Workplace Tragedy - Shelley Langmaid, BN/RN - Threads of Life

Tune in to hear Shelley Langmaid talk about her father Bob Maltby as she shares the story of the workplace tragedy in Miramichi that ultimately took his life on August 16th, 2016 and how it has changed her life forever.

Transcript

Transcript
October 24, 2024, 1:03PM


Perley Brewer (Guest)   0:15
Welcome to today's podcast. My name is Pearly Brewer and I will be your host. Today's podcast guest is Shelly Lynn Langmade. Shelley has a very special story to share with us today about her father, Bob Maltby. Welcome, sherilyn. Thank you for agreeing to be with us today. And to be willing to talk to us about the loss of your father.

Shelley (Guest)   0:37
Thank you so much for having me. It's it's a nice opportunity to speak with you. So thank you.

Perley Brewer (Guest)   0:44
Your dad's name was Bob Malby. He died on August the 16th, 2016. It was eight days after he celebrated his 69th birthday. You honour him today by sharing his story. Let's start by getting you to tell us who was Bob Mulpee.

Shelley (Guest)   1:01
Well, of course. Excuse me. It was my dad.
But he was also kind of a little bit of a community celebrity. Everyone knew he who he was, he was, he was what I would describe as an extrovert who thrived on being with people.
Family was everything to him, not so I would say family first. He was very proud of his own heritage, of his own family.
Very close to both his mom and dad and his siblings. In fact, his best friend was.
His brother Ernie, which you know is really, really special.
To see them together, they both work. Worked very hard. Of course. He was married to my mom. He met my mom very early on and they were married.
Well, they got married in 1969, so.
My math isn't great right now, but they were married a long time and I'm his first born and I have two younger brothers.
And he had seven grandchildren. So.
Long.
Long, very.
Momentous life I think I have lots of great memories of him, most of them as family, but also a lot of them. You know, as him being a very hard worker.
So you know, that's a pretty powerful reason for me to be here today.

Perley Brewer (Guest)   2:40
Why don't you share with us a couple of those stories that popped in your mind about your dad?

Shelley (Guest)   2:46
OK, one of them that's really significant and I shared this with and I share this continuously with friends and colleagues. When I was about five years old.
I remember. So I'm from a small community. I don't know if you know where the mayor machine is, but we're pretty close knit community and I remember being shopping with my mom and coming out of this retail store and seeing all the smoke and being terrified. You know, I'm a 5 year old and I seen.
At this fire, this huge fire and my dad worked in a grocery store right next to this retail store and the grocery store was literally burning down. And I saw my dad on the sidewalk with all these spectators.
And of course, his colleagues. My dad was working at that time, and it was really powerful for me because I saw my dad for the first time in my life really emotional and his face was. It just said it all to me.
And of course, I was terrified for him, but also very relieved that he was OK.
And.
What's really significant about that as well is I remember the next day Dad piling myself and my brothers into the car. He drove a little Volkswagen bug. I remember him driving us down and it looked like a giant swimming pool. And I remember there was food floating in the water. And I remember there was a gentleman who.
You know from our community who was literally like looking for food, you know, to feed his family. And I remember my dad rolling down the window and driving up to him and saying, look, don't, don't eat that, you know, that's not safe. And taking the opportunity, like, my dad, really cared about people. And he was open. And and I said extroverted, but the biggest heart you would ever meet.
And he's he expressed that with his family.
But also he had the biggest heart in every way. So working with people working.
Caring for us as children, loving my mother.
Who deeply loved my mother and his own family.
I don't know if that's one of the most significant memories I have. Of course, just the generosity, the love he had for us as children.
Family came first.
And right up until his death.
He spent a significant amount of time caring for us in giving so proud of us, so proud of my mom and so proud of his seven grandchildren. Each and every one of them.

Perley Brewer (Guest)   5:42
So what do you remember about the day of his accident?

Shelley (Guest)   5:48
So my dad was 69 and at that time worked Monday to Friday.
So.
It was a Friday when he had his accident. He turned 69 on Monday, August the 8th and Friday, August the 6th. I'm sorry the that would have been five days. So August the 13th, I guess. Sorry again my the littlest things. Sometimes I don't remember, but.
My husband and my two of my children, we were on Campobello Island and we had limited cell service at that time and on our way to vacation. The Sunday before my dad's birthday, I had called, you know, happy birthday. Dad, I love you. And my mom said it's not your birthday today, Shelly. It's tomorrow, and it's just we always.
Our tradition always is. I love you. I'll see you next time.
Absolutely. Family first. I didn't want to miss his birthday. Sorry. And so.
We were on Campobello Island when he had his accident. My brother Rob, who is also a nurse, called to let us know, and we, you know, rapidly we packed up our bags. All we knew was my dad had a brain bleed. That's all I knew at that time. And so we travelled home, and it was a long, long drive because Campobello Island. You can get to the island by.
Vary or by driving through the states. So my husband chose to drive through Maine and what was so difficult and frustrating was I couldn't talk to anybody. I would get an occasional text from my brother Steven, and then I wouldn't get any more. And at that point, my dad had been rushed from Marion C Hospital to Moncton and was in.
Neuro intensive care then so.
Of course.
We drove there as quickly as we could.
My my son Jerome was home. He had stayed home from vacation for some of work. So, you know, one vehicle family trying to figure out how we were going to get Jerome to Moncton and.
Yeah, it was a long trip.
And then of course, I saw him.
And they recognised that the brain bleed was way more than a brain bleed.

Perley Brewer (Guest)   8:25
They ever figure out what happened.

Shelley (Guest)   8:29
It's interesting, pearly, you know, coming to speak with you today, I felt the need to go back and read all the documents, you know, and all the reports because ultimately we don't know what happened to Dad. There's theories.
But basically.
And I just want to say from our perspective, you know when you're grieving and you're the midst of that, you don't think about what happened. I mean, ultimately, when we met Dad in the NICU or stilling up the NICU, sorry.
Work with babies so and the neuro intensive care unit. When we saw my dad, he was in a coma.
So he had a significant head injury and.
When I saw him, I'm a nurse. So what I saw, I saw my dad, of course. But I also recognised his symptoms and recognised his body. Postures like the way he was moving in the bed. I knew that he had a very significant head injury.
And I ultimately knew in my heart that Dad was not going to wake up. And so at that point, I wasn't really thinking about what happened. I wasn't really aware of what happened. We knew that dad was found on the floor.
My dad worked in shipping and receiving. He was a clerk and.
At that time.
As no one witnessed as far as we know, like.
They found him.
Umm. In the ambulance report, they found a minip pool of blood unconscious on the floor.
So.
Ultimately.
There's no.
It it was significant for us in that we didn't know anything which we still don't know everything today and that's so painful because your mom plays tricks on you. You know you can start like for me, I told myself stories about like, filling in the gaps. You know, this is what happened. Oh my goodness. I hope he was OK. I hope he wasn't awake. I hope he wasn't in pain.
And.
It's hard, you know, it's been 8 years and.
At that time.
It was painful, especially for my mom.
Because things like, OK, so we we brought Dad home. We lived for five days, we brought him home by ambulance to the Miramichi Hospital to give him chance to be with all his family before he died.
When he died.
The funeral director, who was a friend of mine, Ted's, when he took his. I'm sorry if this is getting to be this is powerful imagery imagery for me when they took my dad's body, we were ready to, you know, prepare for the funeral. We were all exhausted and the next day my brother received a call from the corner.
They had to do an autopsy.
And we were shocked. We didn't. Of course, you don't think about that stuff. So that just started a lot of really.
Things that we didn't think we would positions we'd never thought we'd be in, you know, like we thought, you know, there were questions. So they did an autopsy and then.
After everything like after dad died, my mom was started correspondence with workers compensation with work safety Brunswick, sorry. And of course there were all these questions about what happened. So.
It was a couple of months.
Worksafe New Brunswick was tremendous with my mother and with all of us just tremendous, like, wonderful, very caring.
Kept my mom in the loop like corresponding with my mom, and ultimately by December of that year. So Dad died in August. The documents, and just again, you know, reading through and speaking with my mother.
In December, Worksafe New Brunswick ruled my dad's death an accident.
Of unknown cause because there was, according to the report, no objective.
Anything despite.
Like there was nothing objective that could indicate what happened. My dad was working at the age of 69, working part time.
To have ultimately for his mental health, I'm sure, because he worked his whole life but as well for health benefits, maybe 69 years old, working middle class, working hard. My mom was working full time as well, so.
You know, sometimes assumptions are made and ultimately to this day, do not know.
You know why Dad was on the floor bleeding? We don't know.
And that's really tough. And so when people ask me, you know, oh, your dad had a heart attack. See, I don't know that my dad had a heart attack. I don't know. Ultimately, I don't know. And for me.
It's just. I wanna honour him. I want people to know who he was. I mean, he was one of the most hardworking individuals I've known in my life. He was dedicated to his work, to his community, and we all lost a pretty tremendous human being.

Perley Brewer (Guest)   14:36
So at the time, how did your brothers, your two brothers, and yourself and your mom deal with the loss of your dad?

Shelley (Guest)   14:46
It was very traumatic for all of us.
I can't speak to their feelings, but I can say that milestones. I mean my mom lost her best friend. You know, Mom spent every day. Dad would come home at noon, and he made supper, which was really funny because my mom was a stay at home mom for years and she, you know, she would. My dad loved food, so she made him all the.
Fun stuff. And she was the the cook and.
At that point in my life at Dad's life, he was cooking for her, you know? So that was really tough on her. He, my brother Rod and his two daughters live in Marymishe and his wife. And so my dad spent a lot of time with them. Dad would pick them up at daycare. Dad would drive them to their activities. Like he was very involved in everyone's life.
So ultimately.
Was devastating for my mom, devastating for my brother and his children because he saw my dad every day or my dad would call and say, hey, be coming to supper. I'm making supper.
My brother Steven has 2 girls as well and he lives in Rossay and would come up to visit my dad, bring the girls and his wife.
Every major event. You know my dad, my mom, were involved myself. I'm the oldest and I have three children.
And.
Worried a lot? I'm the nurse, so I was always the person you know.
So, Dad, what are you doing today? How are you taking care of yourself today?
Are you are you eating healthy food? Are you? You know, but ultimately.
I've learned a lot about, like reflecting back on.
How tough it was and it was really tough. Things like Christmas, birthdays, his birthday.
You know.
I remember.
Coming back from the funeral parlour and opening the fridge and dad's birthday cake was there.
You know, and my mom told the story about, you know, taking Dad to the Dairy Queen to get him an ice cream cake for his birthday. This little things like that. I don't know if I really answered your question.

Perley Brewer (Guest)   17:23
Yeah, you sure did. You know when? When? When you have a loss like this and you know you. You had your mom involved. You had two brothers yourself. And you also mentioned your your 7 grandchildren and. And sometimes I don't think people realise that when when someone passes away as a result of a workplace injury it's it's not just one or two people it's affected it's it's a whole family network and and you mentioned a number of your grand grandkids.
That will never get to really. Maybe know their grandfather.
And that's all. We'd say it in itself.

Shelley (Guest)   17:56
It is. It's incredibly sad. Our daughter Bethany.
Is the oldest grandchild and she is 28 now and my dad did come to her high school graduation, which was really special of course. And and that was a big, big thing. And he's so proud of her and.
But ultimately, that was the last graduation he saw. And then.
Each of our children, each of their graduations.
Every single one of them, like my son Jerome, my daughter, graduated from university. Our son Jerome graduated from university. He's 25. He's working hard. He works. You know, he works for the city. He works hard every day he works Labour.
Our son Christopher is at Community College studying traits.
And our my next would be my brother's daughter, Alexandra.
Graduated from university. Working hard.
Become ACA. My niece Sophie in university. My brother Rob has 2 girls who still live in Miramichi. Eden is in her third year university and then his youngest granddaughter, Kate, who is very little when Dad died is at UMB this year, so he would be telling you if he met you.
You wouldn't be able to get away because he would just talk. You'd have to hear about every single grandchild 'cause. He was incredibly proud.

Perley Brewer (Guest)   19:39
So you mentioned earlier that you were a nurse before your father's accident. How did your father's death affect you as a nurse?

Shelley (Guest)   19:44
Mm hmm mm.
Oh, it was incredible.
Because sitting be I sitting beside my dad when he was in a coma.
I was on the other end of things.
You know, I'd worked with families who were going through tragedy, but to be on the other end, being part of the tragedy.
Whitney's seen my dad and wondering about his pain. You know, if he could hear me talking to him, that was powerful. And he was the person in my life in my youth who said you should be a nurse. You'd be such a great nurse. Shelly. You should be a nurse. So I did. I became a nurse, and I have three children. And by the time I had my third.
Things were getting difficult being on the the road and my husband with his work that I decided to stay home for a while.
And the way it works with the nursing profession is that you have to work a certain number of clinical hours to maintain an active practise. So after my third child, when he was nearly three.
I decided it was becoming too difficult to maintain that, so I decided to have an inactive practise. So I paid my registration dues every year, but I wasn't working as a nurse.
So I decided.
When I saw my dad, OK, it's time. I'm a nurse at heart. I'm going to do this. So going back to school, I did my refresher, and I'm going to tell you it was hard because I was.
If there's the difference between being 2322, studying you know when I was nearly 50, but I'm so grateful I did it to be in the place I am today because.
I I feel that some of my education and then my own personal experience that I'm in a place where I can feel.
I feel that I can give back and it's really important to me. I think of my dad every single day when I go to work, I think of him every day and I think, OK, dad, no, I say to myself, how am I going to make a difference? Today you made a difference. How can I honour you? That's really important to me.
S.

Perley Brewer (Guest)   22:15
You become involved with threats of life. How does that help you deal with the loss of your father?

Shelley (Guest)   22:21
Oh my goodness. Tremendously. So after dad died.
I've decided that I was going to learn more about Worksafe New Brunswick. I became hungry for information about workplace.
I, until you're the middle of it. Like I can honestly say to you, I didn't think about workplace. I mean, as a nurse, I had to take horses every year on things like to stay safe at work and to safety for other people.
So I followed Worksafe New Brunswick for many years on Facebook. All of their feed, and one day it came up work safe. New Brunswick was promoting the threats of life event and I can't remember exactly or they they made some reference to threads of life and I had no idea I'd never heard of threads of life before. So I went on their website and.
Read and followed events and then I read about the Speakers Bureau.
And I thought, you know what? That's something I can do. That's something I can do for Dad, because in my career I've been an adult educator.
And just a fierce advocate. And so, yeah, so then I reached out to threads of life, and it's only been over a year about a year ish. I reached out to them and I said, hey, do you are you looking for volunteers? I'd love to volunteer. And I heard back from them.
Quickly and started, you know, joining the family connect online, meeting online First off and and learning and meeting people online. And then I went to the family forum, changed my life and that it it. I can't tell you how it changed my life, my husband Wilfred.
And myself, we travelled to Nova Scotia and Friday night the forum starts with a little memorial service.
And they asked me to bring a picture of my dad and he asked me to send some pictures of Dad.
I was not prepared for how moving that was. That ceremony was. I sat at a table. To my right was a MA, a woman, a wife, a mom who lost her husband. Only months after my dad.
Whose whose husband was in the same hospital who had the same position as my dad. To my left. You know I have.
Work safely, Brunswick. I have a man. A wife who lost their son.
I was just moved beyond words. The care that I got that night when my dad's picture was up on the screen and they said my dad's name.
The tears my heart opened.
To put my father's picture on a table with so many pictures of people who lost families who were injured in the workplace, whose lives were changed forever.
My heart. I thought, you know, I started out in this organisation. I wanted to be a volunteer that night my heart opened and I felt like a member of a family. It was truly a family forum. And that whole weekend I sat with people.
We had workshops.
We listen to people who've been affected. We were given tools.
My life has changed.
That's Sunday, when my husband and I left.
I recognised as well that not only did I lose my dad, but my husband lost him too, and that was really powerful.
They're beautiful organisation. I can't say enough about them and I talk about threads of life to whoever I can. It's very important to me.

Perley Brewer (Guest)   26:34
Yeah. And we'd certainly always like to remind anyone listening to our podcast today.
To certainly make your organisation aware of the thirds of Life organisation and what they do and what they have to offer folks that have lost loved ones on the job and it's as easy, I always say it's Googling threads of life and as you say it's a tremendous organisation. I've interviewed a number of people that have become involved in the organisation and their comments are the same as yours. It's it's it was life saving to them.

Shelley (Guest)   26:53
Yeah.

Perley Brewer (Guest)   27:05
And I for that reason, I don't think we can promote threads of life and what they do and make sure everybody's aware that they do exist because a lot of people don't. A lot of people aren't aware of them and and that's a shame because they provide tremendous support.

Shelley (Guest)   27:21
Absolutely. And just even being able to connect with people who experienced what I experienced or what my family experienced, you know.
It's it's awful being on the side of something and not knowing what happened. It's it's so many questions and then going through the process of, you know, waiting for someone to tell you something, waiting for people to tell you what happened, and then being with a group of people.
That have been through the same thing, because even when you know answers, it doesn't bring back the person you lost. It doesn't bring back your health, and that's tremendous. And threads of life. One of the comments made is it's a group you don't want to belong to. It really is a group. You don't want to belong to. But boy, when you're with.
Threads of life. You're part of the family.

Perley Brewer (Guest)   28:22
On health and safety, would you like to share with our listeners today?

Shelley (Guest)   28:27
Well, one of the values of threads of life. So when I was reading about threads of life.
One value that really hit home with me is health.
And can I just quote you what? It's what it said on their on their site, it says safety begins in our head, our hearts in our hands in everyday actions.
So for me call to actions are simply. There's two. Actually we talk about it in our head.
So know your value. My father was 69 and the wealth of knowledge and expertise and wisdom that he had.
He we all have value. We all have what we can contribute to our work, our home, our community.
Starting in your head, thinking about what your value is, take care of yourself.
Safety. You cannot. It's.
It it's take care of yourself.
Our hearts, we have hearts. My dad had the biggest heart you would ever meet. Our hearts care for one another. Care for one another. Take care of each other at work. If you see something that you think might not be safe, don't be afraid to say something. Take care of each other. Look out for each other in our hands. There are lots of things that we can do.
And for me, my calls.
These are my calls to action. Take care of yourself and take care of other people.

Perley Brewer (Guest)   30:08
Yes, I can. You start off this podcast. I always like to do it by asking how are you and your, your family, your network, your family network? How are you doing today?

Shelley (Guest)   30:17
Thank you so much for asking that.
I think.
I don't think we will ever losing you, your family member to an accident is very powerful.
My brothers and their their girls and and my husband and my children, they're all I think we're all doing pretty well. But I can tell you before I met you today, I spoke with both my brothers and.
I wanted I wanted their blessing and doing this today because I know how painful it's been.
My mom.
She's she's a strong lady. I'm very proud of her.
It's still, I know it's still very difficult for her every day because Dad was with her every day and she was a teenager.
It's changed our life. We're all doing OK, but that's always going to be something there. I hope. I don't know if that answers your question, but but I I I work for. I look forward to thinking of him every day. His pictures are everywhere. He's in my heart.

Perley Brewer (Guest)   31:20
You're dead.
Well, look, Shelly, then, thank you very much for sharing your message with us today. Tell you about that. We're thinking of her and your brothers as well. And we certainly wish the best to your 7 grandchildren that I'm. I'm sure your father would be very proud of.

Shelley (Guest)   31:40
Yeah. How's me?

Perley Brewer (Guest)   31:44
It's very important for people, you know, we talk a lot in over the years. I used to work at Worksafe, we talked a lot about workplace accidents. We talked about a lot about health and safety, but there's nothing more powerful than hearing a story from someone that's like yourself that's been affected.

Shelley (Guest)   32:00
Absolutely. And I'm so thank you.

Perley Brewer (Guest)   32:01
So thank you.
So thank you very much for taking the time today to share with us.
Your tribute to your father, and I'm sure he'd be very proud and I'm sure he's up there listening to your story today. Thank you very much.

Shelley (Guest)   32:16
Thank you so kindly. It's been a gift to be here today. Thank you.

Perley Brewer (Guest)   32:20
So I'd like to thank Shelly Lynn for joining us on today's podcast. Our message of course is always stay safe. We'll see you next week.

Shelley (Guest)   32:29
Thank you.

Perley Brewer (Guest)   32:30
Thank you.