Country star Tyler Rich said he will “never unsee” the image of a young man’s body he discovered while jogging on New Year’s Eve.
“My heart breaks for this poor young man,” the 34-year-old wrote in an Instagram post. “This will be an image and moment of my life, I’ll never forget.”
Rich explained he was a little more than half-way through a planned four-mile run at around noon when he saw what he thought was a homeless man sleeping in a wooded area of Chicopee Memorial State Park in Massachusetts.
“He was on his stomach and had a bag tied around his foot and was faced down,” Rich recalled. “After running around him, I felt bad for him … so I turned around and went back to check on him.”
Rich realized the man, who he figured was aged 18 to 25, was not breathing and his face was covered in fresh blood.
Rich said he rushed up a steep hill and found a couple who let him use their phone to call police. He remained on the scene and provided statements to investigators.
The singer said police found a gun in one of the man’s hands, suggesting it may have been a suicide. “Knowing he wasn’t there discarded by someone else, and that he was there where he wanted to be, will at least put me a little more at ease,” Rich admitted.
In a follow-up Instagram post, Rich said he was able to speak to the man’s mother. “She told me the last text he sent was at 11:11 am,” he said, adding that when he stopped to check on the man, the running app on his Apple Watch showed his average pace was 11:11. Last September, Rich released the album Two Thousand Miles, which includes the song “11:11.”
Rich said he believes he was in the wooded area “at the exact time I was supposed to be, to find that young man … I truly believe his spirit led me down that random side of the mountain to find him.”
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