Canadian charity offers healing for families after work-related tragedy
It was a regular working day in March when Leica Gahan’s world stopped.
Leica’s older son Jordan was in Alberta, far from their New Brunswick home, working as an excavator operator. Late that night in March, Leica and her husband were awoken by car doors slamming outside their house. The RCMP had arrived to tell them Jordan was dead. He had been operating the excavator in an ice-covered borrow pit. The ice hadn’t been tested properly and his excavator fell through. Jordan made it out of the machine but never made it to the top of the water. His hard hat floated up and then his body.
“My husband, my son and I were all hysterical,” Leica says. “I thought, there is just no way this could happen to me and my beautiful family. Unfortunately, it was not a mistake and on Thursday, March 20, 2014, six days later, my beautiful son’s body was flown home in the belly of an Air Canada plane. There are just no words to articulate the feelings when you see your handsome, young, vibrant 21-year-old son lying in a casket. That week, month and for years later, I had to come to terms with the fact that the family I loved so much and had poured my heart and soul into was changed and would forever be changed.”
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