Witnessed some traumatic violence.

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Was downtown in the night club district to go to a rap show. (Merkules, a local white boy who apparently signed with Death Row Records now.)

Waiting in line outside and witnessed a fight in the street. Pretty regular fight/small brawl until it wasn’t. Something really bad, about as bad as it gets, happened right in front of us and we witnessed it and the aftermath.

I’m not describing it on purpose because I don’t want to be triggering to anyone else here Or myself rn. Let’s just say it was the worst I’ve ever seen, and while the victim remained standing and conscious for a couple minutes before sitting down, I have no idea how he wasn’t dead/wouldn’t not be surprised to read in the news that he didn’t survive.

I called 911 to report/request ambulance and police. Stayed on with the operator and followed the perpetrator at a safe distance and relayed his location & trajectory. Cops arrived and headed his way. I walked back there to confirm they did get the right guy & let the operator know cops had the correct guy in custody.

Was a bit in shock/traumatized tbh. Kinda made the night a bit tense. Glad I recently read a book about processing trauma.

I’d have been okay with going my whole life without seeing anything like that.

Went inside and saw the show - which was Very Good. Just got home and having a snack.

I hope you are ok. I hope the victim is ok.

I witnessed something traumatic many years ago… weirdly, I heard it but didn’t see it. It’s still hard to think about.

I slept better than I thought I would tbh, so that’s a good sign.

Hoping I don’t picture what happened and re-see it in my mind all the damned time. That’d be a pretty s**t intrusive thought/visual memory.

Haven’t googled to see if there’s even news about it to see if it mentions if he lived or died. If he lives, I don’t think he’ll ever be the same. ~Impossible.

There’s nothing on the Internet about it.

I’m sorry the person got beat up like he did.

I believe, if there was a death, that it would have been in the news.

I hope the person wasn’t seriously injured.

In those cases there's not a lot you can do other than get exercise, good nutrition, and if desired possibly take some B vitamins and nootropic mushrooms (Lion's Mane, etc.).

I think where trauma becomes a thing is if that incident told you something about reality or yourself that rattled you. There's a Youtuber for example who talked about walking his dog recently with a friend, going down a local alley, getting hit by armed robbers on the way back (who moved on because they didn't have anything) and then debriefing with all sorts of three-letter govt agencies when he got back home because these guys, moments later, shot a DEA agent (apparently just lost temper - not realizing who they'd shot). What rattled him was the sense that he couldn't have planned for it, so he was dealing with the sense that this event undercut his sense of ability to prepare, make right decisions, etc. to avoid things like that.

I think that last part is where things get serious, ie. where and if it changes your frame.

Hopefully what you saw won't do that, and the good news - a lot of ER/OR doctors see this sort of thing coming into hospitals nightly, I don't know their rates of PTSD but they may work in that field for years whereas what you had was one brush.

Overall it sounds like you're doing the right thing - just keep an eye on it, get your rest, and sit with any emotions that may come up later very carefully.

I did a search yesterday. There weren't any media people on scene so maybe it wasn't reported to any news outlets. Cops arrived Very Quickly - they have cops stationed up and down Granville Street along the night club district on weekends, maybe weekdays too. Over the last decade or so it's grown a reputation for rowdy crowds and drunk fights - it is Ridiculous. Far too often the people involved in fights are from the suburb city I live in, which has it's own reputation for crap like that.. only it's gotten worse over the years with drug gangs and certain groups that are hotheaded and quick to get violent. It seems many of them go downtown for a night out with a premeditated intent of starting s**t and getting in fights.

Not all violent incidents make the news, nor all deaths. He could be on life support or something like that now, or in a medically induced coma, or awaiting another surgery or something and Doctors may not know yet whether he's going to live or die.

He was most certainly Grievously Injured. Hands down The Worst injury from any source I've ever seen and wish I hadn't. On the (maybe) bright side, not a lot of blood loss - which I've seen someone covered in blood from head to toe before after he went crashing through a large window pane and it came down all around him and sliced his face open, which then bled a curtain of blood all down him and Looked worse than it really was.

But yeah, he was VERY SERIOUSLY injured. I would not be surprised At All if he doesn't make it. I'd be a little bit surprised if he DOES survive. And if he does live, he has a Very Long Road of recovery ahead of him and he will N E V E R be the same again. Like even if his mortal life isn't over, his life is ~over/forever changed and not for the better.

As for the guy who did it, it's people like that who commit acts like that that make me wish we had a harsher legal system to look them up and throw away the key like would be done in the USA. Here, he will go to jail, but he's in his 30's/40's, and will be out in who knows ? a couple years ? a few years ? doubt he'll even do a decade but straight up that moment would have earned him the rest of his natural life behind bars in the USA, maybe even a needle in his arm in some states - especially if the victim died/dies.

Food water sleep etc, check. Went out again last night to work at a different party - happy good vibe people.

Yeah, the surprise element and inability to control any of it is a factor. In some ways, though, with this incident.. that's almost comforting to think about as I described the incident to my twin brother and relayed to him that it happened so quickly that even though there were hundreds of people on the sidewalk (most distracted by other things, conversations etc) there may have only been a dozen or two that even witnessed it, and there was Nothing that anyone could do about it as no one saw it coming and no one was close enough to intervene if they had any idea of what was about to happen.

But yeah, there's a bit of shock that comes from the uncontrollable factor, but mostly it's the violent act and even more so the result of it.

Yep. ER/paramedics - I had those thoughts. Like I described to my brother I have a friend that's been a paramedic/ambulance supervisor for decades.. $28/hr to be traumatized over over and over for a career to the point that he now has uncontrollable nervous ticks and twitches. Not cool.


Very grateful that I had read the book "Waking The Tiger," in August as it gave me the tools to process traumatic energy vs. bottle it up and be experiencing ptsd symptoms over and over. I think having read that and using some of the info from the book helped to go through the after effects of shock/being traumatized without getting nearly as f****d up over it as I could have been.

I hope it wasn’t as bad as it seemed to you at the time. I really do. I’m certainly not doubting you. I hope the guy isn’t in intensive care, or having to have surgeries.

I was once stabbed in the head on the subway. There was blood all over the train car. They had to evacuate the whole train. It looked really bad. Turned out: I only got two stitches.

5 days ago, Vancouver got its 13th murder of 2022. Gotta hand it to you guys.

If we get 200 murders in NYC, that would be a banner year. Something that’s almost an impossibility.

There were 788 murders in the whole of Canada last year. New York City alone had 489 murders. We had over 2,000 murders a year in the early 90s.

Well done Goldfish21 for managing to be so clear headed during the event. Taking charge of what needed to be done. The world needs more people like that.
I hope you're Ok.

If he’s not dead he’s either in surgery or a medically induced coma while they make a game plan of how to fix him up. It was that bad. Really, truly, I wish it wasn’t for his sake and that I didn’t see it, but it was that bad - about as bad as it gets.

Not very much blood, though. I think seeing a bunch of blood would have been less shocking/traumatic.


Yeah, compared to the USA/large US cities we have very few murders.. but we still have more than ever. Plus I believe there are a bunch that don’t get recorded or discovered - there are rumours of a few serial killers in Metro Vancouver. Plenty of missing people etc.

On top of all that, the opioid epidemic is claiming 6 lives/day in BC -> 2000 or so people/year now.


Edit: I do wonder if that murder stat os only for Vancouver Proper - the City of Vancouver, which doesn’t include the separate cities of North Vancouver or West Vancouver, not any of the rest of the cities that make up “Metro Vancouver.” Or the suburbs where I live, which I think officially belongs to metro van, and then there are still the very far suburb cities out in the Fraser Valley.

Probably is only for the City of Vancouver is my guess. But even if you add ALL of the others together stretching out for approximately 100 miles into the Fraser Valley it’s still a low rate compared to most major American cities - just not nearly as low as the solo City of Vancouver stat portrays.

It’s for the City of Vancouver only.

Last year, there were 67 murders in Metro Vancouver.

Yeah, that seems more like it - and while low compared to NYC, murders/mostly tit-for-tat gang hits have been escalating over the last decade or so. We have ongoing gang wars that aren't likely to subside any time soon. (Or maybe ever?) Same same as stereotypical American gangs; they're killing each other over lucrative drug trade territory - and also in cities well beyond Vancouver, or even BC and Canada. Some of these guys have been executed in Mexico and I think even overseas. Such is life when you live in a major port city and travel the world to secure supplies or hide out.

Worst is when they kill innocent bystanders, though. :/

Then there've been a couple murders involving BIG $ launderers - no surprise considering the BILLION$ that have been washed in VanRE over the last couple decades. Only surprise is that more heads haven't rolled when money is lost or someone F's up.

And last, ofc we also have regular murders of all kinds like anywhere else - just that they number in the 5's or 10's per year, not hundreds or thousands, which is pretty good for an area with 2.8M people that's about as far from a homogeneous society as we can get.

Murders and good old fashioned ultra violence like I witnessed the other day SHOULD be exceedingly rare, IMO. Get physically aggressive on the playing field, fight like hell in the ring or on a mat (MMA), use any means necessary in actual combat during war... but a night out on the town in a busy night club district? What in the actual F? Occurrences like that have No Place in modern civil society.

As for the guy who did it, I am in no way excusing his actions WHATSOEVER, by actions alone he deserves to be locked up and the key thrown away.. however, it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to racially profile him and make the conclusion that he is very likely the product of multi-generational trauma to the nth degree. "Hurt people hurt people," is so true. Some prison Psychiatrist will likely be spending some time diving into the details of what made this guy the way he is - or I'd think they'd do that, anyways.

Gang hits, money laundering, drug cartels, and sex trafficking are all rampant along the west coast from Mexico to BC.

Goldfish, If you develop trauma and it starts interfering with your daily life / sleep / function, I'd recommend giving EMDR a try. It's not for everyone, but some people have found it really helps with intrusive memories.

If I haven’t lost any sleep over it or her nightmares or anything like that so far I doubt I will.

I’ll be okay, it’s just def something I could have done without seeing that’s for sure.

Good work, taking responsibility to track the offender and provide info to law enforcement.

It was the right thing to do.

Victim needed an ambulance ASAP and the guy that did it either needed to go to jail or be killed and I wasn’t gonna kill him soooo.. heh.

Not sure the ambulance did he victim much good, though. I’ll be legit surprised if he survived.

Cops got the guy though so that’s good, at least whatever can happen to him via our legal system will happen vs the guy running away and possibly never being caught.