WHITEHALL, OH (WCMH)–Fifteen years ago, Angie McDowell was going through a similar grieving process as five Dallas spouses are facing.
McDowell said there is more than just the death of your spouse to deal with. You have a family to care for and bills to pay, and life goes on.
Her husband, Whitehall Officer Terry McDowell, was killed on August 24, 2001 while serving a traffic citation. His partner, Eric Brill, was shot in the face but survived.
“At that point I had been a stay-at-home mom for 8 years. He was the sole breadwinner, and the first thing I thought about was, ‘oh no, how am I going to pay a house payment? I don’t even own funeral clothes,'” McDowell said.
She started Get Behind the Badge, a group focused on the immediate needs of other widows, months after her husband was murdered.
“In this day and age I am dealing, every time I have a line-of-duty death, or an officer and firefighter who dies, on duty or in the line of duty, it brings me right back to 2001,” she said.
The group’s goal, McDowell said, is to help officer’s widows and widowers pay their bills. She knows–she said she’s been there.
“By giving back to the families it starts that healing process allows them to get through the funeral process/ allows them to start their journey,” McDowell said.
For her, the fund-raising group kept her focused. She was able to get through the firsts — anniversaries, holidays and birthdays.
“I had to make sense of what happened that day in 2001, and in order for me to make sense of it I had to be able to turn something horrible into maybe something positive,”she said.
Within 72 hours, McDowell says, Get Behind the Badge helps those families with $5,000 in line-of-duty benefits to pay immediate bills and funeral expenses. She said she hopes 2016 is an anomaly, with five first responder deaths locally.What others are clicking on: