A Kamsack resident spent five days this month stepping in to relieve first responders in the Keewatin Yatthé Health Region, which includes the communities of La Loche and Buffalo Narrows, located nearby.
A couple weeks after the January 22 tragedy at La Loche, when four residents were killed by a gunman, Jim Pollock of Kamsack, the owner of Duck Mountain Ambulance Care, had been talking to a friend from the area, and when the friend had said that ambulance staff in the area had needed help, he said he wished he could help.
Pollock went to the health region and was immediately put to work with the ambulance staff at Buffalo Narrows, working as an EMT on the ambulances, at the medical clinic and assisting a nurse-practitioner.
It was a situation of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), Pollock said last week as he discussed his experience relieving members of the staff who had been called upon following the shootings.
“I had worked in the north before,” Pollock said, adding that he appreciated the opportunity to meet and work with new people and to be reacquainted with the Dené culture.
Among the people Pollock worked with was Dr. Philip Clark, who had worked in Kamsack in the mid-1990s. Pollock also worked with a nurse-practitioner who had been a friend of his late sister, who had died about 20 years ago.
The La Loche incident was the number one topic of conversation among everyone, he said, adding that there had been a palpable sadness in the community.
Pollock said that within the next few weeks he expects that other members of the Duck Mountain Ambulance Care staff will be going to Buffalo Narrows, also with the objective of relieving ambulance staff still suffering the effects of the tragedy.
