L-R: Dr. Neville Van Der Merwe, Dr. Melissa Fillis, Dr. Bronwyn Carroll Dr. Melissa Fillis stayed home sick that day, but was called in to the Nipawin Hospital. She noted nurses on their way out of town turned around and came back to help. Pharmacists from a store in the community prepared medications in advance at the hospital so all she had to do was grab whatever she needed. “We did the best that we could,” she said. “Most of us coming from South Africa, we’re involved in certain things like this, just not on such a big scale. You could have had these cases on your 24-hour on call on a weekend, but not everything at one time.” Dr. Carroll looks back on the evening with gratitude for the work of all of the staff and the teamwork that was on display. Most have dealt with trauma at some point in their careers, but not to this extent. “I have spoken to people just to make sure they are doing OK and they say people keep thanking them, and they are like, ‘We would have done that for anyone, that’s what we’re here for.’ ”
A boy on the bus Dr. Jordan Wingate knows Humboldt. And he knows the Humboldt Broncos. He played for the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League club between 1986 and 1988 on some of the best teams in Broncos’ history.
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SMA DIGEST | SUMMER 2018
The ties that bind the Saskatchewan hockey community are tight. They span the good times and the bad, including the crash of a Swift Current Broncos bus in 1986 that killed four players. “Saskatchewan’s a small place. I knew a couple of the families with boys on that (Humboldt) bus,” said Dr. Wingate. “It hits home. “I can identify with the boys because I was one of them. And when I played in my first year, that’s when Swift Current had the bus rollover. That came back because I remember we had guys on our team, on the Humboldt Broncos, who had played with some of the boys from Swift. I even had a couple of friends on that team and thankfully they weren’t hurt too bad. That came back.” He describes the week after the Humboldt accident as “rough,” but time heals. He has received support from the SMA, and has relied mainly on family, friends and colleagues. “It does affect you. It’s not like everybody’s a robot out here. It definitely does affect you, but you rely on your community, your medical community and just your community in general. The outpouring of support from my patients and people around Melfort was fantastic.” Dr. Fillis started receiving text messages of support while she attended to patients in Nipawin. She was oblivious to the fact that news of the tragedy raced quickly around the globe.