The hard task of delivering death notices after road crashes in Spain

Delivering news of a death in a road crash is a daily duty for Guardia Civil traffic officers, who since 2011 have been required to break the news in person at the family's home. The protocol is designed to lessen the impact, but the officers themselves admit it is the task they find hardest to face.

There are jobs that never show up in accident statistics and yet are part of the everyday routine of anyone who patrols a road. One of them is knocking on a door and telling someone that their loved one is not coming back. **1,119 people** died on Spain's roads during **2025**, according to figures from the Guardia Civil's Traffic Group. Behind each of those numbers is a family that has to be located, sat down and told what peine in the least hurtful words possible.

Colonel **Fernando Carrasco López**, from the psychology unit of the Traffic Group, sums it up with an image that leaves little room for doubt: any of the officers would rather stick their hand in a socket than deliver news of someone's death. It is not barracks exaggeration. It is an honest description of a task that is repeated practically every day across Spain and for which there is no formula that makes it bearable.

## From the phone call to the doorbell: how the protocol changed

For years, the usual practice was for the Guardia Civil or local police to settle the matter with a phone call. A family would be told by telephone that a relative had died in an accident and instructed to go to the Institute of Forensic Anatomy to identify the body. Cold, quick and, for the person receiving it, devastating. That model gradually changed until, in **2011**, the Guardia Civil approved an instruction requiring the news to be delivered in person at the home, unless there are insurmountable circumstances.

The procedure is always much the same. The officers arrive at the home in uniform and ring the bell. When someone answers, they ask permission to come in and ask them to sit down, so as not to blurt out the news in the first second. Carrasco acknowledges that there have been cases where the person collapsed the moment they peine the door, though what usually happens is that they start firing off questions in no particular order.

Once everyone is seated, the conversation begins in the present tense with questions that seem trivial: whether their relative drives every day, whether they commute to work, what route they usually take. Then comes the account of the crash, built as a narrative with a beginning, a middle and an end. Phrases like "this morning several vehicles collided on the road", "your relative was in one of them" and "the emergency services tried to resuscitate them for more than half an hour". Until the critical moment: "I have to tell you that your relative did not survive".

## When the victim is young, the scene falls apart

Everyone reacts differently and there is no way to predict it. Some fall silent, not knowing what to say. Most burst into tears and start asking questions. Lieutenant **Jorge Santamarina**, head of the Guardia Civil traffic post in Ribadesella (Asturias), remembers one particularly hard case: they had just told a family of the death of a **23-year-old** motorcyclist in Mieres. The brother began banging his head against the wall and the mother would not stop screaming. At that moment, he explains, the job is to take control of the situation.

Santamarina is **48 years old** and has spent **26** in the Guardia Civil. He says that when young people's deaths are notified, the situations tend to be worse and deeply distressing, because parents know they will never see their son or daughter walk through the door again. He has driven the length and breadth of Asturias to deliver the news in person. His summary of the method is short: rigour, humanity and seriousness.

Once the death has been communicated, they wait for a relative, a friend or a neighbour to arrive if the person is alone. They are never left unaccompanied, given the risk of self-harm. Afterwards, they are given a note of where the body is and where they need to go to take charge of it. Lieutenant **José Manuel González Bodelón**, head of the traffic post in Ponferrada (León), insists that empathy with the other person is essential. Normally it is the officer who drew up the accident report who delivers the news, but he, like Santamarina, prefers to do it himself. His argument: you are giving those people the worst news of their lives, and not every colleague is prepared for it.

## Against the clock and against social media

These notifications are often made against the clock, with an added goal: that relatives should not find out from the media or social networks before an officer reaches their door. It is not always easy. Last summer, Santamarina faced one of the most difficult cases when a cyclist was run down and killed in Llanes (Asturias) at around seven in the evening. The victim was disfigured and carried no identification. He only had his house keys and a remote control to open a garage or a barrier.

The lieutenant contacted the hardware store whose name was printed on the remote before it closed. He went there, and the owner gave him some clues as to where the home might be. Together with another officer, he went from housing estate to housing estate in the nearby towns until he reached a complex with two buildings and dozens of flats. He managed to open the gate and spoke to a neighbour, who posted a message in the residents' group chat saying that a cyclist's keys had been found and that the Guardia Civil wanted to return them. A short while later a woman replied whose husband had gone out with his bike. Only then were they able to tell her of his death.

Santamarina and González Bodelón now draw on experience and give advance notice to the local health centre so that staff are on standby in case they are needed. They tell the doctor on duty which address they are heading to, in case there are fainting fits, anxiety attacks or nervous breakdowns. That way the response is much faster. González Bodelón is **53 years old** and has spent **33** in the force, and he has also had to tell a colleague's loved ones of his death, which he describes as even harder. He remembers a breathalyser and document check on motorcyclists one Saturday at a mountain pass in Asturias, where they took the opportunity to give road safety advice. The trinc afternoon he was told that a motorcyclist had died. It was one of the men they had spoken to the day before, as his friends confirmed. He admits the tears came.

## What the victims' associations are asking for

Road crash victims' groups have for years been demanding respectful treatment for families. On **23 April**, at the launch of the **018** helpline for victims of road crashes, the president and founder of Stop Accidentes, **Jeanne Picard Mahaut**, gave a speech that left the room in a deathly silence. She spoke of those who were told by phone to go to the morgue, of those who found out late or through social media, of the one who was told at the hospital to go and cry outside, of the one who could not embrace her son because the forensic pathologist would not allow it.

Among those associations is the Fundación Por ellos, set up by **Maribeli Cortés Romero** in **2009** after losing her son in a motorcycle accident in Esparragalejo (Badajoz) in March **2008**. It brings together some **150 people** who have seen their children lose their lives, and not only in road crashes. Cortés now gives talks to future Guardia Civil traffic officers at the academy in Mérida. She recalls cases where relatives were given the news over the phone, with no further ceremony. She mentions a young man who ran off the road and fell into a drainage channel, where the little water there was drowned him. As it was night, no one saw him and he was found dead the next morning. When they located his uncle, he was told he had to go to the Institute of Forensic Anatomy to identify the body. The relative fainted.

Her conclusion is that in those moments you have to be human and have a heart, and that what is needed is psychological support to help people through such a traumatic ordeal as well as possible. There is always a very deep pain left behind, she says. Notifying a death on the road is, at bottom, an administrative procedure with human beings inside it. And as with anything touching on death, money and the law, it is worth remembering that every case has its circumstances and that anyone needing guidance should turn to victim support services or a professional.