WHAT THE BRONCOS LEFT BEHIND.
EMOTIONAL TOLL
The scene of Friday’s Humboldt Broncos bus crash has been described as “chaos” and a “valley of death,” where moans of the injured pierced the air and young players everywhere were covered in blood.
But for the paramedics, firefighters and police officers arriving on the scene, it was a work site, requiring them to set emotions aside in an effort to save lives.
Days later, with the death toll at 15 and four others in critical condition in hospital, emergency personnel are struggling to deal with the horrific visions of death and suffering. And unlike in the anonymity of a big city, it felt here like the victims were family.
Jessica Brost, a paramedic from nearby Nipawin who was among the first on the scene, knew as soon as she got the call about the accident that it was the bus carrying the Broncos to their game in Nipawin that night.
It was “just too close to home, especially in Saskatchewan,” where everyone is either a billet, obsessed with hockey, or the parent of a teenage hockey player, she said in an interview.
With nine years experience as a paramedic, she is no stranger to tragedy, but she said the impact usually diminishes over time. “With this, I’m just worried that the tragedy is just too grand, that it might be overwhelming,” she said.
Her colleague Lyle Moffatt, who had just retired after a long career as a paramedic, was called back into service Friday. He believes he will need counselling to recover from what he experienced Friday, but even knowing that, he said he would not have opted out of the call.
“We’re paramedics on and off duty and I will always consider myself a paramedic,” he said. “These are our kids. I’ve got kids that are the same age as this.”
It is estimated that hundreds of people, from emergency room nurses to passersby who came across the accident and stopped to help, came face-to-face with disaster that night.
The Saskatchewan Health Authority, which oversees hospitals and ambulance services in the province, has encouraged employees affected to access counselling available.
“We have had a significant number of staff from multiple communities respond in various ways to the bus crash incident,” Health Authority CEO Scott Livingstone said in a message to employees Sunday.
“It is important that you take steps to protect your own health and well-being in the wake of this incident.”
Doug Lapchuk, president of the Saskatchewan Volunteer Firefighters Association, said his organization has sent peer counsellors to help members of the Nipawin and Tisdale fire departments. Firefighters from the two towns were involved in removing victims from the mangled bus, he said.
Responding to a bus filled with young hockey players would have hit close to home, Lapchuk said.
“I’m sure that a lot — 90 per cent or better — of our volunteer firefighters in the province either have kids in hockey or have played hockey themselves,” he said. “Saskatchewan is not a real big province. Chances are you’re responding to someone you know, or a family member of someone you know ... I’m not going to say the stress is greater, but it puts an extra level of urgency.”
He said firefighters today are more likely to seek out psychological help on offer.
“The philosophy in fire services is starting to change from, ‘I’m a big tough firefighter. I don’t need help’ to where they are realizing that help is needed,” he said.
Renée Jarvis is president of the Canadian Critical Incident Stress Foundation, a national organization that supports first responders involved in traumatic events.
“Unfortunately there is never a magic eraser that will erase any of these visions or memories that we deal with,” she said.
“The challenge in the coming days, weeks, months, maybe even years is just trying to find a way to process it and to be able to comprehend what has happened and know that they did the best that they could at that particular time.”
John McPhaden, a Tisdale crane operator, was
THE CHALLENGE ... IS JUST TRYING TO FIND A WAY TO PROCESS IT AND ... COMPREHEND WHAT HAS HAPPENED.
called to the crash scene Friday to help with the “poor young fellows” who had not survived. He used his crane to hoist the bus’s roof, torn off on impact with the tractor-trailer, so that the first responders could reach the four or five bodies buried beneath the debris.
On Monday, McPhaden said he didn’t feel changed by what had happened; he felt sorrow for the dead — and for the living, saddled with memories they may never be able to shake.
“The poor first responders, them guys — they were the ones getting the people out of there, they were the one who were making the decisions — and that’s the story you should be writing about,” he said.
Brost, the paramedic, is experiencing symptoms she never has before in her career. “There’s just times where you just start shedding tears, it’s kind of difficult to concentrate, (you) can’t hold a thought,” she said. “It’s remaining raw … I don’t see that healing anytime, or that open rawness closing up anytime soon.”