Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 92

F4 THE EDMONTON JOURNAL, Saturday, July 30, 1988 The tornado: Edmonton rebuilds Death scene haunts paramedic's nightmares was massive destruction. And you could see people in 'JO; By SCOTT McKEEN Journal Staff Writer Bill Kissam checked in with the tornado victim almost every night. It was always too late, the man was already dead. In his dreams, Kissam was once again kneeling next to the man, who lay broken and still in the middle of a field shrouded in haze. Through the swirling haze, the man's head came into focus; the gaping wound, the empty skull Jolted awake, and afraid he was going insane, Kissam wouldn't be able to sleep.

The nightmare kept coming, until one day, five weeks after the tornado, Kissam opened his fridge door and pulled out ajar of jam. The stickiness of the jam on his hand triggered a flashback to the horrific scene. The experienced paramedic, who thought he could handle anything, vomited. Kissam, 30, a Strathcona County firefighter-paramedic, was driving home from shopping on the afternoon of July 31, 1987. His 10 years experience as a paramedic didn't prepare him for the next few hours.

He heard a report on the radio of a tornado and pulled over at 50th Street near the Whitemud Freeway. He watched a funnel cloud form and touch down. Even though he wasn't working, he knew this was a "big call" the term he uses for the crucial incidents where a paramedic reaches his full potential in an effort to save lives. Out of uniform, clad in a T-shirt and bathing suit, Kissam frantically tried to stop traffic going into Mill Woods. No one would stop, so he moved on into the southeast industrial area.

"I remember looking and it was like a haze, there there, some of them just starting to move. I passed one -girl who was holding her abdomen, her shirt and pants were bloody. You couldn't absorb it all." Without an ambulance or equipment, there was nothing much Kissam could do. "I was just trying to assess the devastation, like you would with a patient, and I couldn't comprehend what I I was seeing." He met up with a firefighter and the pair ordered other people into action, to call emergency numbers, to look for survivors, to clear space for the injured. A Strathcona ambulance showed up and Kissam put on his vest and went to work.

And then someone ran up to tell him about the injured man in the field the man who would later haunt his sleep. "I've seen people injured before, totally destroyed in fact, but this guy Over the next few weeks, Kissam changed. He withdrew from co-workers and was constantly tense. He knew all about the trauma that sometimes afflicts emergency workers after a major incident, but it took a jar of jam to make him realize he was in its grasp. He called a psychologist who works with the Stratchcona County and the two of them talked.

"He convinced me that my reactions were normal," said Kissam. After bottling up his nightmares for five weeks, simply talking rid him of most of the stress. "I came out of it positive and emotionally prepared for the next time," he said. On July 31, he plans to finally put the tornado in perspective. "If there's a memorial at Evergreen park, it's important for me to go.

I feel like I need to," he said. Bill Kissam still weeks of nightmares PICTURE: Rick MacWilliam works as a paramedic for Strathcona County brought him to the county's psychologist after his "big call" Ten months after worker ran home In only 20 seconds 2 men were dead, 17 lives changed i Mason said the men were put through a debriefing to help them with the trauma. While it helped some, others wouldn't talk. Everyone who was at work that day has changed, he said. Those who weren't felt guilty for not being there for their friends.

"It's a lot quieter around here now, not as carefree," he said. "There's not as much joking around everyone is on edge." Petruk says priorities have changed. "Everyone is trying to live life each day the best they can. They know tomorrow might not come," he said. "Maybe we've just gotten closer to reality," shrugs Laschuk.

One man quit because he couldn't handle the memories and another hasn't been back to work yet, said Petruk. "There were some trying times for everybody," said Petruk. "And some guys who should be talking about it still don't." Petruk, Laschuk and Mason can't forget. Not with the knowledge that fate, or luck, kept them alive hen others just steps away were killed. "Where I was standing, if I'd been a few inches either way, it would have been all over," said Mason.

Two hours of terror Glen Petruk of wonder Peter Laschuk 'closer to reality' PICTURE: Ed Kaiser Warren Gaucher's fear surfaced months after tornado counselling has helped him back to normality By MURIEL DRAAISMA Journal Staff Writer Warren Gaucher ran to his car, sped home and hid in his apartment for hours one day when the wind began to howl. Trouble was, he was supposed to be at work. Without warning, tornado stress had struck. It was 10 months after a tornado ripped through the outskirts of Edmonton, including the industrial area where Gaucher, 27, works as a heavy-duty mechanic. But that didn't matter.

Fear of tornadoes can surface long after survivors have put their lives back in order. A sense of loss may be immediate, especially if one has lost a loved one or a home, but tornado stress responses may not appear for months. It took similar weather conditions to those of July 31, 1987 to trigger the fright in Gaucher. "When I hear the wind, its whistling noise, I start to get a little nervous," he says. "When it starts to get stormy, I think, where is a safe place for mc? I would drive into a ditch if need be." Gaucher, however, has learned to cope with his fear.

Wrhen he returned to work after leaving without notice that day in May, his foreman at Laid law Waste Systems suggested he seek counselling. He did, and he says he is a different man for doing so. "I needed someone to listen to me and to tell me I wasn't crazy for being scared. I needed some understanding. Counselling made me realize my feelings are something that I have to deal with day by day." Gaucher is one of more than 100 survivors who contacted the Tornado Stress Management Program for individual counselling on an continuing basis.

More than 200 have participated in various support groups organized by its four counsellors. More than 600 gained knowledge about tornadoes and tornado stress through seven public education seminars, which the counsellors consider therapy because information can reduce stress. Gaucher was terrified when the tornado ravaged the building in which he was working a year ago. He saw the ceiling above him split in two, then he was buried under a pile of debris, suffering cuts on his back. Hardest of all were the next two weeks, when he could not sleep for more than two hours a night and continued to have nightmares.

Nightmares are only one response that survivors may have to the stress put on their lives by a tornado. Other responses include depression, irritability, apathy, crying spells. disaster, in panic ing amounts of time to come to terms with their reaction. Four factors influence the recovery process: severity of the tornado experience, past traumas that may have left the individual with unresolved feelings, general ability to cope with stress, the unique personality of each survivor. "Everybody goes through the same coping process but everyone will take their own time getting over it.

Unfortunately, there seems to be not a lot of understanding and support, even within families, for what survivors are feeling right now," Wollman said. "Our clients have a perception that people who did not go through it do not understand them. It's important to say that they are not overreacting. What they are feeling is perfectly normal one year later." The Tornado Stress Management Program has been helping survivors since last November. It's a one-year project providing individual and group counselling, public education, school information sessions, health promotion and stress prevention seminars, especially for communities affected by the tornado.

Health and Welfare Canada funds the program. The Community and Occupational Health Department administers it through Alberta Mental Health Services, with the help of Edmonton Social Services and the Edmonton Board of Health. The program has provided jobs for four stress management counsel- lors, two of whom work full-time while the other two work half-time. It has two clinical supervisors. fCTijetS jit.

Cocr a- Kristen and Monique today 'there's a pn of eoid cvt there' X'W'V worry, as well as headaches, stomach pains, sleeping troubles, changes in eating habits, and fatigue. Feelings of fear, anger, anxiety, guilt and loneliness may be overwhelming. In a May speech to the Toastmas-ters Club, Gaucher described his feelings after the disaster. "It seemed like there was nobody to talk to. It seemed like nobody cared.

It seemed like people just didn't understand." When his fiancee broke their engagement later that summer, Gaucher thought his world had come to an end. But he began to think about his life. "Life must go on I finally started to realize that I was a grown man and I better make an attempt to start acting like one. "I believe that things happen for a reason. The event that took place in my life really straightened me up.

It made me realize how short life really is." Gaucher won best speech of the night. He's still proud that he could make the audience see that people can and do overcome natural disasters. He added in a later interview: "The tornado made me realize how we really don't give a damn about anybody except ourselves. It has changed my life. I feel I have to make up for lost time." That means Gaucher is now taking piano lessons and planning to take sales training in September for Laidlaw.

He says the experience has released his creativity. Tornado stress counsellor David Wollman says survivors need vary By SCOTT McKEEN Journal Staff Writer In 20 seconds, the tornado passed through their lives. A year later, the men who survived in a small South Side machine shop are still trying to come to terms with it. Nineteen people were in the Lee Mason Tools Ltd. building near 64th Avenue and 28th Street when the tornado struck last July.

The building was flattened. Two men died and a number were injured. "It was like a big giant took a giant spade, dug in, and turned the place upside down," said Glen Petruk, speaking on the day of the tornado. Today, Petruk, 31, is still filled with a sense of wonder. He missed six months of work recovering from a spinal injury and broken ribs.

"We never thought that building would go." said Petruk. "Nature has such awesome power," said co-worker Peter Las-chuk, 38. "That force was invincible." Rick Gillespie, 29, who first warned his fellow workers of the tornado, was killed. So was machinist Ed Mendosa, 30. "There isn't a day that goes by when you don't think about them," said Laschuk, who along with Brad Mason, 28, and others dug their co-workers out of the nibble.

"Most of the guys had worked together for 10 or 11 years," he added. "You were glad you were alive, but you felt for them." They also feel for Rick Gillespie's wife, Sharon, who gave birth to the couple's first child about seven months after he died. "Eddie (Mendosa) was a Filipino," said Petruk. "He told me once he worked 365 days a year for two years to save money to come to Canada. "One of the reasons he came was because he didn't like the hurricanes in the Philippines.

He wanted to go where natural disasters weren't a part of life." Petruk said even though Lee Mason Tools now is in a new building, seeing the same faces every day keeps reminding him of the tornado. He says he's over the trauma. "At first I was on edge. But I don't think I'm paranoid now." "I don't ever want to forget it," said Petruk, "I believe it will happen again." PCTUPES Baby rvriten in Bill Clark's parents Sfowque Greenre and i li i I'M ift -i "i PICTURE: Ian Scott The workers at Lee Mason Tools escnone has changed after the tornado killed two of their workmates Kristen the happy-ending kid Clark. ho rushed her to the hospital, where Momque and Kristen were later reunited.

"I give him (Clark) a lot of credit for the may he got Kristen to the hospitaL" said Monique. "The stress of looking after a Lttle baby at that time Kristen stayed in hospital for two weeks. Her brain was swelling and her lungs, which had been clogged during the disaster, had to be continually suctioned out. Mother and daughter were soon back together and now live with Monique's parents in north Edmonton. Like most people her age Monique is onlv 17 she wonders about her future.

Adding to the corJuMon is the responsibiLry of can nz. as a single mother, for her one-year-old baby. She ants to be free, but feels guilty being a mother and having that desire. "After a tornado, how can you say you don't ant tbe baby?" she asks. Yet Monique is ull of Lfe, inspired by it.

af coming so close to death in a collapsing bou trailer. "It changed me. A tornado charges everyone." she savs. It' Lke vou see your SCOTT McKEEN Journal Staff Writer Kristen Gregmre' story should be written with a happy ending. Time will tell.

Dubbed the Miracle Baby, little Kristen was torn from her grandfather's grap on the seventh day of her life and thrown almost 100 metres when the tornado hit the Evergreen Mobile Home Park. The six-pound girl as found alive by a stranger and rusbed to by a concerned policeman, Clark, bo pinched her arm or leg on the trip to male sure she was still all rignt- Her mom. Momque. had to dig herself out of tbe mud and rubble of her parents flattened trailer A frantic search for Kristen turned up nothing. Momque didn't find cut for hours that her fnend.

Mann Athanavpoukw. had seen a man wa'lirg out of tbe devastation carrying a baby. guy just alks up and gives her tbe babv," said Morcquc. hen she turned arouTxL he a gone It was of boH." Athanasopxik then gave the baby to whole Lfe go by you in five seconds all the mean things you've done to people and you wonder why you weren't nicer to people. see life in a whole JTerent perspective.

I don't orry as much any more. Why not go out and do things? I might be dead tomorrow." But there is a baby holding her back one she came so close to losing one year ago. On the darkest days since the tornado, she considered giving Kristen up. "I got mad because there are so many things I want to accomplish. I an impatient person," said Monique.

"But I'm starting to accept her now. I tned to imagine not having her. but it too bard. I'd have to be crazy to give her up" She credits tbe tornado with giving ber the positive attitude and determination to make a cood Lfe for her and Kristen I see Lfe in a lot of different ways. I appreciate the things I have a Jot more.

I still have doubts, but I know there's a pot of gold out there waiting for us Things are starurg to really look up." i arms Terry Smith.