Outside Magazine

On August 6, 2017, police cruisers raced down blacktopped country roads in Tupper Lake, New York, to Haymeadow Road, their sirens piercing the tranquil summer day. A medical emergency had been called in from just over the village line, and the address was immediately recognizable to anyone in local law enforcement: it was the home of an off-duty sergeant and his girlfriend. That day, nearly every officer in the Village of Tupper Lake police department, which employs 11, had been at the station putting together a search warrant. Soon, close to a dozen officers—village police, state troopers, and even an officer from the environmental-conservation police—swarmed the home and began working on their unresponsive 27-year-old colleague, sergeant Matthew Dana. Despite their efforts, no one could revive him and he was soon pronounced dead. They were all left wondering: What exactly had gone wrong?

Obituaries made brief mention of Dana’s sterling reputation around Tupper, as some locals call the town. In high school, he played on the Lumberjacks football team and worked as a stock boy at the supermarket, then as a pharmacy assistant, before setting his sights on law enforcement. (Under a photo in his high school yearbook, his nickname reads Dana, PD.) Residents I spoke with remembered Dana as a rising star who specialized in anti-narcotics work and some expected him to be the next chief of police. He and his closest friends hunted rabbits, fished for northern pike, and occasionally practiced shooting at the Tupper Lake Rod and Gun Club. The club’s president, Dave McMahon, said that Dana took his job seriously and took an equally serious approach to fitness, which made his sudden death all the more unfathomable. “It was hard to understand what happened, why it happened, and so on,” McMahon said. “It was just a real unfortunate accident.” Some wondered if maybe he’d gone overboard on energy drinks or supplements.