to happen at complete random in our profession more often than not.

[diverwcw]

I'm going into my third year. Seems to me the secret I always heard is that you don't retire from something, you retire to something. I make several road trips and have activities that occupy me through the year. I visit my daughter in Arizona and go to Front Sight quite frequently.

Life is good.

[9mmepiphany]

When I came on 30 years ago, the first milestone was 6 months...for the folks who retired because of failing heath.

The figure they quoted at that time was 50% within 3 years...so I guess you could say things are better.

My academy class was 12 officers out of 14 that started, 4 of us have retired and 3 are still on the department. I've been out 5 years and haven't had any horrible health problems...but I'm getting a bit bored.

I had a co-worker, at my last assignment. who also planned to live til he was 90. He had his bills in order, had a lot of outside activities, his job didn't define him and had just gotten married (2nd time). The only thing he complained about was neck pain. He was dead within 3 months from stomach cancer...there just isn't anyway to plan

[desertexplore]

IMHO- 3 main factors- Diet, exercise and stress both DURING your career and afterwards.

And consider this- we Firefighters die from cancer a lot faster than the cops after retirement.

[Watchur6]

We have had quite a lot of deaths in the last 2 years, more than i can count.One of the recently retired was playing with her grandchildren and suffered a heart attack, passed away right in front of them. She had been retired for about 18 months. Take care of yourselves, mentally and physically.