’86 CRASH SURVIVOR
Words of hope for Humboldt families
Patrick Nogier was at home — watching hockey, of course — when he learned of the Humboldt Broncos’ bus crash on April 6.
It quickly produced flashbacks as he re-lived his own personal experience of some 32 years earlier.
Nogier, now an inspector with the Saskatoon Police Service who has dealt with tragedy and the loss of life through his job, survived the Swift Current Broncos bus crash in 1986.
Nogier also went on to play for the Humboldt Broncos organization one year after the Swift Current crash. As it turns out, he has a connection to Saskatchewan’s two Bronco teams involved in two of the worst hockey bus tragedies in Canada. The most recent one, just a little over five weeks old, has resulted in the death of 16 bus passengers and turned so many more lives upside down.
The hockey world is so intertwined and so are these two bus crashes.
It just so happens that Nogier’s Melfort-based brother was a coroner for the Humboldt bus crash.
In yet another twist, the daughter of Bob Harriman (who was the RCMP first responder for the 1986 Swift Current crash and the billet dad of Nogier’s former Swift Current Broncos teammate Bob Wilkie), was one of the ER trauma nurses working that April 6 night when the Humboldt Bronco accident victims came in.
Obviously, this crash has hit close to home on many levels.
“Right away, you remember and you go back 32 years,” said Nogier, who, along with other Swift Current bus crash survivors Bob Wilkie, Peter Soberlak and Sheldon Kennedy, has spent time meeting with the victims, their families and first responders since the April 6 accident.
“You just start thinking about the same type of things that these families and kids are going through — and at a much higher level. I can’t even comprehend that, and that’s the most difficult part for me. OK, we lost four of our teammates (Trent Kresse, Scott Kruger, Chris Mantyka and Brent Ruff died in the 1986 crash) and all the struggles that some guys had in the years coming, but, what this (Humboldt) team went through, it’s just a whole other level.
“And then I found out my brother was a coroner (at Melfort) and the difficulty in dealing with the mass casualties and identification, and all those sorts of things that came as a result of this. It had a huge impact on our family.”
Nogier says he was able to move on from his ordeal in 1986 with the support of family and loved ones, as well as by continuing on in the sport of hockey and eventually becoming a law enforcement officer.
He felt a need to offer his help following the Humboldt accident in any way, shape or form.
“It’s one of those circumstances where you just feel you’ve got to do something, ‘what can I do?’” he explained. “I just wanted to offer the assistance to the families from somebody who’s been through it. There’s light at the end of the tunnel. It seems really dark and grey. There are going to be different experiences moving forward and people just want to talk about it. That’s why we were there, and, of course, to offer any other assistance as far as from the Saskatoon Police Service.”
And it’s also helped Nogier himself deal with it.
“In some weird, kind of strange way, it was almost therapeutic being involved in some sort of fashion,” admitted Nogier, whose son, Nelson, and daughter, Danielle, both play hockey. “Whether it helped people or didn’t, it just felt good to be there for them to some degree.”
Nogier accompanied a group who visited victims at the hospital in Saskatoon. He attended the vigil in Humboldt. He also paid a visit to Nipawin. He met with families and first responders.
“The biggest thing was, and I noticed that almost immediately, is that we’ve advanced in society and we have the ability now to offer much more support mechanisms,” said Nogier.
“Not to point fingers or place fault, but 32 years ago, within 24 hours, we were jumping in our cars and going home just to be with families because we didn’t have the mental health and mental well being and all those support mechanisms that are in play.
“If you were walking and talking, you were good to go. I remember getting in a car and it took me five-and-a-half hours to drive, by myself, from Swift Current to Saskatoon, because you’re just scared. You don’t want to travel fast and there’s so much uncertainty about things because you’re thinking about what just happened, that you’ve lost four of your friends and four of your teammates. Is the season going to go on? Is the season done? What’s going to happen for my hockey? Am I done? All these conflicting type of messages.
“If it wasn’t for having support mechanisms and family mechanisms in play to help you through all that stuff, who knows where you’d be today? Look what Sheldon (Kennedy) went through. To end up where he’s ended up today is truly astonishing and remarkable.”
...Normal will change. It’ll be a new normal and it’s something that you have to go through and it’s something that you have accept and adopt as part of your framework.
MESSAGE OF HOPE
Nogier has messages to share for those directly and indirectly impacted by the Humboldt Broncos’ bus crash tragedy.
No. 1: Keep moving forward. “The key message I will tell people — and I was asked about the continuance of the (SJHL) season — that the most important part of this and it kind of gets back to having support mechanisms in place is that, if you don’t put your next foot forward and try and get to as close to a normal life as possible, you will always chase it and you probably won’t get to it.
“And normal will change. It’ll be a new normal and it’s something that you have to go through and it’s something that you have accept and adopt as part of your framework now and, if you can get around that, then life becomes pretty damn good again but it’s not going to happen overnight.”
Nogier also shares an analogy that somebody else gave to him.
“It’s a hockey analogy: You take a shot and you know you’ve done some damage to your ankle, but, if you keep your boot on, you can play through the third. You play hard and get through it, but, as soon as you take the boot off, you can’t walk for three weeks.
“The boot’s on right now and that boot is going to eventually come off. It’s how quickly you can get back to walking again.”
The recovery process is slow. During the 32 years since the Swift Current crash, those memories come to the forefront every once in a while.
“It’s really kind of sporadic. There are going to be things, throughout this process over the next 30 years and longer, that trigger it again. For instance, when the book Sudden Death came out and your name is mentioned and then, all of a sudden, you have colleagues approach you and say, ‘I didn’t know you were on that bus.’
“I’ve never been one to go out there and tell a story. Those who are close to me knew and those in hockey circles knew but there were a lot of people who didn’t know.
“Obviously when you get something of this magnitude, you have people reaching out to you.”
Nogier agreed to share what he has learned from his own experience. Part of that is talking to people and not keep it inside.
“It helps to talk about it. That’s another thing that I’d say to families. Tell your story. Whatever story you can come up with and put a good spin on it if you can and, in the end, try and use it.”