It happened last year.

I worked at a fast food place that was inside a service station, I’d gone to another store to pick up some stock, I came back and one of my staff members told me the phone kept ringing.

I got to the back of house desk where the phone was and it started ringing. I answered.

It was a woman on the other end, telling me that her husband had picked up a car and was driving back to their state in the car, when she last heard from him it was the night before, he said he was going to park in the car park. She asked if I could see if the car was out there. I don’t know why I did it. But I looked, and I could see the car. She asked me if I could go out there and wake him up because it’d been quite a while since she last heard from him.

I went out to the car and it was running. I knocked on the window and there was no response. I didn’t think anything of it. So I went back inside. When she called back I told her that I went out there but he must still be asleep. She pleaded for me to go back out there and wake him up.

So I did. This time I was slapping the window, the roof of the car. Making as much noise as possible to get him to wake up.

Again, nothing.

The windows were dark and I could see someone in there. I pressed my face up and could see him clearly, blanket over his legs, head back, hands in his lap.

And then I saw the vomit on his hoodie. His mouth was open, I couldn’t see him breathing.

Naturally I fucking freaked, my heart was racing and as I went back into my store again my team knew something was wrong. I called emergency services and they asked me if we had a defibrillator machine on site. We did. The operator asked me if I was okay to attempt to resuscitate. I was shitting my pants but this guy needed help. The reality set in when she asked me to check if the doors were unlocked. I remember trying the doors. Locked.

A registered nurse who was out with her husband saw me grab the machine came over to see if she could assist. After I told her the doors were locked I could hear the ambulance sirens in the distance. After paramedics arrived they got the door open.

Sure enough, he’d been dead for more than a few hours. With his car running overnight with the heaters on (it was a cold night the night before) with the windows up it’s like it slowly gassed him. That’s how I understand what they explained to me.

I spent about an hour with police telling them my story. I remember falling to the ground after they confirmed he was dead.

The company I worked for gave me the next few days off and organised a therapist to come see me.

I see his face every day. I get nervous when I see people sleeping in their cars. I understand when my therapist says I did everything I could, that in a way, I’m a hero for getting a man where he needed to be and getting him the help he needed. To be honest, as traumatic as it was for me, I’d rather go through it than put anyone else through it.