WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- Florence, South Carolina Police Chief Allen Heidler estimates about 30 minutes elapsed before seven law enforcement officers who had been shot could be rescued.
Four of Heidler's officers were shot, one fatally. Three Florence County deputies also were shot while trying to serve a warrant Wednesday.
The shooting is bringing back painful memories for one Triad resident. Beth Hutchens lost her husband Sergeant Mickey Hutchens in 2009. He was killed in the line of duty.
Sgt. Mickey Hutchens was a 27-year veteran of the Winston-Salem Police Department when he was shot in the line of duty on October 7, 2009. He died five days later.
Beth Hutchens says the Florence, South Carolina shooting hit her especially hard. It's almost the anniversary of her late husbands shooting. She also said the officer who was fatally shot in Florence, Officer Terrence Carraway, drew similarities to her husband. Sgt. Hutchens and Officer Carraway had both been in the force for nearly 30 years.
"Every time another officer is shot it's just like going back to the beginning again," Beth Hutchens said. "The other widows that I talk to regularly call it the club that no one wanted to be in."
There will be a wreath laying ceremony for Officer Hutchens next Friday. It'll be held on the date of his 'End of Watch,' October 12.
Beth says she wants it to be a small gathering - but says she wants to hold a large ceremony next year on the 10-year mark, to honor his legacy.
Beth says she has a heavy heart just thinking about the Florence tragedy. "It’s hard to understand, it truly is a blue family where everybody watches out and cares for one another so if you lose one part of the family everyone is affected and it’s a horrible situation."
Beth found a friend in Kim Murray after she lost her husband. Murray lost her husband, Sergeant Earl Murray, in the line of duty that same year: 2009.
“I mean for a week I never wanted to get out of the bed, this wasn’t the life I planned," Murray said. "I was going to grow old with my husband."
Sgt. Earl Murray worked for the Nags Head Police Department.
"Do you believe in the quote 'time heals all wounds?'" WFMY News 2's Jessica Winters asked Murray.
"No," Murray said. "I think time makes you accept it, and you learn to live with it, but does it really take the pain away? No you just learn how to deal with it.”
Both widows say it's a wound that's reopened every time they hear about another officer killed.
"There are those things that will trigger it," Murray said. "I cried yesterday knowing what the family in Florence is going to go through now."
Kim agrees with Beth, there's an entire 'blue family' - a family that will show unconditional love and support in these painful times.
"We're not in law enforcement, but we're married to law enforcement so we're in the blue family, so when one of them hurts, we hurt for them."
Murray said the grieving process has no timeline. And sometimes there's no rhyme or reason to it. It just is, what it is.
"The first year was a blur, the second year I felt like - 'Hey! im getting my feet back on the ground,' the third year my feet washed out from under me, the 4th year I thought I was doing good, but then the fifth year was the hardest of them all, I don’t know why."
Kim Murray is the President of the North Carolina Concerns Of Police Survivors, otherwise known as 'COPS.' She says it might be her calling to help others who are grieving the same way she is.