Home page

Text size

E-mail this page

IQALUIT
Caught in the crossfire of an early hours firefight Nov. 23, Arthur Wilson could not bear to look at the young man handcuffed and bleeding from a gunshot wound to the chest as the two shared an ambulance to Qikiqtani General Hospital.

Arthur Wilson, 24, had only been in Iqaluit two weeks before he was caught in the crossfire of a firefight - Casey Lessard/NNSL photo

Wilson was relieved to hear from emergency personnel that the bullet that woke him at 3:30 a.m. was not embedded in his head, but had only grazed his scalp.

"I was not very happy with this young fellow," the 24-year-old said of the person he assumed had almost taken his life. "I heard the paramedic say, 'Stop yelling,' because he said the bullet had punctured his lung. 'You have a bullet hole in your lung, save your energy.' He was yelling a lot about his hands hurting from the handcuffs."

Wilson and the suspect ended up in the ambulance together after the RCMP was called to the city's 100 block for a report of shots being fired. The police arrived to find a male pointing a gun at them. Shots were fired and he fled the scene, a police press release said.

"I woke up with a very sharp pain in my head, like someone hit me over the skull with a baseball bat," Wilson recalled. "Right after the pain, I heard two gunshots. So I immediately jumped on the ground, ducked for cover, crawled to the back bedroom where my sister and her family is, swung open the door and yelled, 'Bullets are coming through the house! Get down! Get down!'"

He doesn't know how many shots were fired or how many came through his house, but said one went through his pillows to graze his head, and another went through the wall two or three feet from his bed.

"As soon as it was over, I saw the blood on my hands and I bled quite a bit," he said. "The shock started setting in, like, I'm going to die here. I have a bullet in my head. I was pretty scared for my life."

He told his sister Tamara to call police, and the RCMP entered the house moments later to find him lying on her lap, bleeding.

"They said, 'Stay with us," he recalled. "Tamara asked what was going on, and the officer said, I can't say at this time because I'm involved."

Not knowing the extent of his injuries, the wait for the ambulance was the "longest few minutes of my life," he recalled.

"I don't want to die here, I don't want to die here," he kept repeating to himself. "The RCMP left the door open, I'm assuming, because the house got really cold. I've heard from books and TV that you get cold before you die. My heart started pumping for sure. I was really starting to get nervous. It was an emotional roller coaster."

When the paramedics arrived, they said he was "very lucky" because the bullet had just grazed the back of his head. He needed five staples to seal the wound.

The suspect was found bleeding from the chest near House 238, not too far from the Arctic Ventures staff house Wilson shares with his sister, her boyfriend Thomas, their six-month-old son Roman, and another roommate.

Wilson and his sister are considering their next moves. Tamara, who has lived in Iqaluit for several years and suggested Arthur come to work with her at Arctic Ventures, is looking to return to their hometown of Moncton, N.B. Arthur is not so sure, having just arrived two weeks ago and not eager to make this his most prominent memory of the North.

He praises the staff at Arctic Ventures and his family for helping him get through the days after the shooting.

Days after the shooting, Wilson can't sleep in his bed, preferring to sleep on the floor. Every little creak of the walls wakes him from his sleep.

"It's hard to deal with, but I have a funny way of getting over things and I'm going to try," he said. "This will be an experience that I will never forget, and it will probably haunt me for the rest of my life."

We welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.