Running Toward Crisis

A Story About Trying to Help

CONTENT WARNING: sexual violence, overdose, death, trauma.

Names and details changed for confidentiality.

As a teenager contemplating my career, I would plug personality traits and interests into computer programs. They would spit out “nurse” or “counsellor.” I would scoff at the computer screen and say, “This is useless; I don’t want to do these things at all.” Sure, I wanted to help people, but I didn’t want the responsibility of having to do or say the right thing in the right moment. “I’m not that person,” I would tell people. Yet for over a decade, responding to crisis and its aftermath has been a major part of my work life. Increasingly, it feels as well that crisis and despair are everywhere. Too often I have had to be a reluctant and barely competent leader intervening when no-one else would.

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I am 19, living in residence at the University of Victoria, taking a city bus with my friend to go see the movie Save the Last Dance. At our destination, a commotion sparks as the bus rolls to a slow stop. An older man has stepped too soon off the curb and been hit by the bus, falling back towards the shelter. He lies on wet concrete crying out one large surprised “Oh” and three panicked small “ohs,” repeating this rhythm with increasing despair. “OH! oh oh oh.”

“Oh my GOD!” the driver says, and calls it in. Passengers getting off the bus stare at him horrified. He has smashed his head. It bleeds in…