Latest / Coffee In The Park with Jennifer and Cam / A Coffee with Tyler Pelke

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A Coffee with Tyler Pelke · Coffee In The Park with Jennifer and Cam

• 0:16
  Well, good morning, everybody, and welcome to another edition of the Acheson Business Association Coffee In The Park.
• 0:23
  My name is Cam Milliken, and I'm happy to be here with my co-host extraordinaire, Jennifer Herrick, the Acheson Association Business...
• 0:33
  What's your title?
• 0:35
  Cam, how long have we worked together?
• 0:39
  Executive Director, Acheson Business Association.
• 0:41
  That's right, I'm sorry, it's a Friday morning.
• 0:42
  I'm really sorry about that, but yeah.
• 0:44
  Anyway, hi, Jennifer.
• 0:45
  Hi, Cam.
• 0:45
  How are you doing?
• 0:46
  Good, how are you?
• 0:47
  Good.
• 0:47
  Jennifer, just before we get started, as I look over at you today, I see that you have this funny looking bandage on your fingers there.
• 0:54
  What happened to you?
• 0:55
  You know what, Cam, they're actually, there's a technical name for these.
• 0:58
  They're called finger pants.
• 0:59
  I know, they look like little mini lululemon pants.
• 1:02
  They do, they do.
• 1:03
  On my index finger on my left hand, there's a little situation that you know happened.
• 1:09
  Yes, yes.
• 1:10
  About, oh, quite some time ago.
• 1:12
  Yes.
• 1:12
  However, it's not quite healing the way it should.
• 1:14
  No, I've never seen you, well, I have seen you wear those, but I was just curious about them.
• 1:18
  Yeah, so little Father's Day football game action caused a little break.
• 1:25
  Right, right.
• 1:26
  A little athletic action going on there.
• 1:28
  Little athletic action, yeah.
• 1:29
  So you're sidelined for a while.
• 1:30
  I have been told I have to be sidelined for a while.
• 1:33
  Oh, okay.
• 1:34
  Well, as long as it's getting better, is it getting better?
• 1:36
  I hope it's getting better.
• 1:37
  Well.
• 1:37
  Sort of?
• 1:38
  Kind of reverted back, hence back to the finger pants.
• 1:41
  Okay, back to the finger pants.
• 1:42
  Well, they're kind of stylish and cool.
• 1:44
  They'll just put a little lululemon thing on there and people will think you're awesome.
• 1:47
  Anyways, we are coming to you, folks.
• 1:52
  Live from beautiful downtown Acheson.
• 1:57
  The Wall Coffee Roasters, located at 27717 Acheson Road.
• 2:01
  That's right.
• 2:01
  If you've never been to the Wall Coffee Roasters, you'll want to stop by because they make, in my opinion, some of the best coffee in the whole wide world.
• 2:09
  They do.
• 2:10
  And actually, if you're looking, I'm going to do a little plug.
• 2:13
  If you're looking to try some of their coffee, you can order their coffee online.
• 2:18
  That's right.
• 2:18
  You can go to their website.
• 2:19
  Yeah.
• 2:20
  Thewallcoffeeroasters.ca.
• 2:23
  Michael.
• 2:25
  Is it.ca or.com?.com..com.
• 2:28
  We don't want to say.ca.
• 2:29
  We're not even kidding when we say we're coming live from the Wall Coffee Roasters because Michael Wall is standing right over there.
• 2:35
  So yeah, it's pretty awesome.
• 2:37
  Anyway, yeah, go to the website, order some coffee, send it to your friends, your neighbors, your enemies.
• 2:41
  You won't regret it.
• 2:41
  No, you won't.
• 2:42
  It's awesome coffee.
• 2:43
  So yeah, check that out.
• 2:44
  So yeah, we're glad you're here with us today.
• 2:47
  Jennifer, tell us about our sponsors.
• 2:49
  We would like to thank our gold corporate sponsors, the MyShak Group of Companies, Genics, and of course, Parkland County.
• 2:56
  Without these businesses, we wouldn't be able to do some of the great things that we're doing here in Acheson with the Business Association.
• 3:03
  So a very big thank you to those folks.
• 3:05
  Yes, we are very thankful for them.
• 3:06
  They do a great job for us and hopefully we do a great job for them.
• 3:09
  So yeah, check them out on their websites if you want to.
• 3:12
  Jennifer, why don't you tell us a little bit about today's program?
• 3:17
  So Cam, you and I have gotten to know this individual who we are thrilled to have on the podcast today.
• 3:26
  So it is my absolute honor to introduce our guest, Mr.
• 3:32
  Tyler Pelke.
• 3:34
  And Tyler is the current Deputy Fire Chief, is that correct?
• 3:38
  With the City of Red Deer?
• 3:39
  One of them, yeah.
• 3:40
  One of them, there's a couple.
• 3:42
  But bigger than that, he's a friend of the ABA, Cam, and a friend of you and I.
• 3:48
  And for those that attended our annual general meeting last November, you would have come and heard Tyler's amazing story.
• 3:55
  Amazing.
• 3:57
  He did an amazing job.
• 3:58
  He did.
• 3:59
  And as soon as his story was done, actually, Cam, you and I have talked about this even after the fact is we want to get Tyler's story out there.
• 4:08
  We want more people to hear it because it was so impactful.
• 4:11
  So here he is on our podcast today.
• 4:13
  Yeah.
• 4:14
  And I'm so excited to have Tyler here.
• 4:15
  I first met Tyler about, I'm going to say 20 years ago, or was it longer or shorter, Tyler?
• 4:20
  I don't know, but it was a long time ago.
• 4:23
  And I was so impressed with Tyler.
• 4:26
  He does have an amazing story, but you know what, even more than that, he's just an amazing guy.
• 4:30
  And so I'm excited that he's here with us today.
• 4:32
  This is exciting.
• 4:34
  So Tyler, welcome.
• 4:36
  Thank you.
• 4:36
  Good to have you.
• 4:37
  Thank you.
• 4:37
  Thanks both of you for your friendship and the continued conversations.
• 4:41
  Yeah.
• 4:41
  Yeah.
• 4:41
  So we just want to talk a little bit about your story, but I also want to just add in there too, Tyler.
• 4:47
  Like Jennifer said, Tyler is one of the assistant chiefs in Red Deer.
• 4:51
  And you have just come off of a little bit of a stint in Jasper, Alberta, where we had a major wildfire go through Jasper.
• 4:59
  And maybe you'll talk a little bit about that.
• 5:02
  But we're so glad that you took the time to come and be with us today.
• 5:07
  So thanks for coming.
• 5:08
  Tyler, just tell us your story, because it's absolutely fascinating.
• 5:13
  And I want the people to hear your story.
• 5:15
  So just go after it.
• 5:16
  Just go after it?
• 5:17
  Yeah, just go after it.
• 5:18
  Yeah.
• 5:19
  OK.
• 5:19
  From beginning to end?
• 5:20
  Beginning to end.
• 5:23
  Well, again, thanks to the both of you for having me.
• 5:25
  Very humbled just to continue our friendships and be able to kind of sit and have a coffee.
• 5:33
  I think, and yeah, to Michael and the folks at the coffee place here, The Wall, very good coffee.
• 5:39
  Good coffee.
• 5:40
  Yeah.
• 5:41
  Awesome.
• 5:43
  Yeah, you know, partly what I'll emphasize, and you've heard me say it before, if anybody who's heard me speak, and I know Cam and Jennifer have, I don't like to spend a lot of time on kind of the negative things in life that happen to us, but those are things that happen to us.
• 5:56
  And so you have to tell a little bit about where you've come from to talk about where you're going and what that looks like.
• 6:01
  So, you know, survivor of a violent crime, I guess, or a traumatic incident many, many years ago now, 30 plus years ago now.
• 6:11
  And, you know, in 1990, moved to a little farming community outside of Winnipeg, Manitoba.
• 6:18
  My mom was a single mom at the time and had gotten her dream job at this little, I say a little farming community, but the home of a multinational printing company, if you can imagine that.
• 6:30
  And so big employer to the town around there, this little town called Altona, Manitoba, about an hour south of Winnipeg.
• 6:39
  And she moved us there.
• 6:41
  She'd met a guy and got her dream job, I guess, if you will, and started school there in September of that year.
• 6:49
  And probably at the time, I had dreams of playing hockey, as many prairie boys do, playing hockey growing up.
• 6:58
  That didn't work out well for me, obviously.
• 7:00
  But not that I wouldn't still be here talking to you, but I'd have a different career path.
• 7:07
  Maybe go through my agent.
• 7:09
  Right.
• 7:11
  I don't have an agent anymore.
• 7:12
  So anyways, moved into this little farming community, like I said, and made a friend very quickly.
• 7:19
  I was a goalie growing up and made a friend by the name of Curtis, who was also a goalie, and he grew up obviously in this town.
• 7:28
  And like anybody who's moved, especially to a new town and to a small town, as you can imagine, the community is very tight-knit.
• 7:34
  And so being the outsider, Curtis just really, Curtis and his family both just really made me feel, really made me feel at home and wanted to make me feel at home.
• 7:45
  And he really went out of his way to do that.
• 7:47
  And he was a guy that was known in his circles as just a really loving and caring kind of a guy.
• 7:54
  We probably all have those folks in our lives.
• 7:57
  And you know, not typical, not atypical of moving to a town.
• 8:02
  You get to know a few people here and there.
• 8:08
  Tried to get into the normal high school routines.
• 8:11
  And I was in grade 9 at the time.
• 8:12
  I was 14 when this all took place, not back in 1990.
• 8:16
  Now I'm telling you how old I am.
• 8:17
  And my friend Curtis, he was 15.
• 8:20
  So the town itself had a high school of only 400 kids.
• 8:25
  So if you can imagine, you'd go to school and you'd pretty much know everybody.
• 8:28
  Not that you were friends with everybody, but you'd know everybody.
• 8:31
  So it was a bit of a different flavor for me than coming from the big city.
• 8:34
  And so yeah, by November of that year, we'd kind of settled into some routines.
• 8:40
  We had tried out for different hockey teams.
• 8:42
  And again, that was just kind of our world at the time.
• 8:47
  And we had met a gent by the name of Earl, Earl Giesbrecht, and Earl was in grade 12.
• 8:53
  And again, not dissimilar to, you know people, you have acquaintances that you kind of bump into around town.
• 8:59
  We didn't run together, if that made sense, but we practiced hockey together, and you'd see each other around town.
• 9:06
  But somebody that I didn't just necessarily spend a lot of time with, but was kind of, I'll say warned about, and that sounds really nefarious, but it was just kind of like, hey, be mindful of those kinds of things.
• 9:20
  And so in November of that year, my mom and her boyfriend at the time, would ultimately become my stepdad.
• 9:27
  I decided they were going to go away for a weekend.
• 9:29
  And unbeknownst, of course, hindsight is 20-20, but unbeknownst to me, there were obviously some things that would happen, obviously based on the decisions that got made and on what would happen, where we would stay.
• 9:42
  But we had two options.
• 9:44
  My mom had reached out to Curtis' parents and asked if we could stay together.
• 9:48
  We actually had a hockey tournament this weekend, and Curtis and I were on the same team, same goalies on the same team.
• 9:54
  And so the idea was that we would either stay home alone and then go to this hockey tournament and his parents would take us, or we would stay at their place out on the farm.
• 10:02
  And again, just painting a picture for listeners.
• 10:07
  Predominantly Mennonite community in the Bible Belt of Southern Manitoba, 3,000 people, 30 churches in town.
• 10:14
  I'm not kidding you, 30 churches in town.
• 10:17
  And that's not speaking that in a disparaging way, but just the fact that just very, typical rural Manitoba town.
• 10:26
  Yeah.
• 10:26
  And very, very carrying town.
• 10:29
  Again, when I say predominantly Mennonite, so people wouldn't lock their doors at night, and you take your bike to high school.
• 10:35
  You took your bike to school and literally didn't lock it up.
• 10:37
  Right.
• 10:38
  Right.
• 10:38
  I was in, but don't, you know, you come grew up in the city and you'd never, your bike would never be there when you came back.
• 10:44
  So just a very different flavor.
• 10:46
  And yeah, so my mom and I had quite a few conversations to the point where, I mean, it was me pushing and I finally kind of got my way, I guess, if you will, and we were going to stay home alone.
• 10:57
  And so Curtis and I, my parents went, went to the States for the weekend.
• 11:02
  It was a Friday and not.
• 11:06
  Well, I won't call it typical, but not typical for a Mennonite town, but they had an Elks Hall at the time and they'd have teen dances.
• 11:12
  And so we were going to go to the teen dance at night and hang out with the hockey team.
• 11:16
  And then maybe have a couple of people over after and go to bed and wake up and go to the hockey tournamnet the next morning.
• 11:21
  That was the plan for the weekend.
• 11:23
  Play hockey on the Saturday and parents would be home by Sunday.
• 11:26
  And so we spent time that night.
• 11:28
  We saw, we connected with Earl that night.
• 11:30
  And Earl comes into the story, obviously, because he plays a major part of it.
• 11:33
  We connected with Earl that night at the teen dance, chatted with him a little bit, chatted with everybody, and went back to our place by 11.30, 11 o'clock, and started watching a movie.
• 11:43
  We had a couple friends pop over, and then they left.
• 11:46
  And then about 12.30, yeah, 12, 12.30, we heard a knock on the back door, and went there.
• 11:52
  And we hadn't invited Earl over.
• 11:55
  Yeah, so it was kind of weird that he showed up, but he was at the back door.
• 11:59
  He was all dressed in black and had a duffel bag, and it was kind of a weird situation, but it was kind of one of those awkward...
• 12:06
  We probably don't have an awful lot of people who don't just show up at your house anymore.
• 12:09
  This was back in 1990, when friends would come to your house.
• 12:12
  They just pop by.
• 12:13
  Yeah, that doesn't happen anymore.
• 12:15
  But it was, if you ever had, if you could go back to that and be like, I won't say an unwanted guest, but you're like, why are you at my door?
• 12:22
  And very unseasonable weather at the time in southern Manitoba, it was November, middle of November.
• 12:28
  Wasn't really any snow on the ground, but it was kind of chilly.
• 12:30
  So we stood at the back door for a little while, finally let him in.
• 12:34
  And yeah, Curtis, you could just know, Curtis grew up in the community, and Curtis knew, obviously, Earl, and maybe some of the history that I didn't necessarily know.
• 12:44
  And yeah, so we let him in kind of reluctantly, I guess, if you will, and we had just started watching, you know, again, dating ourselves again, and we just started watching the new release of The Hunt For Red October with Sean Connery.
• 12:53
  Right.
• 12:53
  Yes.
• 12:54
  On VHS, yes, for our listeners, that's an old- An old format.
• 12:57
  An old format, yes.
• 13:00
  Yeah, so we just put the tape in the VHS machine, and so he hung out with us a little bit, and through the next hour and a half, the curiosity got the better of me.
• 13:09
  He's dressed all in black.
• 13:10
  He's carrying a duffel bag.
• 13:11
  I'm like, what do you, you know, why do you have a duffel bag?
• 13:14
  And he said, well, they're tricks of the trade.
• 13:16
  he'd been out doing break and enters.
• 13:17
  And so again, I grew up in the city, and not that I was a, I'll call myself a city kid, but not that I ran with any people who did various things, but you're kind of like, oh, okay, well, is this guy just trying to be cooler?
• 13:30
  What does that mean?
• 13:31
  And so I bet on that, what does that mean, tricks of the trade?
• 13:36
  And so he talked about things to break into people's houses and things like that.
• 13:41
  And I'm like, okay, well, whatever, nothing that I wanted anything to do with.
• 13:43
  And then he noted that he'd stolen a gun, and he had a.357 Magnum, and so he pulled that out and it was loaded.
• 13:50
  And I mean, at 14, I'd never seen anything like that before.
• 13:54
  He took the bullets out of it and asked if I wanted to hold it.
• 13:56
  And sure, I kind of looked at it.
• 13:58
  Curtis wanted nothing to do with it.
• 14:00
  And then put it back in the bag, and I kind of didn't think anything of it.
• 14:03
  And the movie ended about, you know, kind of an hour and a half later, one, two o'clock in the morning now.
• 14:09
  And not really sure exactly how it would work, but we had a fairly small house.
• 14:12
  And so our living room was directly connected to the two bedrooms, my mom and my bedroom.
• 14:19
  And in a roundabout way, we was kind of like, okay, well, we would like to go to bed now.
• 14:25
  But not really taking the hint.
• 14:26
  He wasn't necessarily leaving.
• 14:27
  And somehow, not sure exactly how it worked, but somehow he caught us both in my bedroom.
• 14:31
  And so he was gone for a second.
• 14:32
  He'd asked us some questions and came back and he was pointing the gun at Curtis and I.
• 14:36
  And both just kind of dumbfounded at that point.
• 14:39
  Curtis just kind of said to him, what are you doing?
• 14:41
  And, you know, not to dissimilar to me, what's going on?
• 14:44
  And he was just very quiet and cold about it.
• 14:48
  And just, just asked again, had the gun behind her to us, I guess, if you will, and kind of threw a roll of tape at me and asked me to tie up Curtis with his hands behind his back.
• 14:58
  And he did the same to me.
• 14:59
  And then he puts a masking tape over our eyes and he separated us.
• 15:03
  And that was, like I said, about one, two o'clock in the morning.
• 15:06
  And then over the next couple of hours, a bunch of different things happened.
• 15:10
  Just going to let the truck go by for the listeners.
• 15:13
  Well, we are in Acheson.
• 15:14
  We are in downtown Acheson, yes.
• 15:17
  There's the sound of money rolling in.
• 15:19
  That's good.
• 15:19
  That's awesome.
• 15:21
  And so, yeah, that was, he separated us and put him in my mom's room.
• 15:27
  And that was the last time I saw Curtis.
• 15:30
  So, you know, over the next couple of hours, it was a weird, I don't even know how to say it like that.
• 15:35
  It's been a long time.
• 15:36
  But to say it's a weird interaction, it was just weird.
• 15:37
  It was, I asked why he was doing this.
• 15:40
  He kind of told me I knew why I was doing this.
• 15:43
  He'd be gone out of the room at times.
• 15:46
  He made it look like he was going to, you know, unhooking my stereo equipment, things like he was going to steal things.
• 15:50
  So I thought he was just really trying to scare us for some reason.
• 15:54
  And again, he kept telling me I knew why he was doing this.
• 15:58
  So, you know, on one trip in, I was sexually assaulted by Earl, and that was a long period of time over our time together.
• 16:09
  And then he'd be gone again, and through the ordeal, I'd ask different questions at times.
• 16:16
  At one point, I asked what time it was, and I was trying to keep track of the time, and never had thought even what had transpired thus far would have transpired.
• 16:25
  And so about 4 o'clock in the morning, he came in, and I'd heard a bunch of banging in the other room.
• 16:31
  Didn't really know what was happening.
• 16:33
  And he came back into my room and said he was going to let us go.
• 16:36
  And up until this point, I'd just been kind of going along with everything.
• 16:42
  That's all I could think of.
• 16:44
  I literally wasn't in control.
• 16:45
  I could only really do what he said he was, what he wanted us to do.
• 16:50
  And he took the masking tape off my eyes, and yeah, he said he was going to let us go.
• 16:54
  I said, okay.
• 16:55
  And we were just in the doorway of my room, and he said he wanted me to kneel down, and then he was going to cut the tape off my hand, because I thought it was kind of weird.
• 17:04
  But he did that.
• 17:05
  I did that, and instead of cutting the tape off my hands, he told me that he had killed Curtis, and Curtis was dead, and he cut my throat.
• 17:16
  And so right in the middle of the doorway, there's not really not much place to go.
• 17:19
  I just kind of went limp, and kind of laid back and down, thinking obviously I'm hurt pretty bad.
• 17:27
  I can't obviously see myself at the time, but yeah, all I could think of was just to kind of go limp.
• 17:31
  And so I went limp and kind of laid back on the ground, and he kind of got up and went into the other room for a second.
• 17:39
  So I got up, not really knowing what to do.
• 17:43
  And he's between me and the door getting out of the house.
• 17:45
  So I just closed my bedroom door, which didn't really help.
• 17:48
  I couldn't really go anywhere.
• 17:50
  And he came back in the room and pushed me back down the ground.
• 17:54
  He'd gone to the, we had a wood burning fireplace and had gone there and grabbed a fireplace, ash shovel, little brass ash shovels, and pushed me down the ground and kind of stuck that in the side of my neck.
• 18:05
  And I don't know what it was about it, but I just thought, you know, if I just, I would say play dead or just kind of lie here with my eyes closed, maybe he'll think I'm going unconscious or passed out.
• 18:16
  And I, you know, I'd been a boy scout for many years and I knew I was in a, in a tough way from a first aid perspective.
• 18:23
  I knew I wasn't in a good shape, but I didn't know if I was going to bleed out or not, right?
• 18:29
  So, but I just, little voice in my head just said, lay there.
• 18:36
  And it all happened probably pretty quickly, but he was gone again for a few, for a few minutes, could come back in, put a, take the blanket off my bed and kind of laid over top of me.
• 18:45
  And then I could just, what I would smell would either be gas or kerosene or something kind of jumped on this.
• 18:50
  And then I just remember hearing kind of that sound that you get if you put gas on a wood fire.
• 18:56
  Right.
• 18:58
  And now I could feel myself kind of being burned.
• 19:00
  So very much alive, like very much awake, talking to, you know, just like I'm talking to you both right now.
• 19:07
  Yeah.
• 19:08
  And then I just remember thinking, well, I guess, I mean, this was all happening very quickly, right?
• 19:12
  And only 14 years old.
• 19:13
  And so I guess this is it, right?
• 19:17
  And whether it was a prayer, or I've spent many years thinking about what that moment in time looked like.
• 19:23
  But I just remember hearing, get up, get up.
• 19:27
  And by this time, he left the room and closed my door.
• 19:33
  So he started a fire kind of directly on me.
• 19:35
  And then by the time I came out into the living room, he had started a fire in the living room.
• 19:41
  And his idea obviously was to kill us both.
• 19:45
  And then burn the house down.
• 19:46
  And to a degree, get away with it, I guess, if you will.
• 19:49
  There wouldn't have been a lot of, there'd been a lot of evidence to go on from there.
• 19:55
  But as I came out, he lit a fire in behind himself.
• 19:59
  And now he sees me and there was a couch in front of us.
• 20:01
  And he grabbed me and hit me a couple of times.
• 20:04
  And then some colourful language asked me why I wouldn't die.
• 20:07
  And then he took off out the front, out the back door that he'd come in, because obviously there's a fire behind him.
• 20:13
  It's growing pretty quickly.
• 20:15
  And we had a front door that we didn't use.
• 20:17
  It was, again, a very small house, and we had just moved a couple months before.
• 20:20
  There's still some boxes in the way.
• 20:22
  So I was able to, in my mind, I was going to do anything but go the same way he went, which I think he thought I was going to do if I was still around.
• 20:30
  But I got the, still with my hands behind my back, I got the boxes away from the front door and got the front door open and ran around to my neighbour's place.
• 20:39
  So we'd only met, we just were renting this house and we'd only met these neighbours a couple of times.
• 20:43
  It was about 4 o'clock in the morning now.
• 20:45
  As you can imagine, cold outside and all I could think of was just to ring the doorbell.
• 20:51
  So I'm ringing the doorbell, ringing the doorbell and then I just remember seeing the light, the porch light come on.
• 20:56
  And our neighbour's name was Bruce.
• 20:57
  Bruce and Patty lived there.
• 20:58
  They had a couple, three little kids, I believe.
• 21:02
  And Bruce's eyes were just as big as saucers as you can imagine and I had this big hole in my neck and I'm all burnt everywhere and tied up.
• 21:09
  And as he opens the door and he turns the light on, I could just remember, okay, I was just kind of help.
• 21:16
  Like I just see the light.
• 21:17
  I'm like, oh, thank God.
• 21:18
  And he kind of said, hey, and we turned around and we could see, you know, kind of 20 feet away by his garage, detached garage in his house, you could see somebody having a smoke in a silhouette and having a cigarette.
• 21:31
  And I thought it was Earl.
• 21:32
  We would later confirm that it was.
• 21:34
  He would confirm that it was himself.
• 21:36
  And then he was just gone and Bruce brought me back.
• 21:38
  He got me into the house and cut the tape off my hands and put a towel around my neck and just kept his wife and the kids away from things.
• 21:47
  Didn't want to obviously see me pretty traumatic for them.
• 21:51
  And by now, the fire, you could see out his window just over to our place next door and the fire had come out.
• 21:56
  My mom's window and things were getting pretty bad.
• 21:58
  So he called the fire department and ambulance.
• 22:01
  They were paid on call.
• 22:02
  So they had to come, a little community had to come from home, come there, which seemed like the longest time ever, but it actually wasn't.
• 22:09
  They were pretty quick.
• 22:12
  And I just motioned, because again, we were an hour away from Winnipeg.
• 22:16
  There's a little hospital in Altona, but they're not going to be able to do very much.
• 22:20
  And I know I'm hurt pretty bad.
• 22:21
  So I just motioned, because anytime I would talk, there just air would come out.
• 22:24
  I couldn't talk.
• 22:25
  So I just motioned for a pen and a piece of paper.
• 22:28
  And I was able to write some things down.
• 22:31
  And I just said, you know, Earl Giesbrecht had done that.
• 22:34
  My friend Curtis was inside.
• 22:36
  My parents are, my mom is this person.
• 22:38
  My mom is Robin, Robin Dirksen.
• 22:41
  You know, connect with so and so who's looking after, who may be connecting with us if you need to.
• 22:46
  And wrote down as much as I could, because I didn't know how far I would get.
• 22:51
  And yeah, so probably by the, you know, by the time it was all written down, I remember seeing the ambulance backing into the driveway and literally running into the ambulance, the door opened, and I think I was waiting at the door.
• 23:04
  Just sat down on the stretcher and was like, let's go.
• 23:08
  And so they took me into the Altona Hospital, basically brought me in, put me back in, kind of an hour later, they stabilized me a little bit and sent me to Winnipeg.
• 23:21
  And of course, the firefighters had come just shortly thereafter to put the fire out, obviously, and deal with the house.
• 23:31
  And so in the meantime, I'm being trucked off to the hospital down the highway.
• 23:37
  And I just remember looking at the doctor in the back and just kind of motioning, I think motioning was going to have a nap.
• 23:43
  But yeah, and I kind of was out from then.
• 23:46
  I remember waking up a couple of few days later.
• 23:49
  That was like a Friday night, Saturday morning.
• 23:51
  And so woke up kind of Monday morning.
• 23:55
  And my mom was there and in intensive care, and they had confirmed that Curtis had passed away.
• 24:02
  And that that Saturday morning, then Earl had been found out on his family farm and had been arrested kind of without incident.
• 24:09
  But we'd come to learn that he had talked about, which didn't happen, but he had talked about potentially kind of death by death by a cop at the time.
• 24:18
  And yeah, that was, I guess if you will eluded that didn't happen, which I'll say good isn't the right term, but yeah, there was able to be some things over time that got explained because you're still around.
• 24:38
  So, I mean, this is amazing.
• 24:41
  And I've heard your story before, and every time you tell it, and I've heard it, I'm even more amazed at you, of course, and your resilience in all of this.
• 24:53
  And because we don't have a lot of time, there's a lot more to this story to be told.
• 25:00
  And at the end, we'll tell you where you can hear the rest of the story.
• 25:04
  But I'm wondering if you can just sort of fast forward us and touch on the fact that, and Tyler, unbelievable, but can you just touch on the fact of the person that did this to you?
• 25:21
  You decided at some point in your life you needed to have conversation with them.
• 25:25
  Yeah.
• 25:27
  Can you touch on that?
• 25:28
  Because that to me is just such an astonishing part of this.
• 25:32
  Isn't it?
• 25:33
  Yeah.
• 25:33
  Yeah.
• 25:34
  Yeah, and that was over time.
• 25:35
  I think there was a faith component to go that goes with that.
• 25:38
  Right.
• 25:39
  There definitely was a soul searching component over the idea of not letting something bad happen to you define you.
• 25:48
  And pursuing a purpose in life.
• 25:49
  I remember waking up in the hospital one morning, and my grandma said to me, she didn't say to me this happened to you for a reason, but you're still here for a reason.
• 25:55
  Right.
• 25:56
  You know, and there's a whole philosophy out there from the Stoics that talks about that life isn't happening to you, it's happening for you.
• 26:02
  Yeah.
• 26:04
  And so, you know, we won't get into the whole notion of, well, you know, Curtis isn't around, but you are.
• 26:09
  That was something I dealt with a lot of times, a long time with Survivors Guilt, and a bunch of milestones in life that he didn't get to connect with.
• 26:17
  And, you know, I experienced a ton of forgiveness and grace from his family.
• 26:22
  Right.
• 26:22
  And even even pass forward to today, where I recognize that I was the guy at 14 years old fighting with my mother about staying home alone.
• 26:29
  And my mother, right.
• 26:31
  So my mother made the decision to let that happen.
• 26:34
  Yeah.
• 26:34
  And Kurt, Curtis' mother made the decision to let that happen.
• 26:38
  And all the what ifs.
• 26:40
  We went back into those decision points to be like, if they just would have been, they just would have stayed at Curtis'.
• 26:45
  This wouldn't have happened.
• 26:46
  Right.
• 26:46
  Right.
• 26:47
  How many times can we do that in life?
• 26:49
  So fast forward to your point, Cam, that wasn't that wasn't that wasn't within a year.
• 26:54
  That wasn't within five years.
• 26:56
  That was a long...
• 26:57
  Lots happened.
• 26:57
  For sure.
• 26:58
  Lots happened in between.
• 26:59
  Yeah.
• 27:00
  Lots happened in between.
• 27:00
  A lot of life happened in between.
• 27:01
  A lot of maturing.
• 27:02
  A lot of grieving.
• 27:04
  A lot of what ifs and a lot of whys.
• 27:06
  And a lot of leaving that alone and just leaning into life of whatever was left and letting myself off the hook for things.
• 27:15
  Recognizing that just moving on in life.
• 27:18
  And how could I honor that?
• 27:19
  My mom was actually the first.
• 27:20
  She came to me one day, and I'm not really sure how she got there in her in her walk, in her journey, but she came to me one day, and she said she was going to go visit Earl in prison and wanted to extend forgiveness to him.
• 27:30
  She had said he walked out of the courtroom after Earl was convicted of first-degree murder and attempted murder, and was given two life sentences with no chance parole for 25 years.
• 27:41
  Right.
• 27:41
  And so as he was being walked out, she saw him in the hallway, and I think she said to him, I'll see you in hell or something like that.
• 27:47
  Sure.
• 27:47
  Right.
• 27:47
  Sure.
• 27:48
  Yeah.
• 27:49
  You wouldn't blame her at the time.
• 27:50
  No, no.
• 27:50
  Natural reaction.
• 27:51
  Absolutely.
• 27:51
  Yeah.
• 27:52
  Yeah.
• 27:52
  And emotional, obviously.
• 27:54
  And so that just, I won't say weighed on her initially, but that was over time.
• 28:00
  So she came to me one day, many, many years later.
• 28:03
  I'll say it's 15 years later and said, you know, I'm going to go visit Earl in prison.
• 28:07
  Like, okay.
• 28:08
  And I think I said to her, just don't think I have to.
• 28:10
  And at that time, I would have probably, I was in a place where I would tell people I forgave him.
• 28:14
  It wasn't something that weighed on me every day.
• 28:17
  I was free from it.
• 28:18
  I was exploring what life looked like now.
• 28:21
  And not dwelling on my past, but trying to move on and try to honor that.
• 28:27
  And so she went, she spent a couple of days with him.
• 28:30
  And then, remember when she came back, she didn't really initially connect with me.
• 28:35
  And she felt guilty to a degree because the experience was so powerful for her.
• 28:39
  So she came back and she was like, well, you're my son.
• 28:41
  I don't want to make it, I don't want you to feel like I'm, you know, have this bleeding heart for the guy who tried to kill you, did bad things to you, and killed your friend.
• 28:50
  And yeah, when I just listened to her experience, she just, you know, it was kind of that, you know, be through kindness, reaping the coals on your enemy's head kind of a thing.
• 28:59
  And so, you know, brought them a meal, they sat and talked about things.
• 29:04
  And yeah, so it was kind of, I'll say inspiring to a degree, but it planted a seed.
• 29:08
  And I was like, okay.
• 29:10
  So she's like, would you be interested in doing that?
• 29:12
  The same folks did that, asked me if I would.
• 29:14
  I said, sure.
• 29:15
  And about a year later, there was an opportunity and we went.
• 29:19
  And so he was in Drumheller, Alberta, and I brought a friend with me.
• 29:24
  And we spent a day and a half together in prison with him.
• 29:28
  We got to see his cell, got to spend some time with him talking.
• 29:31
  And I went kind of for two reasons.
• 29:34
  I think because we had the opportunity to literally talk about things we never, I got to ask questions that I never had to answer to.
• 29:41
  Had I not.
• 29:42
  And I was in a place where I just wanted to say I forgave him.
• 29:44
  And yeah, I think over time, that experience, I feel like that experience was great.
• 29:51
  I feel like at times, him and I are probably in a different place now where what we think about how that experience went.
• 29:58
  But I think it was powerful.
• 30:00
  I know it was powerful for me, for sure, to be able to talk about that.
• 30:04
  Yeah.
• 30:07
  I got to be honest, it leaves me a little bit speechless.
• 30:10
  Anybody who knows me knows that that's...
• 30:12
  Not the case, yeah.
• 30:16
  That part of the story, and then again, you're right, there's so much more to this story.
• 30:20
  And folks, I wish we had five hours with Tyler that we could do it.
• 30:25
  But that part of the story of forgiveness, well, the very fact that you would go see him is just, to me...
• 30:34
  It was such a powerful experience to sit across from him, and I wouldn't say I agreed with everything he said.
• 30:40
  And in fact, even many years later today, of course, of course, of course, we're probably going to see how that experience went, right?
• 30:46
  And what we came away with, but yeah.
• 30:48
  But yeah.
• 30:54
  It's almost, it's almost, it's such an unbelievable.
• 30:58
  I mean, the everyday person even couldn't fathom what you've gone through and where you are today.
• 31:04
  So where you are today, Tyler, with your career, you have a beautiful family.
• 31:09
  Yeah.
• 31:10
  Tell us about your family a little bit.
• 31:11
  So yeah, we've married 25 years this year, it'll be 25 years this year.
• 31:17
  I don't have any advice for people married.
• 31:20
  Not at all.
• 31:21
  Smart man.
• 31:23
  I'm the same.
• 31:24
  No marriage advice.
• 31:25
  That's right.
• 31:26
  Yeah.
• 31:27
  I'm pretty sure it's because of her that we're still married.
• 31:29
  So that's right.
• 31:30
  Me too.
• 31:31
  Yeah.
• 31:34
  Two daughters, 17 and 14.
• 31:36
  Yeah.
• 31:36
  So one's about to graduate next year, and then the other one obviously a couple of years away from that.
• 31:41
  Yeah.
• 31:42
  Yeah.
• 31:42
  I've lived in such a...
• 31:43
  I say this to other people.
• 31:45
  There's so many people who've gone through so many things, especially in this world, when you look at the amount of...
• 31:52
  whether it's war or conflict or just bad things that happen and what other people do to other people.
• 31:58
  And I had something bad happen to me at one point in life, and then to a degree, I had a lot of supports.
• 32:04
  Yeah.
• 32:05
  And or figured it out or fumbled my way through things and made some okay decisions to get myself in places at times.
• 32:11
  But you're currently the Deputy Fire Chief in Red Deer.
• 32:15
  Yeah, one of them.
• 32:16
  Tell us where you've all been in terms of your career.
• 32:18
  You've been...
• 32:19
  Yeah, I'm on a traditional career.
• 32:20
  I've been all over as a firefighter.
• 32:21
  Started as a firefighter paramedic in Moose Jaw, and then I went to Vancouver for a little bit.
• 32:25
  And then Winnipeg.
• 32:26
  I spent time in Winnipeg.
• 32:27
  And then moved into management role in Calgary, Assistant Deputy in 2008, 2009.
• 32:32
  And then spent 10 years there.
• 32:36
  And then just different opportunities again.
• 32:38
  Moved up to Red Deer as a Deputy Chief.
• 32:41
  Yeah, so I'm 30 years in the service this year.
• 32:44
  And I started really young, so that's...
• 32:48
  I did, yeah, I was 19.
• 32:50
  Well, pretty close.
• 32:51
  Just checking, yeah.
• 32:52
  19, yeah.
• 32:53
  I started really, really young.
• 32:54
  Yeah, so yeah, that's been kind of the professional...
• 32:57
  And then a dabbler in emergency management, right?
• 32:59
  So I'm a member of Canada Task Force too.
• 33:00
  And we, in that team, has just been a team that has responded to a lot of the large natural disasters.
• 33:08
  And Alberta's just had a lot of those, those floods and fires right now.
• 33:11
  Yeah, well, Tyler, again, this could have been, you know, probably a six-hour podcast, just listening to your story.
• 33:24
  For those that want to learn more of the story, Tyler, tell us, because this was happening when we were at our annual general meeting.
• 33:34
  You were going to the Whistler Film Festival because there was a documentary coming out about your story.
• 33:39
  So tell us a little bit about that.
• 33:41
  Yeah, so we started working with some filmmakers probably about five, six years ago, just right around COVID.
• 33:47
  Some filmmakers I met, the same day I actually met Cam.
• 33:51
  And I think it was 2011.
• 33:53
  So maybe not 20 years, but I think it was Father's Day 2011, I think is actually when I was out in Vancouver.
• 33:59
  How many years is that?
• 34:00
  I don't know.
• 34:01
  I can't do that now.
• 34:02
  15 years?
• 34:03
  12 years.
• 34:04
  It's pretty close.
• 34:05
  I like to say 20, because that means I can say I've known you longer.
• 34:08
  Well, that's fine.
• 34:09
  That's a privilege.
• 34:09
  But yeah, I feel you there.
• 34:12
  Anyways, these young filmmakers at the time, we got to know each other.
• 34:16
  They heard me speak.
• 34:16
  And fast forward 15 years later, they get some executive producer on board.
• 34:24
  So it's Affolter Brothers and Craig Langdon, his name is.
• 34:28
  So yeah, they started wanting to tell Tyler's story.
• 34:30
  And I, as much as you're saying we could spend five hours, I don't think people want to listen to my voice for five hours.
• 34:37
  And when they, humbly, when they say they want to tell a documentary, I'm like, I don't know that I could, I don't know that I'm that interesting for that long.
• 34:45
  You got to film a lot of footage.
• 34:47
  So anyways, they started down the path of just trying to create this story and this arc of how they could tell the idea behind resilience and forgiveness.
• 34:58
  And interestingly enough, what they were able to create is that, they've created the documentary.
• 35:03
  It's called Altona.
• 35:05
  It's world premiere was done at the Whistler Film Festival, like Jennifer, you mentioned.
• 35:10
  It came out to some great reviews.
• 35:13
  They won the world.
• 35:15
  So again, Whistler is a fairly small film festival, but they came out to, they won the world documentary out of Whistler.
• 35:22
  And then it did a short streaming stint through that festival for a couple of weeks and set some records just with online streaming's, which was great.
• 35:31
  And the most powerful thing of what they did that I really loved is, as they started chatting with me, then they started just kind of falling breadcrumbs and naturally created this story of, telling the story of many.
• 35:43
  So it's not just Tyler, which was great.
• 35:45
  So telling Earl's portion thereof, telling Curtis's and his family's portion thereof, some friends that we connected with, and really the impacts of that and what that all meant and how the story, yeah, great, I was in a place of forgiveness into this, and what did the impact have on some of the folks that were involved.
• 36:05
  And telling the story in a really, I'll say that it doesn't necessarily leave, it doesn't tie everything up in a nice new bow, right?
• 36:13
  Because that's the way life is, I think.
• 36:16
  So yeah, so fast forward, that was its first release, I guess, if you will, was 2023, fall of 2023.
• 36:24
  Fast forward, it just were in July of 24, just one was put up for some award, Leo Awards, which I guess would be the BC Film Awards.
• 36:32
  I think it was put up for five and won four, four including best documentary as well again.
• 36:37
  And so yeah, the filmmakers and the producers are working now on the idea of release.
• 36:43
  And what does that mean?
• 36:44
  Streaming video on demand.
• 36:45
  I think they're talking about a little bit of a film, theater type thing in fall.
• 36:50
  Yeah, I don't know that I'd say I wouldn't do it again.
• 36:53
  Yeah, it's been an interesting process for sure.
• 36:55
  Well, folks, you need to check it out.
• 36:57
  Absolutely, because it does tell more of the story.
• 37:00
  Tyler, this has been phenomenal.
• 37:03
  You are a good friend.
• 37:05
  You are a good person.
• 37:07
  I admire you.
• 37:09
  And you know, I say that not just because of the story, but I think more so because of your character and who you are and your desire to just help people.
• 37:19
  And to want to be there.
• 37:20
  So we really appreciate you being here.
• 37:23
  I think I can let the cat out of the bag that we are going to at some point do another, drop another podcast with you.
• 37:30
  But more on a sort of professional side in terms of what you do and first responders and some of the things that are going on with wildfires and those kinds of things.
• 37:40
  But this has been incredible, folks.
• 37:43
  If you've listened to us today, and any of this has triggered you in any way, or your feelings or emotions, I think, Jennifer, we're going to put some links up on the ABA website.
• 37:55
  Absolutely.
• 37:56
  Yeah.
• 37:56
  And the website is Achesonbusiness.com.
• 38:00
  And like Cam said, there will be a link.
• 38:03
  If you are struggling or this has been triggering, or just for anybody in your everyday life, there is help out there.
• 38:09
  There are resources out there, and we encourage you to check them out and use them.
• 38:12
  And I really hope this isn't the last we do with Tyler.
• 38:16
  We'll do another one, but I hope even on some of the other things that he's experienced, that we can talk about.
• 38:23
  I think that will really help people in terms of some of the things they struggle with.
• 38:27
  And so I hope we can do that in the future.
• 38:30
  Thank you, my friend, for getting on your Harley last night and driving down the highway to Edmonton.
• 38:36
  Really, really, really appreciate it.
• 38:38
  Hey everybody, thanks for listening.
• 38:41
  We appreciate you tuning in and downloading our podcast.
• 38:44
  Tell your friends, tell your neighbors.
• 38:46
  Tell your enemies.
• 38:47
  Tell your enemies.
• 38:49
  And tell them about beautiful downtown Acheson and The Wall Coffee Roasters.
• 38:53
  Thanks everybody, thanks for listening, and we'll see you again.
• 38:57
  See you next week.