Character of Humboldt Broncos bus crash victim Adam Herold keeps family going

A Saskatchewan family is working to help others the way Adam Herold, who died in the Humboldt Broncos bus crash, would have.

The 16-year-old Montmartre native was a late addition to the 2017-18 Broncos, a team in the midst of playoffs when tragedy struck.

A collision between the team’s bus and a semi-trailer on April 6, 2018, claimed the lives of 16 players and staff near Tisdale. Thirteen others were injured.

Tucked away in Montmartre on a plot of the Herold family farm sits Adam’s Shack, a warm-up spot for local snowmobilers and a way to share his passion with the community that raised him.

“He would’ve really enjoyed it himself, and to think that some of his friends and neighbours are able to enjoy that, he would’ve really thought that that was a really good idea as well,” Adam’s father Russell Herold said.

“It’s nice to see people coming and appreciating it. Some of them (writing) Adam would’ve loved it, Adam is snowmobiling every day. That kind of thing.”

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Through the Adam Herold Legacy Foundation, they’ve built a fitness centre at the school he attended and a player’s room for the Regina Pat Canadians, a Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League (SMAAAHL) team he played defence with during the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons.

The foundation has hosted leadership and hockey development camps across Saskatchewan — building leaders, like Adam was.

However, each time they give another piece of Adam to the world, the family said it feels like taking one from themselves.

“It’s an in-your-face reminder of the loss. Some days you kind of wonder. It is a lot of work and why’re we doing this? We would just rather have him back here,” Russell Herold said.

“There’ll be times when you get a little spark and you think you want to get back out there and things will be normal, and then — I don’t know. Something will trigger you; you’ll get a memory or somebody will message you something about Adam and you’re right back to wondering why, and why him.”

Without answers, all Russell and his wife, Raelene, can do is keep working to help others the way Adam would have.

“He helped people not because he thought it was something he had to do it, just because he could do it and he wanted to give back to people and wasn’t asking for recognition,” Russell said.

“It was just something he thought he could do, and I think the fact that we’re helping and trying to help other young people, he’d think that’s a good thing.”

Montmartre is approximately 90 kilometres east of Regina.

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