Hi Everyone,

I don’t know if you have been listening to the news this morning, but unfortunately a body was discovered and pulled out of the Rideau Canal very close to NDHQ before 7:00 a.m.. And much to my horror, I saw the police lift the blue tarp which was covering it as I was walking by in the Concourse (which put me at a perfect angle for seeing it). It was hard to tell from where I was standing if it was a male or female, but I guess we will find out more as they break this story.

The weird thing is that this is the third time that I have seen a body on my way to school or work. The first time it happened, I was 7 years old and I saw an elderly woman lying on the road who had apparently been hit by a large truck. All I can recall is that her head wounds were so severe that her brain matter was on the road with the blood. Let me tell you, I was pretty disturbed by all of the commotion as bystanders were pleading for my bus driver to get help. Her priority at that time was to get a bus load of grade school children as far away from that scene as possible. And this was way before the days of cell phones. I think we all went home to our parents feeling very shocked and scared. All I remember is that I was telling my Mom about the incident and that I was determined to pray for that poor lady and hoped desperately that she did not suffer before she died. The terrible thing that also stood out about this scene was the fact that I saw her feet move back and forth, which, to my young mind, lead me to believe that she was still alive when we saw her. My adult mind tries to console me by rationalizing this observation as just nerve impulses (reaction) to the extreme trauma, something I heard can happen post-mordem. But to this day, I still get chills just thinking about it.

The second time occurred when I was on the bus on the way to St. Mark’s High School when I was 16. Our bus driver noticed a car that had driven off the road into the ditch. It did not appear that anyone was in the car, but as he approached it, we saw a human form. As he was also an emergency services dispatcher for the area, he sprang from the bus and investigated. There was a middle aged man hunched over in the front seat and it had appeared that he had died of a heart attack or some other natural cause which caused this car accident. Again, I went home feeling very vulnerable and sorry for the poor soul who left for work that day and never came back home to his family.

Today is the CF Walk / Run in Red to show our support for our troups – a new annual tradition that CF members and DND employees have adopted. Oddly enough, our Department is due to take position exactly where the body lay along the Canal. I don’t know if there is a contingency plan in place, but I must admit that my esprit de corps will definitely be very much dampened as I walk over that spot, still wet from the Canal water…

Tina

This entry was posted on Friday, May 30th, 2008 at 8:25 am and is filed under Friends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.