The Knife

Calgary, AB, Feb 2010

“Can I speak to you a sec, Maryanne?”

“Sure,” I say.

He nods. “Come with me.”

I glance at my watch. The press conference will begin in ten minutes. But Darren knows this, so I follow him out of the police headquarters media room and down a hallway into his office. Inside, he sits at his desk, opens a drawer and reaches inside. He rummages around, pulls something out and then turns to look at me.

“I’ve been waiting for the right time to give you this,” he says. “And I think today is it.”

Today is the Calgary press conference launching the John Petropoulos Memorial Fund’s latest safety initiative, Put Yourself in Our Boots. Darren is the K-9 officer who went into the warehouse with John the night he died nearly ten years ago. Darren had stayed on the ground level with his dog while John went up to the mezzanine to investigate, which is where he stepped through the unmarked false ceiling and fell to his death.

Darren hands me a police-issue knife with a blade that springs open. I take it. My stomach tightens…partly because I strongly suspect the origin of the knife and partly because the press conference will start in seven minutes – and I’m the spokesperson.

“That’s the knife I used to cut John’s uniform after I found him in the lunchroom,” Darren says. “I had to rip his shirt open so I could determine the source of his injuries and give him CPR.”

I nod, holding my breath.

“The weird thing,” he continues, “is that I dropped the knife in the snow a few years back and couldn’t find it. But I kept going back to where I knew I’d lost it and then one time my dog, Gino, found it.”

Gino was the dog working with Darren the night John fell.

“I hope its okay I’m giving it to you now,” Darren says. “It’s just that…I think it’s time.”

I smile. “I think so, too. Thank you.”

We walk back to the media room together. I go straight to the podium and begin the press conference. My nervousness is gone.

Afterward, I head up to Edmonton for our press conference there the next day. And on the drive, I get to thinking…

Darren gave me the knife that had led him to get John’s breathing going again. And that action had led to John being put on life support, which meant that a) I – and our friends and family – were able to spend the day with him as he passed away versus saying goodbye to a corpse and; b) John was able to donate four organs, including his heart to a fifty-three year old man.

One moment, the knife had been an inert tool on Darren’s belt. The next moment – when used – it significantly impacted dozens of lives.

In playing ball, and in life, a person occasionally gets the opportunity to do something great. When that time comes, only two things matter: 1) recognizing the opportunity and 2) having the courage to take that swing. – Hank Aaron

Both Darren and John had been trained by Brian Willis, a former police officer and now an international trainer of emergency responders. In one of Brian’s seminars, he spoke of a dangerous state of mind known as “Code Black.”

Code Black is when someone finds themselves in a threatening environment they have never been in before – and there has been no previous experience, training or conditioning the mind can recall that will direct the person on how best to respond. If Code Black occurs, look out.

Police officers are trained so that they are mentally prepared to handle a traumatic event, regardless of the specific circumstances. So when Darren found John – unconscious and bleeding on the lunchroom floor – he knew exactly what to do…and did it.

When John’s Sergeant picked me up at work the day John fell and drove me to the hospital to see him, I, too, found myself in an unfamiliar and threatening situation, in that my entire life was collapsing around me. And yet, I remember having the distinct sensation that something I always knew was going to happen had just…begun. I hadn’t been trained or mentally conditioned to cope with seeing John dying of a brain injury – but I didn’t go into Code Black the day he died.

Sure, I went off the deep end a few weeks later when my mind decided it would no longer accept a reality that had become too painful. But during those first few hours when it became clear that John was going to succumb to his injuries, I wonder if, in a way, I pulled out a few ‘knives’ of my own from my toolbelt – inner strength, acceptance, faith, and an intuitive understanding that one day things would get better – to survive.

If so, then perhaps Darren’s knife is a metaphor for the tools – the strengths, skills, talents, passions and dreams – we already have within us. Maybe our job is to recognize the opportunities when they come along and then find the courage to take that swing.

Maryanne Pope is the Board Chair of the John Petropoulos Memorial Fund , the author of A Widow’s Awakening and an executive producer of the Put Yourself in Our Boots safety campaign. Please visit www.jpmf.ca or www.ourboots.ca for details.