Calgary ER nurse Pam Bosnak felt like she was at the Grand Riviera Princess resort for all the right reasons.
Bosnak and fellow Calgary nurse Karen Murphy were on a Sunwing vacation when a blast crippled the resort, killing seven, including a father and son from Drumheller, and injuring several others Sunday morning.
Bosnak, who works at the Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary, had walked by the Platinum Lounge, where the explosion occurred, only moments earlier, on her way down to the resort beach.
“When we heard the blast, we both just jumped up and instinct took over,” Bosnak, a 40-year resident of Calgary, said.
Both reached the scene and immediately started triaging patients, eventually helping construct makeshift stretchers and splints made from blankets thrown down by other vacationers.
“It was so surreal — the building that was there seven minutes earlier was no longer there,” she said.
Bosnak has since returned home and, having had time to let things sink in, she says she is aware that she was possibly minutes away from her own demise — and that her heart is with the families dealing with the tragedy “I believe my time was meant to be there to help at that moment — not to be under the rubble,” she said.
