Patrick Allen McCartin

Patrick Allen McCartin was a construction and heavy equipment worker from Redding, California, who spent his career on job sites across the country and, in his later years, made his home in Columbia, South Carolina. He was not a celebrity or a public official, and no Wikipedia page exists for him. He is remembered here because his obituary, published through the South Carolina Cremation Society in West Columbia, reached readers searching for his name after his death on October 11, 2026, at the age of 69.

McCartin was born on September 5, 1957, in Redding, California. According to his published obituary, he spent his working life in construction and heavy machinery operations, a trade he took evident pride in. His obituary describes a man who loved being on the job site, who built long term friendships with the people he worked alongside, who enjoyed running heavy equipment, and who liked giving his grandchildren rides on the machines he operated. Friends and family remembered him as someone who, in his words as recorded in the obituary, played hard and lived harder, a stubborn and sometimes grumpy presence who will be missed by the people who knew him.

McCartin's family life was marked by both loss and continuity. He had already been preceded in death by his son Dallas McCartin, who died in 1983, by his mother Alice McCartin, who died in 2004, and by his father Richard McCartin, who died in 1971. He is survived by a son, Carson, and a daughter, Dianne, along with four grandchildren named Zachary, Sierra, Serenity, and Delilah. The obituary does not name a spouse or partner, so it is not publicly documented whether he was married at the time of his death.

McCartin died on October 11, 2026, in Columbia, South Carolina. His cause of death has not been made public in his obituary or in any other published account. The obituary does note, in an unusual and tender detail, that his dog of ten years, named Me Too, died only nine days before him after the two of them were diagnosed within about a month of one another, and it refers to both of them being freed from pain associated with lung disease. That language has led some readers to wonder whether McCartin himself had been living with a serious lung illness in his final months, but his family has not issued a separate statement confirming an official cause of death, so it should be treated as unconfirmed.

There has been no wider public reaction of the kind that follows the death of a well known figure, since McCartin was a private individual known chiefly to his family, friends, and coworkers. His funeral arrangements were handled by the South Carolina Cremation Society's West Columbia location, which published his obituary and guest book online so that friends and extended family could share condolences and memories.