Toronto the good
Stories of kindness, compassion and courage emerge as the city struggles to come to terms with the unfathomable horror that unfolded in our midst
They checked for pulses, they performed CPR, they comforted the victims.
They were ordinary people who provided food and water to the first responders, who came together amid the carnage on Yonge St. on Monday afternoon with acts of selflessness, generosity and kindness.
These are but a few of them.
Bill Perivolaris
Perivolaris, a long-time TTC special constable, was heading to Yonge and Finch Ave. on Monday to respond to a “red alarm,” a silent alarm used for high-level emergencies triggered on a bus at the intersection, when he realized that the situation was far more serious than he had imagined.
“When I pulled around to the southwest corner of Yonge and Finch, I noticed that the fire truck in front of me stopped, and I saw all the carnage on the sidewalk, many bodies injured, bloodied up,” he told the Star.
Perivolaris and his young partner, who he was training that day, arrived at about 1:30 p.m., and immediately set to work administering first aid. “The first thing we’re trained to do is make sure there’s an airway, heartbeat, breathing,” he said. He started moving down the line, but realized the first victim he encountered, a woman, wasn’t going to make it. He had to move on to the next one, he said.
Perivolaris, who had been on shift since 5 a.m. Monday, ended up staying at the scene until about 7:30 p.m., moving down Yonge, helping people as best he could. When other TTC constables showed up, he helped in directing them.
“I’ve been on here for 23 years, and what happened was, in my mind, my training kicked in, and my years of experience kicked in,” he said.
“I was much too busy to think about what was going on other than to assist as much as possible and allow your training to do what you’re supposed to do,” he said.
“But when it was all over, after a 15-hour shift, and I went home, that’s when I started realizing the hurt, the type of effect it’s going to have on thousands of people in our great city.
“We had a lot of help there from a lot of citizens, just wonderful people.”
There were about 12 special constables and a sergeant on the scene at one point, supporting police, fire and EMS, said Mike Killingsworth, head of transit enforcement at the TTC.
“I sent a message out to the team yesterday saying how fiercely proud I am of them,” he said. “I don’t think the public ... realizes the contributions that all of my members, but especially my special constables, make on a daily basis.” Diego DeMatos DeMatos, a former flight attendant, and a friend were driving north on Yonge toward the GoodLife fitness centre at Finch. He was searching for parking when he saw the white van driving at what he esti- mates was up to 80 kilometres an hour. “There were two people standing at the corner waiting for the light to change to green to cross ... It all happened so fast. The lady got turned back into the building and the guy got thrown into the middle of the street and the van kept going,” he said.
DeMatos thought he had witnessed a hit-and-run.
His mind was racing, his body shaking. A few metres up the road, four or five more people were on the ground. Bystanders screamed. Some of the victims were moving. Others were not. The sounds of sirens started filling the air.
That’s when DeMatos heard someone calling for help. He saw a man attending to another victim who was lying in the middle of the street.
DeMatos’s flight training and experience had taught him to remain calm. He had once delivered a baby in mid-air.
He began CPR on the victim, but realized the man had died. “I could see there was nothing we could do. It was too late.”
A woman offered her scarf to cover the dead man’s face. Then the police, fire and ambulance crews arrived and cleared people away from the scene.
Since that time, DeMatos has been searching for pictures online to find out about the man he fought in vain to keep alive.
“I don’t know if it was the last minutes that he had,” he said, momentarily overcome with emotion. “It’s important to me.” Eric Chak He was heading back to his office near Yonge and Finch from a late lunch around 1:30 p.m. when he saw a person lying on the ground, face-down.
“I first thought it was a car accident,” said Chak, an information security analyst with Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. Then he saw many more people, some standing and others lying on sidewalks, stretching down Yonge. Seeing blood everywhere, he jumped into action. “Someone was already doing chest compression on one girl, and when I checked, there was no pulse,” he said.
There were at least five people on the sidewalk who needed CPR or help to “not choke on their own blood,” he said.
When first responders arrived, Chak stepped aside and watched in horror as the girl was wrapped in an orange bag.
After the emergency responders had taken over, Chak headed back to work.
“It didn’t hit me until late, when I kept drifting back to the scene and wondering whether I could have done more,” he said on the phone from his home near Newmarket, where he is now on an indefinite leave. Katherine Liu Outside of the Secret Garden Floral & Gift Boutique near Yonge and Finch on Tuesday, bunches of blooming flowers were set on the sidewalk. A sign amid the blooms read “With heartfelt sympathy! Please feel free to take!”
Liu, a co-owner, said the free flowers are a way to help “the world feel better.”
Liu said there are a lot of pedestrians on Yonge, and that many have been stopping to pluck a stem or two from vases and buckets on the sidewalk.
“They walk by and they just take a little flower,” Liu said. One woman paused outside the store, taking in the scene. She plucked a few stems before entering. Moments later, flowers in hand, she left wiping tears from her eyes. Jesse James As police investigators started combing through the wreckage and people around the world turned to the news for details, James called on his network of Christian faith leaders in the Willowdale area. At 8 Monday night, more than a dozen people gathered into the Puck n’ Wings bar at the northeast corner of Yonge and Finch, working on a plan to serve the spiritual needs of their community.
They organized a 1:30 p.m. prayer vigil Tuesday at Olive Square Park, and a 6 p.m. prayer walk near Mel Lastman Square. But they also decided on a longer-lasting contribution to pay tribute to the 10 people killed and others who were injured.
“We’re going to be playing music at Olive Square Park for the next 25 days — a day for every person who has been hurt, killed or injured,” said James, who is a member of the Spring Garden Church. “The goal is to turn our cries of sorrow into songs of healing.”
The music will be played each day at 1:30 p.m., the time that the attack began.
“The only instruction they have is to play songs of hope or songs of lament,” James said, adding while Christian faith leaders have initiated the project, they would like to see musicians or singers of other faiths.