When I posted the Canadian Paramedic Memorial Foundation’s Christmas message on our Facebook page, there was a comment from John Snowball.
“My Son Christopher Snowball lived for Christmas with his family and now has a grandson he will never meet and a daughter getting married that he can’t have the first dance with.”
And that’s how my conversation with John Snowball began.
Only 11 minutes after May 31st 2013 began, in total darkness, Ornge Lifeflight 8 departed Moosonee, Ontario en route to Attawapiskat with two pilots and two paramedics aboard. Less than a minute later, the Sikorsky S-76 helicopter crashed in dense bush and burned. There were no survivors. Captain Don Filliter, co-pilot Jacques Dupuy, flight paramedics Dustin Dagenais and Chris Snowball died in the line of duty.
Chris Snowball was 38 years.
I asked John about the comment he had left on the CPMF Facebook page. “You mentioned that Chris really loved the holidays.”
“Oh, he lived for Christmas. That was his thing of the year. He loved Christmas. Giving presents to the kids. He just loved it. He’d come down to our place and he’d set up the tree and stuff like that…” John paused for a moment. “And his favourite song was ‘Old Toy Trains’ by Roger Miller.”
Lyrics:
Old toy trains, little toy tracks
Little boy toys comin’ from a sack
Carried by a man dressed in white and red
Little boy, don’t you think it’s time you were in bed?
“He was into trains and we had a couple of layouts set up in the basement.. He used to come with me when I was working for the Waterloo and Saint Jacobs Railway. He loved coming up with me on the train. He was train crazy. I thought he’d become..” John’s voice trails off for a moment. “I thought he’d try to get on with Canadian Pacific or something like that. But it wasn’t to be.”
I asked John how Chris had chosen to become a paramedic.
He told me about how when Chris was still a youngster he was in a car with his mom when they were involved in a crash. “Well, Chris had his first ride in an ambulance. He wasn’t hurt. He was just a little shook up. After that ride in the ambulance, that was it. That’s all he wanted. He was a smart kid, too. He said, “I want to be an ambulance attendant.”
John told me how Chris started out working on patient transfers and working on standby at a local racetrack before “he decided to go to Niagara College and take his EMS course.”
After graduating, Chris initially applied in Ontario but his lack of proficiency in French proved to be a challenge. With his father’s encouragement, Chris “sent his resumes out across Canada, and I think about two weeks after that he got a call from Baddeck” (a village in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia).
“They hired him over the phone, and they gave him two weeks to get down there. So they packed up. I think they got a U-Haul or something like that. And they packed up what they had and they moved down East. He loved it down there. Even though he was an outsider, he was still part of the crew down there.”
I told John I’d read a lot of remembrances of Chris and many of them mentioned his contagious positivity.
“It didn’t matter who you are or what you did. If you needed help on the side of the road, he’d stop. It didn’t matter who you were. If you needed help doing something, he’d come down. He’d shovel the snow, cut the grass. You know, neighbours needed help and Chris would ask them, ‘Do you want me to cut the grass?’ Even when he was up in Moosonee.”
Chris had made the move back home when a friend was able to find him a job as a flight paramedic on fixed wing aircraft in northern Ontario.
“He was doing that for a while and then Ornge was looking for some part-time paramedics. So he got on with them and did what he had to do and went back to school and took additional training. And then they offered him a full-time position. It was in Thunder Bay. The job offer started on June 1 but they gave him a week or two to get up there. And then, on May 31st, they took off on that non-emergency flight just after midnight…”
John’s voice trailed off. He paused for a moment.
“They didn’t find him until the next day. Because it was so dark they couldn’t see. I guess it crashed and burned, but it burned out really quickly. They couldn’t find any signaling device that would have told them where they went down. But it wouldn’t have mattered anyways. They were all killed instantly.”
“That’s the way he would have wanted to go out. Helping people.”
At this point in our conversation, John needs to take a moment to compose himself. I can hear him crying. He assures me he’s okay. “I have to live with this. So, it’s good for me to cry and let it out.”
“I think Christopher’s goal in life was to help people. And that’s basically what it was once he decided to pursue his dream as a kid. He decided he was going to help people. And that was his goal. He achieved his goal – and then some.”
I asked John how he marks the anniversary of Chris’ death each year.
“It’s not that I try to avoid it. I just try to be with friends. The guys at work, they don’t let me be alone. They say, ‘C’mon, let’s go for lunch. On that day, they keep me busy. Christmas is probably the hardest. Christmas doesn’t really mean much to me anymore.”
“But then I think of Chris and how he couldn’t wait to get up to the Moose and get working. He loved being a paramedic.”
Close your eyes
Listen to the skies
All is calm, all is well
Soon you’ll hear Kris Kringle and the jingle bells
Bringin’ old toy trains, little toy tracks
Little boy toys comin’ from a sack
Carried by a man dressed in white and red
Little boy, don’t you think it’s time you were in bed?
– Roger Miller, Old Toy Trains