First-hand accounts from riot night
Posted Jun 18, 2011 09:30:39 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Vancouver’s emergency rooms were packed with patients after the riot on Wednesday. Pamela Verma is a UBC medical student who was working the ER at St. Paul’s Hospital that night.
“We were just going and going and I think at one point one of the emergency doctors said we saw about 64 patients in two hours in the department there,” says Verma.
There were so many patients, security had to tell friends and family to wait outside so there would be room for all the injured people in the ER.
Verma explains most of the patients were young men. “That night we saw a lot of young people who had been hurt because of crowds and violence and that’s not something we see in volume every day. But in other parts of the world it really is like that.”
Flashback of 1994
The Wednesday night mayhem has also brought back a flood of memories of the ’94 riots. News1130 also got a first-hand account from Elaine, who was managing the McDonald’s on Robson and Thurlow Streets that night.
“It was scary and chaotic. It was very smelly, very loud. I wasn’t allowed to leave the restaurant until 4 a.m.”
She says one image in particular has stuck with her all these years. “The craziest thing I saw was this liquor store that was in behind the McDonald’s, and people broke in and just started unloading it full of booze.”
Fortunately for her staff, Elaine says their building was the only one that was left alone.
