WARNING: This story contains details that may be upsetting to some readers. Discretion is advised.
Greg Stubbs is a husband, father of three and a paramedic on Vancouver Island.
He is now back on the job after he was attacked and seriously hurt while responding to a call on Pandora Avenue in downtown Victoria last summer.
“We went for a suspected seizure,” Stubbs told Global News.
The call had come for a person inside Our Place Society which provides meals, counselling, transitional housing, and outreach services for vulnerable people in the area.
However, when Stubbs and his co-worker arrived they were directed to check out a person inside a tent on the street in front.
“We go in, we find this young man, he’s on all fours inside a tent, still trying to smoke whatever he’s smoking,” Stubbs said. “No idea. He’s not really talking very much.”
They got the man outside the tent, sat him in a chair and were doing vitals on him and Stubbs said the man was nice and compliant.
“At which point this gentleman stands up from the chair and he does like this nonchalant stretch, like you would after a nap, and before you even finish the stretch, he punched me in the face,” Stubbs said.
He said he was completely shocked.
The man started approaching his partner, Stubbs added, as he stumbled backward and fell onto all fours on the boulevard.
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“He turned around and he kicked me as hard as he could in the face, and all I could see was tunnel vision,” Stubbs said.
“Like everything’s getting smaller, smaller, smaller. I’m almost passing out. All I can do is try and survive. Because I know if I go unconscious here, the fight is over.”
A fire truck had also responded to the call inside Our Place so Stubbs stumbled over to the side of the truck and the driver got out to stand over him and protect him.
“Thank you, Victoria fireman,” Stubbs said.
“And at that point, I’m just super dazed. I don’t really know I can even tell you my name at that point probably.
“And then more of the firemen come out and they create a barricade in front of (my partner) and I. They have their axes out trying to protect us because this guy is just amping up. And then police are coming in, Victoria police, from left and right. And I think it took like 11 or 12 police officers to eventually get this gentleman under control.”
Reports at the time stated that there was a group of about 60 people who faced the first responders.
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Stubbs said he left shortly after in another ambulance but things only escalated from there.
“Everyone was coming out of their Pandora Avenue tents yelling at the police, ‘There’s more of us than there are of you. We’re going to kill all of you’,” Stubbs said.
“They’re throwing things at ambulances and fire trucks and police cars. So Victoria police sent on a mayday for everyone south of Duncan. Every officer south of Duncan came down and they blocked off a four-block radius around Pandora. No one was allowed in or out until it settled.”
Stubbs said he didn’t know what was going to happen to him when he was attacked.
“I was just trying to stay awake and get away,” he said.
“Just instincts. I knew if I was unconscious at that point, who knows what would happen. You know, (he) could have come back and curb-stomped me, broke my neck, or it could have been over. I have no idea.”
Stubbs said there was nothing else he could have done and if his partner wasn’t there and the firemen weren’t there, the outcome could have been very different.
“The only other thing that might have helped a little bit is we’re on bike squad and I was wearing a bike helmet, so when he kicked me, he kicked me in the side of the head,” Stubbs said.
“And I think my helmet took most of it.”
Stubbs said that while nothing fractured and he had two black eyes, he was worried about a brain bleed.
“The biggest worry is the December prior to that, I had a pretty big head injury and I had five brain bleeds,” he said.
“And so with a rather large concussion, the worry of repeat concussions was huge.”
Following the assault, Victoria police Chief Del Manak called an emergency meeting with Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto and announced that fire and ambulance crews would no longer respond to the 900 block of Pandora Avenue without a police escort.
Manak said he recognized the different backgrounds and complex needs of the people on Pandora Avenue, but that first responders should never feel their safety is threatened.
In August, the city and Victoria police announced a plan to address the encampment through increased police and bylaw patrols and with the ultimate aim of removing it.
In September, the City of Victoria started putting up fencing in the 900-block of Pandora Avenue but the encampment has not been completely cleared.
“I’ve also learned that well, since I got kicked, that most people who live on this street wear steel-toed boots,” Stubbs said. “So when they do kick somebody, it hurts more. Like, they all have weapons. And we’re going into this every day, multiple times a day. And unknown places. Potentially unsafe. Just there to help. And people are turning on us.”
Stubbs had already accepted a job to transfer out of the Victoria area when the attack happened.
He said the violence he experienced has become a fact of life for first responders.
“I was tired of the constant verbal abuse that we get at work every day,” Stubbs said.
He admitted that he was nervous speaking out but said he wanted to tell his story to prevent others from getting hurt.
“Everyone has to know that we’re out there just trying to help,” he said.
“And it’s not fair for us to be under constant abuse.”
-with files from Rumina Daya
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