BALTIMORE COUNTY — Two days after Christmas in 2001, Lynne Perry was driving home when she got a call from a co-worker of her husband's. He told her to come to the Perry Hall precinct and that something had happened to her husband.
Widow of fallen Baltimore County police officer helps others navigate grief
"That's when he said, 'Lynne, Mark's been hit, Mark's been injured,' is what he said.
And he's in shock trauma. We need to take you there," says Lynne.
Sergeant Mark Perry, a Baltimore County cop, was injured in a hit and run by a drunk driver in Towson.
"Essentially the entire left side of his body had been damaged," says Lynne.
"He had a broken hip, broken femur, but the most worrisome of all of it was the closed head injury or TBI, as they call it."
Lynne got a neighbor to sit with her 3 kids, greeted the police chief and the countless nurses and doctors at the hospital.
"I bet mark had been in shock trauma close to 1 hour then when I finally got to see him and hold his hand," says Lynne.
"And all they could tell me was, that he had been alert enough to squeeze hands, but there was no verbal response."
After weeks in the hospital, Mark died during an emergency surgery. Lynne was left to raise three young children.
"To the fact that we weren't alone... I mean, the police department tells you that. But as a family you're, you know, that's our blue family, but as your red blood family it was all new to us, and you do feel so alone, and I remember being so again so focused on our children that because it's such a public loss that they were like in a fishbowl, and I know how hard it was for them; all three of them struggled with that. In addition to the fact that our home life was no longer what it had once been," says Lynne.
In the years since his death, Lynne joined the concerns of police survivors. She's worked to help other grieving spouses get through the tough moments of loss.
Now Lynne makes sure to attend Fallen Heroes Day, even participating in an annual bike ride to raise money for concerns of police survivors.
"Honoring Mark was a day-to-day goal, you know, to never have his memory as a father, as a brother, as a son, as my husband never overlooked, and I believe that to this day that's a privilege that I get to carry—to have him not forgotten," says Lynne.
This year, Lynne will return to the place her husband is buried to continue grieving and help others going through the same process she has for years.
