B00ADOAFYO EBOK by Leesa Culp, Gregg Drinnan, Bob Wilkie Read Free Book Online

agents and coaches, and so very young to be thrust on his new billet family at sixteen years old. What I saw in each young face that day was something that no one can imagine. The dead would speak no more and the injured would carry scars forever.”
    Because of his job, Harriman spent a lot of time involved with the accident and its aftermath.
    “The days and weeks after the accident I spent working on the accident scene by day and dealing with Bob’s injuries and post-traumatic syndrome by night,” Harriman remembers. “Bob had ongoing visions of witnessing three of his friends fall into the open window area of the bus and disappear under the bus as it moved along the ditch. His most difficult time was dealing with the friend who, when the bus came to rest, was still alive but pinned under and slightly inside the bus.
    “Janine spent hours at the hospital with Bob. We would spend many hours helping Bob cope with his conflicted emotions as he had been sitting in the bus seats most impacted by the crash. He had witnessed the dying moments of the young boys who had become his friends, and suffered both the fear of the crash and the scene repeating itself over and over in his mind.
    “Bob also suffered the ‘survivor syndrome,’ and often said, ‘If I could have only done something to help one of them or save any of them.…’”
    All Harriman could do was tell Wilkie over and over again that neither he nor anyone else could have saved anyone that day.

CHAPTER 5
    The Hospital
    B ob Wilkie awoke in Swift Current Union Hospital. As his eyes opened, all of his senses began to take in all that was going on around him.
    “When I came to,” he says, “I remembered immediately what had happened, and I couldn’t shake the image I had in my head of Chris Mantyka.”
    Needless to say, the hospital was a beehive of activity. But at the same time, a pall seemed to hang over the building. People were scurrying every which way and there were unanswered questions hanging out in every corner. This was a small hospital that served Swift Current and surrounding area, and bus accidents that included fatalities weren’t a run-of-the-mill occurrence.
    By now, word of the accident had gotten out into the community, and family members and billets, hopeful and fearing the worst at the same time, had begun congregating at the hospital. Everyone was looking for news — any tidbit of news.
    Wilkie had asked someone at the hospital to call Janine Harriman, who hurried to be at his side. He had a hip injury — he was fearful that it had been broken — but hadn’t yet been taken for X-rays. Upon her arrival, Janine, four months pregnant with Patrick, quickly realized that Wilkie was going to be fine. But she found the hospital a sombre place, with several players wandering aimlessly around the emergency ward, clearly overcome with grief and shock, clearly dazed and confused.
    Janine was shown to Wilkie’s room, where the two had an emotional reunion. As best he could, Wilkie related what had happened. She held one of his hands and wept as emotion poured out of him.
    In times of stress, people sometimes say the strangest things, and this was no exception.
    “Janine,” Wilkie said, “all I have on is my Christmas boxers. Can you get me some shorts or something?”
    He remembers something resembling painful laughter coming from Janine.
    “It was total chaos and all I could think about was my underwear,” Wilkie says. “We held each other and cried some more.”
    Wilkie asked Janine to call his parents with the news that he was okay. That wouldn’t be a problem, she said, adding that her two girls already had been told that their “big brother” would be fine.
    Meanwhile, Janine’s husband, Corporal Bob Harriman, would spend several hours doing investigative work at the accident site before being able to get back to the hospital, where he found his wife and Wilkie comforting each other.
    “Picture a tough hockey player sitting on