A Devastating Event on Duty
Heroes Remember - Canadian Armed forces
A Devastating Event on Duty
Transcript
An event, of course, I can tell you
is the 20th of March 2009 at around 8
in the morning we got up.
We were in an operation and we got up,
we got into our vehicle, rolled down a
mountain and then one of our vehicles hit an IED.
It was the vehicle on my back and
so I was in the LAV at the time,
troop carrier vehicle, and so the ramp
came down and then I saw the coyote
upside down and in very bad shape and
then it’s on, you know,
you are thinking what’s up?
So you go out, we were five
in the back of the vehicle.
We went out, I walked down to find
out one of our guys were killed.
The vehicle fell on him and
so he was dead there.
And then I am looking for the driver and
the driver was nowhere to be found
so the driver got, I guess exploded.
So he was nowhere to be found,
so that was a hard day.
That was a hard day.
There was three people badly injured too
so you got to put that behind your mind,
you know, the two that passed on and
you have to… this is really hard to talk about.
And so you have to go and help the ones
that are injured so that’s what we did.
I mean we did the first aid on the people,
you know, get them down for the helicopter
to come and pick them up.
And all the way you are thinking too,
sometimes there is an IED but
there are secondary IED’s,
device to hit the first responders.
But anyway, so ya that’s what we did
so we got the injured down the hill.
It lasted for me maybe twenty minutes in
between the hit and the helicopter
to come and pick them up and
we get relief from the
quick reaction force and stuff like that.
But it’s a twenty minute that to
me it seemed like an hour.
I couldn’t believe when I looked back and
I got to know the timings and stuff and
I was thinking, twenty minutes is so short
but it seemed so long.
So that was a sad day, of course,
losing two of our guys and
then you have to go on.
The mission is not finished.
We had another two months to go so
it makes for a hard two months because
from there for me it got tougher,
my mental health got…
it affected me a lot and right away
because it was a really harsh moment.
Description
Ms. Dupuis shares an emotional experience while on patrol where two of her comrades are killed.
Meta Data
- Medium:
- Video
- Owner:
- Veterans Affairs Canada
- Recorded:
- December 9, 2014
- Duration:
- 3:35
- Person Interviewed:
- Natacha Dupuis
- War, Conflict or Mission:
- Canadian Armed Forces
- Location/Theatre:
- Afghanistan
- Branch:
- Army
- Units/Ship:
- Armoured Regiment
- Rank:
- Master-Corporal
- Occupation:
- Driver
- Date modified: