It’s early in the morning when we get called to an assisted-living home in Bay Ridge for a “PD assistance” – police in need of help. We check the computer screen for more information, but the only thing that comes up is the patient’s name and age: Hjalmar Havelund, 93 years old.

When we get there we see he has not just a room but a suite in the assisted-living home – a living room and bedroom connected by a little hallway. The cops are in the bedroom.

“What’s going on?” my partner Bronson asks the nursing staff.

They’re agitated and evasive. “He was fine last night, talking up a storm.”

“As usual,” another adds. They talk among themselves about how spirited he usually is, full of stories about his native country, his youth, his wife.

The living room part of the suite is neat and tidy, but this could be because it is unfurnished. The floor is spotless hard linoleum, the closet military-neat, as if ready to pass inspection, with three brown woolen suits hanging in a row. The garbage – paper cups and Styrofoam plates from last night’s dinner – is neatly tied and ready to be taken by the morning custodial staff.

A painted portrait of the patient in World War II military uniform hangs on the wall. I lean in. Norwegian military medals decorate his chest. Those same medals and an array of military certificates hang on the walls. The windowsills, dust-free, hold framed pictures of the patient: with his wife, dancing with his daughter at her wedding, with his grandson.

The staff tell me his wife passed away a year ago and that since then he’s been in and out of the hospital because of medical issues. Unable to properly care for him herself, his daughter checked him into the assisted living home.

“She pays for a suite,” I say.

They nod. “It’s not like she doesn’t love him. But, well,” they shake their heads. “It’s not like being home, is it?”

I figure we’re here to help Mr. Havelund to the hospital.

The staff cluck their tongues and shake their heads again. “He doesn’t like going to the hospital,” they say.

I learn that the living room part of the suite is unfurnished because he didn’t want to stay at the assisted living home. He wanted to go back to his own house just off 5th Avenue, by 86th Street, near all the old Norwegian bakeries and delicatessens. But his medical issues kept interfering; apparently his house is still empty, waiting for him.

I’ll need his health information, so I ask the staff exactly what his medical issues are, and write them down on my chart while Bronson goes into the bedroom to check the patient. When I’m finished, I go in, too.

Inside, there’s a bed, a bureau, and a chair. The bed is neatly made. You could bounce a quarter off the tightly pulled blanket – the corners are crisp and sharp. The fern on the windowsill has been watered.

One of Mr. Havelund’s bureau drawers is open. Rope lies coiled inside, a scissor nestled within the spiral. My eyes travel to the only other room, the bathroom, where the police and Bronson are.

A length of the rope is looped from the bathroom doorknob over the bathroom door. I walk in. The rope continues around Mr. Havelund’s neck.

A police officer is writing on a pad.

“He really didn’t want to go back to the hospital,” a young nurse shakes her head as she talks to the police. “I came in the morning to give him his breakfast, and found him like that.”

Ms. Klopsis is an emergency medical technician for the FDNY. This column details her observations and experiences on the job. Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of patients.