One of the effects of Kevin’s death on me, was the need to get together with friends I served with to tell “war stories”. Unfortunately I have been unable to feed that need, the phone being a sore excuse as a medium for such tales. I decided that I would write about certain events that swirled around me when I was a member. This is the first of what may be a series of posts and is an actual incident that I was involved in while I was in La Ronge. The names have not been changed, for if you recognize the names, you’ll probably know what happened.
“You said this would happen Clare.” Those words greeted me as I walked into the Hospital, and instantly told me that Darren was dead.
The funny thing about being on call is that the ringing of the phone instantly wakes you, without that grogginess that so often comes with waking from a deep sleep. The call actually came a half hour before I was officially on call, but was serious. “Jim needs you at the hospital, there’s been a stabbing”, and with that I jumped out of bed, quickly pulled on my gear and headed out the door.
The woman who had uttered the words that I heard when I walked through the door was a teacher in the community, and her family had taken Darren in, made him a part of their life. Their daughter had been Darren’s girlfriend. She was devastated, sobbing, and it wasn’t hard to figure out that he had been the victim.
Darren grew up in Southend and had had a hard early life. But he was bright and ambitious and was chasing a dream to be a conservation officer. Good looking and popular, he, unfortunately had a propensity for violence. He liked to fight, and ultimately it would lead to his death.
A murder investigation involves a lot of resources. Jim let me know that Darren had indeed been killed, a single knife wound to his chest. Jim quickly brought me up to speed with what he knew so far. There had been a fight at the South Pit, a popular party spot. The youth that Darren was fighting with stabbed him once, then ran off. Darren’s friends bundled him into a car and took him to the hospital, but in truth he was already dead when he reached the hospital, probably before they got on to the road. The doctor later said they wouldn’t have been able to save him if it had happened in the Emergency Room.
Jim called the NCO to let him know what was going on and we began calling in other members. Identification Section would have to be brought up from Prince Albert, two hours to the south of us. There were people to interview and someone would have to go and protect the scene. Once the ball started rolling I began questioning kids that were at the hospital. It didn’t take long to find out basically what had happened, and who was responsible.
To be continued….
Comments
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Looking forward to the continuation of this, Clare…
Quite a story. It is always so amazing to me to read about lives that have so much violence. Something I simply cannot understand.