Saskatoon man describes hospital emergency room after Van de Vorst crash

Scott Barr heard the call come over the radio at the main desk in the Royal University Hospital emergency room.

It was just before 1 a.m. CST on Sunday.

"With everything being in such close proximity in that little waiting room, we could hear the call come over the radios," he said in an interview.

"They had a code that put everybody in the mode for the worst."

Code Orange

What Barr heard was the call about victims from an accident at the Wanuskewin Road and Highway 11 intersection. Everyone working in the emergency room knew it was bad. Code orange is used in cases of disasters, or situations with mass casualties.

Barr saw first hand.

I was front and centre.- Scott Barr

"Right where I was sitting was right beside the main doors. When the ambulance rolled up with the kids in them, I was front and centre, I could see the kids when they came in," he said.

Barr didn't know it, but Jordan and Chanda Van de Vorst had died in the crash. Their two children, aged two and five, were gravely injured.

It was horrible and jarring for Barr, because he has kids the same age. But what stayed with him is the professionalism and compassion displayed by everyone from police and paramedics to the emergency room workers.

"They were all standing around ready to go waiting for that door to open," he said.

"They flew into action. It was quite amazing how a large group of people like that just moves so flawlessly, getting everything ready and into order."

No time to grieve

He remembers hearing that the two-year-old boy had died. The hospital staff couldn't pause to mourn because they were working to save his sister.

And, they had a waiting room full of other injured people to deal with.

"It just amazed me how that group of people could go from watching that poor little boy pass away, and knowing that the sister was in such bad shape and knowing that the parents had passed away earlier," he said.

"It amazed me that they could go on to treating the rest of us."