Canada Day volunteers did the truly Canadian thing
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Updated: July 02, 2009 12:39 PM
While most Kamloopsians were likely still in bed early on Canada Day, a dedicated bunch was down at Riverside Park preparing for the day-long event.
They went there to set up booths and do all the things dedicated volunteers are asked to do at the truly ungodly hour of 5 a.m.
They didn’t know they would end up doing something heroic, even if the ending was tragic.
As the group started its work, some of them noticed a woman who appeared to be sleeping on the lawn near Interior Savings Centre.
She had her head on her backpack and a pile of books and a purse next to her.
She looked like she had sat down to read and had fallen asleep.
But then, the automatic sprinklers at the site came on and the water started to fall on the woman.
She didn’t wake up.
One member of the group, Wenda Noonan, called for her to wake up.
She didn’t.
Another member of the group, Marie Brand, went over to shake the woman to wake her up.
That, too, failed.
Another member of the group, Doug Halliday, went over to help Brand and realized the woman had no pulse.
The cellphone was flipped open, 911 was punched frantically into the keypad and an ambulance and police cruiser pulled up to the site that would, within less than two hours, hold thousands and thousands of people, all celebrating the nation’s holiday.
While all this was happening, Noonan, Brand, Halliday and others were trying to hold down the automatic sprinkler heads so the woman wouldn’t be drenched.
Paramedics took the woman to the ambulance, where the group could see them doing chest compressions.
With each downward push, the woman’s legs flew up, something an RCMP officer told them wasn’t a good sign.
Suddenly, a paramedic raced to the grass, grabbed the woman’s purse, jumped back into the ambulance and off they sped to Royal Inland Hospital, leaving the group of volunteers to regroup and get to work.
About 10 minutes later, one of the officers told them the woman had died.
It was a sombre start to what was to have been a multicultural, artistic celebration, but they all got back to work, completing the job in time for the 7 a.m. pancake breakfast that was to start off the day of song, dance, food, speeches and good times.
A short time later, though, one of the officers called Brand’s daughter, Jacquie, who was also part of the group — and, as an aside, one of the key organizers of the truly incredible celebration.
This time, though, he had good news. He told her the woman had not died.
Unfortunately, the woman eventually did perish, but the Riverside Park group carried on believing a life had been saved.
As Noonan put it, they spent their Canada Day feeling good that they’d stepped up at a time when some may have left the woman to lie on the ground, being drenched by the water, feeling she deserved it.
Thousands and thousands of people converged on Riverside Park on Wednesday to celebrate being Canadian.
They celebrated a multicultural Canada.
They celebrated a peaceful Canada.
They celebrated a country that, as Jade Jeffrey told KTW’s Marty Hastings for his story on what it means to be Canadian, “it’s cool because it’s fun around here and there’s not a lot of bad people around.”
Jade was right.
Being Canadian means doing exactly what this group of people did.
dale@kamloopsthisweek.com
dalebass.blogspot.com
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