Back in the saddle on the long road back
Former NCO fights debilitating PTSD, now she’s co-captain of Invictus team
Retired master corporal Natacha Dupuis is once again leading soldiers.
Eight years after losing two young troopers to a roadside bomb on her first day of command in Afghanistan — an incident that caused post-traumatic stress, depression and anxiety — Dupuis will serve as co-captain of Team Canada at this year’s Invictus Games.
For Dupuis, 38, of Gatineau, Saturday’s opening ceremonies in Toronto will mark an important milestone in her recovery. “I think this is going to close another loop,” she says. “My first task as a leader ended up finishing in a tragedy … I want to prove I can be a good leader. I’m very focused on this role and supporting my teammates.”
Canada officially ended its 12-year mission to Afghanistan in March, 2014. But for those veterans whose bodies and minds were irrevocably damaged, the price of that conflict continues to be paid. The struggle to come to terms with their new normal is fought every day.
Dupuis is one among thousands of Canadian soldiers who returned with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In recent years, it has been associated with alarming rates of domestic violence and suicide among Afghan vets.
Dupuis’ experience with PTSD, however, reflects a more common path: Hers is a story of anguish, isolation, recovery and coping.
CHAOS AND HORROR
Natacha Dupuis grew up in Longueuil, and knew from the age of 12 that she wanted to be a soldier.
She joined the cadets and, at 18, enlisted. She qualified as a tank gunner — “that was my dream job,” she says — and later as a gunner, driver and surveillance operator on the Coyote armoured vehicle.
She deployed to Bosnia, then Afghanistan. In 2008, she agreed to another tour of duty with the Royal Canadian Dragoons.
Dupuis was assigned to Forward Operating Base Frontenac, near Kandahar. In March, 2009, after being promoted to master corporal, she was put in charge of her first mission: a weeklong patrol in the nearby Shah Wali Kot district.
Her unit set up an overnight camp on a hilltop, and swept the area for mines with grappling hooks while also scouring the ground for disturbed earth — the telltale sign of a newly buried explosive device.
The next morning, the six-vehicle patrol began to move out. At 8:45 a.m., as they rolled down the hill, a massive explosion tore into the armoured vehicle behind Dupuis. The 14-tonne Coyote was blown onto its roof, a smouldering wreck.
Two members of the vehicle’s crew, troopers Jack Bouthillier, 20, of Hearst, Ont., and Corey Hayes, 22, of Ripples, N.B., were dead, and three others seriously injured.
For the next 20 minutes, Dupuis dealt with the scene’s chaos and horror. She helped provide emergency aid to the wounded and collect the dead. One of the soldiers she reached had been cut in half.
“It was the longest 20 minutes of my life,” she says. “There are images that you don’t forget.”
Evacuation helicopters arrived for the wounded and a quick reaction force relieved Dupuis and her team. At the base, Dupuis was physically sick. For the next three nights, she couldn’t sleep. “My adrenalin was off the charts: All I would do is relive, relive, relive,” she says.
Dupuis knew she was in trouble and sought help. She talked to a social worker and a psychiatrist, who prescribed her sleeping pills. But she struggled through each day, and often sought out a private place to cry. To make matters worse, no one wanted to talk about what happened: Her fellow soldiers were focused on the unrelenting demands of their mission. “I wanted to quit so bad every day,” she remembers.
But every morning, she resolved to get through one more day for the sake of her team: “I knew if I quit, someone else would have to work double time, and it was already really tough.”
Dupuis willed herself through the final two months of her eightmonth tour of duty — an effort about which she remains immensely proud.
FLASHBACKS
As soon as she returned to Petawawa, however, she crashed.
“When I got to Canada, all that stress and adrenalin went right down, and so did I. I was in complete trauma.”
She sought medical attention, and transferred to a less stressful job in Ottawa before taking a leave.
Dupuis suffered powerful flashbacks that could drive her to her knees, and panic attacks that left her gasping for air. She lost interest in sports, put on weight and spent long days inside her Gatineau home, scared that she might suffer a breakdown in public.
She also wrestled with guilt. Dupuis held herself responsible for failing to detect the landmine that killed the soldiers under her command. “It made me feel very guilty because I gave the ‘appeared clear’ order on that hill which obviously was not the case,” she says.
The unit did not have a metal detector and the IED may have been buried for weeks, hiding any sign of recent activity. “As a human being, it always comes back to what if?” Dupuis says. “What if I could have done more? What if I had taken 10 more minutes?”
She left the military on a medical release in 2014 after 16 years of service, since managing her mental health was a full-time job. She did therapy, learned to meditate and developed strategies for her anxiety, nightmares and panic attacks.
Dupuis also got involved with Soldier On, an organization dedicated to helping injured soldiers and veterans recover through physical activity and sport. Slowly, she reclaimed pieces of her life.
Two years ago, she returned to work as an administrative assistant in the federal government. At about the same time, she was invited to take part in the 2016 Invictus Games.
INVICTUS GAMES
Dupuis threw herself into training for two sprint events and a power lifting competition. She lost 35 pounds in three months, and earned two gold medals and a bronze at the games in Orlando, Fla.
This year, her intense training has helped her to cut in half the medication she takes. She will compete in the 100, 200 and 400-metre track events, and in a rowing event.
“The Invictus Games have been an opportunity for me to regain control over my life,” she says. “It has helped me redefine Natacha. It helped me regain confidence in myself and in my future. Now I know I have this injury: I’ve accepted it. It’s still there. I still have symptoms and I think it will always be part of me. But I don’t let it define who I am. I think I’ve proved to myself that I’m still capable of big things despite my injury.”