Convinced that there was a killer outside the fire station where he worked, Nova Scotia firefighter Darrell Curry recalled on Monday a deep sense of dread as he hid behind a stack of metal chairs with two other men. “I remember thinking, ‘How am I going to die?’ said the deputy chief of the fire department in a federal-state investigation investigating the massive Nova Scotia attack that claimed 22 lives in April 2020. “Will I bleed to the floor? Will they shoot through the wall? It was horrible.” Currie’s dramatic testimony concerned the events of the morning of April 19, 2020, when the RCMP was still searching for the suspect, who had shot dead 13 people the night before in Portapique, NS, and would have killed nine other people that day. At that time, the fireplace in Onslow, NS, was designated as a comfort center for people evacuated from Portapique. The investigation found that Currie was in the building with fire chief Greg Muise and evacuee Richard Ellison at 10:17 a.m. when they heard gunshots outside. Seconds later, Emergency Management Coordinator David Westlake ran in shouting, “Shots! Shots! Get down!” Muise and Currie said they assumed the killer shot, which prompted them to enter the back room. “We had no idea what was going on outside,” Muise told the investigation. “It happened so fast and everything was chaos.” Within minutes of the shooting, Currie described hearing someone knocking repeatedly on an outside door next to where he was hiding. “Those few seconds knocking on the door were the worst seconds of my life,” said Currie, a firefighter with 25 years of experience. As for Ellison, his reaction to the high-stress event was real: “I just followed the orders to go down.” The investigation found that Ellison was already in shock that morning. He was worried that one of his sons, Corrie, had been killed in Portapique, which later turned out to be true. As for the firefighters, they both confirmed that it was about an hour before they learned that the bullets that hit the building had been fired by two RCMP officers who confused Westlake about the killer. “We had no reason to believe that the RCMP opened fire on a local fire station,” Currie said. “It never crossed our minds. We were terrified.” Muise said waiting 57 minutes to find out what had happened was torture. “We were like hostages,” he said. One of the RCMP officers, Const. Dave Melanson entered the building to confirm with Westlake that no one was injured, but none of the officers checked anyone else in the building, according to the investigation. Muise and Currie also said that if they knew more about what was going on with the search for the killer, they would recommend not opening the firehall to the displaced. “The fact was that the perpetrator was not restrained,” Currie said. “There was a threat that we were never informed of. If we had more information before 8 in the morning, it could have changed.” It will be another 11 months for senior RCMP staff to show up at the firehall to talk about what happened, Muise said. “I do not think the RCMP wanted anything to do with firehall,” he told the inquiry. “They pushed us under the table and hoped it would go away. I don’t think they realize what they put us in.” Firefighters said in the investigation that the phone call was so frightening that they both needed medication and advice to deal with it. “It took a part of my life,” Muise said. “I fight with it every day.” Currie said he has attended workshops for people dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. “I could not function and I could not concentrate,” he said. “Fortunately, I did not lose my life that day. But I lost the life I had.” When asked how he was affected by the incident, Ellison replied thanking the firefighters who kept him safe. “At least there is a little humanity out there,” he said, adding that his religious faith helped him cope with the loss of his son. This Canadian Press report was first published on April 11, 2022.
