CALGARY TRUCKER TIED TO BUS CRASH
City firm ordered shut during investigation, as horror hits home for first responders and the nation continues to rally support for grief-stricken Humboldt
He’s a good guy . . . I don’t know what’s wrong over there, why this went wrong for this guy.
They are the unsung heroes of an unthinkable tragedy, a collection of men, women and youth whose quick thinking and selfless actions brought comfort and warmth to the dying, and saved the lives of more than one.
On Tuesday morning, Jessica Brost and her team of fellow paramedics have just wrapped up a meeting after the most challenging few days of their careers serving the people in their quiet corner of northeast Saskatchewan.
“Our debriefing was great,” Brost says as her colleagues, Dustin Baker and Ken Kirk, briefly pop out of their building in Nipawin for some lunch takeout. “It’s hard to discuss with most people … you don’t want to traumatize the next person.”
When it comes to the heroes of the Humboldt Broncos team bus tragedy on Friday, though, Brost isn’t talking about the scores of professional first responders that descended on the crash site to treat the injured and recover the dead.
“They didn’t sign up for it,” Brost says of the several people who were already on the scene when her ambulance pulled up on the quiet stretch of highway just south of the town where she lives with her husband and two small children.
Just by bringing blankets to cover those on the ground and in the wreckage of the bus, Brost says, they kept the death count of 15 from climbing even higher.
“It was cold enough that they were all hypothermic,” says Brost, an advanced care paramedic with 13 years experience as a first responder. “Who has that many blankets in their home? I don’t know.”
Some of those called to duty by fate and circumstance were friends, family and fans of the team, following the bus up the road as it headed to a Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League playoff game against the Nipawin Hawks. Only minutes from the town, whose name translates to meeting or waiting place, the bus collided with a semi-trailer at the intersection of Highway 35 and Highway 335.
Joining them in the desperate race to contain the carnage were residents of farms that dot this beautiful part of the prairies, along with other passersby.
Soon, more than 80 people would be working diligently, side-by-side, to triage the living and get them to hospitals. They consisted of police, fire and EMS — from front-line workers to managers who normally oversee their organizations’ daily work from the comfort of an office chair.
Brost and her colleagues couldn’t have known that at the end of a “slow day” and the start of the first full weekend of April, she’d be grabbing old colour-coded triage cards, a tagging system used for multiple casualties, as she raced to join fellow first responders from neighbouring towns.
Having heard the number 35 and that a semi had collided with a bus, she was well aware that it was going to be a night unlike any other. Still, the shock of what happened still leaves her at a loss for words.
“Unfortunately, you didn’t need as many ambulances as you thought you would,” she says, her eyes tearing up at the still-fresh memory.
The initial first-responders — the ones who never could have imagined being pressed into such a heartbreaking mission — saved lives, and in more ways than one.
Having respectfully covered some in a manner that signified they were dead, she and those other professionals were able to quickly ascertain who was beyond saving. “You weren’t distracted by that,” she says, her voice choking, “so you could move on to someone who needed your help.”
After a couple of days off to regroup and spend time with family, she and her colleagues are leaning on one another for support — not that there is any shortage of help from others far and wide.
“I think we got 30 dozen doughnuts,” she says of the many food gifts dropped off at their white building just off Nipawin’s main drag. “We’re going to do some continuing care and I’ve got a flood of emails from people offering their services.”
Still, on this day, her thoughts keep turning to those regular people who were earthbound angels in those chaotic moments after the crash.
“I’m quite shocked they were able to carry on despite such tragedy, but they soldiered on,” she says, adding she hopes they also get the emotional and mental-health support she and her colleagues are receiving.
“They are the true heroes.”
I’m quite shocked they were able to carry on despite such tragedy, but they soldiered on.