Warning: This story contains details that can be overwhelming for some readers. Discretionary power is recommended.
Greg Stubbs is a husband, father of three and paramedical on the island of Vancouver.
He is now back to work after being attacked and seriously injured while responding to a call on Pandora avenue in downtown Victoria last summer.
“We opted for a suspected crisis,” Stubbs told Global News.
The call had come for a person inside our company, which provides meals, advice, transition housing and awareness services for vulnerable people in the region.
However, when Stubbs and his colleague arrived, they were invited to check a person inside a tent in the street in front.
“We are entering, we find this young man, he is on all fours inside a tent, always trying to smoke everything he smokes,” said Stubbs. “No idea. He doesn’t really talk much.”
They took out the man outside the tent, seated him on a chair and made vital signs on him and Stubbs said that the man was kind and in conformity.
“At that time, this gentleman gets up from the chair and he likes this nonchalant section, as you would after a nap, and even before finishing the section, he hit me in the face,” said Stubbs.
He said he was completely shocked.
The man began to approach his partner, added Stubbs, while he was stumbled back and fell on all fours on the boulevard.
“He turned around and he kicked as hard as possible in the face, and all I could see was the vision of the tunnel,” said Stubbs.
“As everything becomes smaller, smaller, smaller. I almost vanish myself. All I can do is try to survive. Because I know that if I am unconscious here, the fight is over.”
A fire truck had also answered the call inside our place, then Stubbs stumbled on the side of the truck and the driver came out to keep him above him and protect him.
“Thank you, Victoria Fireman,” said Stubbs.
“And at that time, I’m just super dizzy. I don’t really know that I can even tell you my name at that time.
“And then more firefighters go out and they create a barricade in front (my partner) and I.
The reports at the time indicated that there was a group of around 60 people who faced the first stakeholders.
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Stubbs said he left shortly after in another ambulance, but that things were only degenerating from there.
“Everyone came out of their tents on Pandora avenue shouting to the police:” There are more of us than you are. We are going to kill you all, “said Stubbs.
“They throw things about ambulances and fire trucks and police cars. Victoria police therefore one day sent Mayday for everyone south of Duncan. Each officer south of Duncan went down and they blocked a radius of four blocks around Pandora.
Stubbs said he didn’t know what was going to happen to him when he was attacked.
“I was just trying to stay awake and escape,” he said.
“Just instinct. I knew that if I was unconscious at that time, who knows what would happen. You know, (he) could have come back and trace me, break my neck, or it could have been finished. I have no idea. “
Stubbs said that there was nothing else he could have done and if his partner was not there and that the firefighters were not there, the result could have been very different.
“The only one else that could have helped a little is that we are in Bike Squad and I was wearing a bicycle helmet, so when he kicked me, he kicked my head,” said Stubbs.
“And I think my helmet took most of them.”
Stubbs said that even if nothing fractured and that he had two black eyes, he was worried about a bleeding of the brain.
“The biggest concern is December before that, I had a very great head injury and I had five cerebral bleeding,” he said.
“And therefore with a fairly large concussion, the concern of repeated concussion was enormous.”
After the assault, the Victoria police chief Del Manak called an emergency meeting with the mayor of Victoria, Marianne Alto, and announced that the fire and ambulance teams would no longer respond to Bloc 900 on Pandora avenue without police escort.
Manak said he had recognized the various horizons and the complex needs of the inhabitants of Pandora Avenue, but that the first stakeholders should never feel that their security is threatened.
In August, the city and Victoria police announced a plan aimed at addressing the camp by increased police and regulations and with the ultimate aim of withdrawing it.
In September, the city of Victoria began to set up fences in the 900 block on Pandora avenue, but the camp was not completely erased.
“I have learned as well, since I was launched, that most people who live in this street have steel boots,” said Stubbs. “So when they kick someone, it hurts. As, they all have weapons. And we enter every day, several times a day. And unknown places. Potentially dangerous. Just there to help. And people are running against us.”
Stubbs had already accepted a job to transfer outside the Victoria region when the attack occurred.
He said that the violence he felt has become a reality for the first speakers.
“I was tired of the constant verbal abuses that we do at work every day,” said Stubbs.
He admitted that he was nervous to speak but said he wanted to tell his story to prevent others from injuring himself.
“Everyone should know that we are just trying to help,” he said.
“And it’s not just for us to be constant abused.”
-With the Rumina Daya files