Officer oversaw the campaign for defibrillators in police cars
One evening in September, two Ottawa police officers arrived at a 911 call to a downtown gym where they found a 39-year-old man in cardiac arrest. While one officer helped with CPR, the other connected the automated external defibrillator that is carried in all Ottawa police cruisers and administered a shock that probably saved the man's life.
Det. Const. Bruno Gendron wasn't at that call, but he deserves much of the credit. Gendron, who spent 17 years as a paramedic before becoming a police officer, was the man who oversaw the campaign to equip and train Ottawa police with the life-saving devices. He even testified before a parliamentary committee about their effectiveness.
Cruelly, there was nothing that could save Gendron when the married father of two collapsed last Thursday of a cardiac event of his own while mountain biking in Larose Forest near Casselman. He was 47.
“He was a big champion of defibrillators,” said friend Danny Cyr, who worked with Gendron as a paramedic and also made the jump to Ottawa police. “He was the go-to person for that. He was very passionate about it, clearly because he'd spent so much time as a paramedic.”
Gendron grew up in Rockland and started work as a paramedic in the early 1990s. Looking for a career change, he made the jump to the Ottawa Police Service in 2009.
The police service called on Gendron's experience when it wanted to place the AEDs in all its cars. He oversaw the program even after he moved to the traffic unit as an expert in collision investigation and reconstruction.
Curious and technically minded — he was the first officer trained to be a drone pilot — he earned a reputation as a thorough and meticulous investigator.
He also seemed to know everyone, everywhere, in part because of his friendly, gregarious nature, but also because of his deep connections in Ottawa's amateur hockey scene. He was a passionate player, referee, coach and president of the Eastern Ontario Cobras Hockey organization.
“He was such a happy-go-lucky guy. He knew everybody and he was friendly with everyone,” said Cyr, now a constable with the RCMP.
Const. Josée Harris, Gendron's partner in the collisions investigations unit, marvelled at the seemingly random nature of his acquaintances.
“He knew everybody,” Harris said. “We'd go to a call and I'd say, `OK, Bruno, we'll just go in and out.' Then he'd meet the friend of a friend or the father of one of the boys on his son's hockey team and he's start chatting.”
One person who fell under his charm was Nadine Filion. The two had known each other in high school, but their romance began while Gendron was a client in her family's Rockland hair salon. They were married in 2003 and have two children, Mael, 15, and Ivana, 21, Nadine's daughter from a previous relationship.
The COVID-19 pandemic means Gendron's funeral will be private, but a celebration of his life will be livestreamed on Thursday at a link to be provided in his obituary.