Filipino nurses shaken by deadly Vancouver festival rampage say tragedy 'will not define us'

Hannah Alberga · The Canadian Press

· Posted: May 01, 2025 8:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 11 minutes ago

Filipino-Canadian caregiver Glesy Banton-Victoria says she had planned to be the Lapu-Lapu Day thoroughfare festival successful Vancouver connected Saturday, but took a nap instead, exhausted by a ceremonial earlier successful the day. 

When she learned that a conveyance sped into a assemblage of festival-goers astatine the Filipino assemblage event, she says she was stunned by the horrific details, thinking, "Is this real?"

Banton-Victoria says she's seen galore dormant bodies successful her occupation arsenic a seasoned exigency country caregiver astatine a Surrey, B.C., hospital, but expects she would person frozen successful spot if she had witnessed Saturday's carnage.

"It hits location due to the fact that it is home, the Filipino community," said Banton-Victoria, calved successful Legazpi, a metropolis successful the southeast Philippines.

Police said Wednesday that 11 radical had died, including 3 members of a household from Colombia, portion a 22-month-old lad was among 3 radical successful superior condition. Dozens were sent to infirmary with injuries.

Banton-Victoria says she's reasoning a batch astir the victims, and the Filipino nurses she expects are providing them care. 

"If you're a Filipino moving done those days successful emergency, this is astir apt 1 of the toughest days of your life, seeing your community. [It's] almost similar a usurpation of yourself, of your values," she said.

Nurses connected tract ran to assistance the injured, union says

Mass casualty events specified arsenic these are already stressful for wellness workers abruptly pressed into action, but B.C. Nurses' Union president Adriane Gear says the alleged onslaught is particularly hard due to the fact that truthful galore Vancouver nurses are Filipino and whitethorn person had a idiosyncratic transportation to the festival tragedy.

Nurses and Nurse Practitioners of British Columbia said successful a connection Monday that galore members of the Filipino assemblage were called to respond without knowing if loved ones were involved.

LISTEN | Support for archetypal responders to Vancouver festival tragedy:

Gear broke into tears portion noting that nurses who volunteered astatine the lawsuit told her they saw an SUV plow into the assemblage earlier they ran toward the injured.

She said nary of them were physically harmed, but she said she worries astir their intelligence health. 

"Vicarious trauma is witnessing quality suffering, and nurses and different archetypal responders, they bash that each the time," Gear said.

"But determination are situations that adjacent [for] the astir seasoned, it is conscionable truthful difficult. And, this would beryllium 1 of those situations." 

Just 24 hours aft the tragic incident, B.C. Premier David Eby spoke astir however each idiosyncratic successful the state has been touched successful immoderate mode by the Filipino attraction community. 

"We can't spell to a spot that delivers attraction successful our state and not conscionable a subordinate of that community," Eby said astatine a quality league connected Sunday.

"This is simply a assemblage that gives and gives."

Those words moved Vancouver caregiver Ron Burke to tears. He founded OMNI College to enactment internationally-educated nurses who travel to Canada from countries including the Philippines, Singapore and India. 

"And present we should beryllium helping them and supporting them," Burke said. 

"Without a doubt, we volition astir apt cognize idiosyncratic who was injured oregon killed, and past that makes it precise idiosyncratic due to the fact that we cognize astir the idiosyncratic and the family. I know, firsthand, the struggles many, galore Filipinos person had to travel to Canada," helium said.

Statistics Canada says determination were much than 44,000 Filipino nurses and health-care enactment workers crossed the state successful 2021. Many provinces, including British Columbia, person said they were recruiting nurses from the Philippines to capable infirmary staffing shortages successful 2022 and 2023. 

Filipino caregiver Jennie Arceno didn't dainty injured patients, but knows others who did. She worries they are having a hard clip processing the casualties and injuries they witnessed. 

She said she was connected Vancouver Island connected Saturday night, scrolling societal media astatine a day enactment erstwhile a unrecorded video appeared connected her provender from the festival: victims connected the ground, archetypal responders doing CPR and a damaged SUV. 

"I could conscionable perceive from my ain language, saying like, 'Oh my God, there's a babe nether the truck,'" said Arceno, who came to Vancouver from Palompon successful 2016 for a registered caregiver re-entry program.

"I was conscionable like, 'Oh my God.' And that's however I stopped watching due to the fact that it was conscionable like, was that adjacent real?"

She's besides reasoning astir the families who mislaid loved ones. 

"You travel to Canada. You deliberation astir a bully beingness … you lone deliberation astir the aboriginal of your household and wanting to enactment here, wanting to unrecorded here, peacefully distant from the chaos, and past you conscionable extremity up going location with a dormant body." 

Banton-Victoria said the "tragedy has shaken us, but it volition not specify us."

"To our Filipino nurses: your courageousness astatine the bedside and your attraction for our assemblage animate each of us. You are the span betwixt symptom and healing, and we are stronger due to the fact that of you."

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