In the summer of '99 I was 17 years old.
I'd just graduated from high school and had an opportunity to go play junior hockey.
Things were looking good for me, but then I got injured at work.
I'm Curtis Weber — a husband, a father of two, and an injured worker.
As a kid I was really active, into sports — soccer, baseball, football, but hockey was a passion of mine.
And my last year of minor hockey, I was discovered to a camp in Drayton Valley, Alberta, and I was really excited about that opportunity.
Knowing that he was going to go to Alberta and play hockey, he pretty much just wanted to have fun for the summer.
So we thought, well, if you're gonna do that, then maybe you'd better find a job .
Dad had had a company building bins for 25 years or more.
'99 was the first year dad had to close his crew down.
I'd actually got a job with a new company that had contacted my dad to ask my dad
what he thought about having me work for this new company.
We were planning to go fishing for August long weekend with the whole crew.
Supposed to be the time of our life, but unfortunately with the way things went, we didn't get much of a summer.
It was 29th of July, 1999. That's when it all changed for us.
On the day of my injury, we were setting up a grain bin and putting that bin on top of a hopper bottom.
I was the one that was steadying the hopper from the wind —
it was quite windy that day — so as I was guiding the hopper underneath the line,
the operator of the crane — it was actually the owner of the company —
didn't put the boom down far enough with our crane, and we backed directly into the power line,
sending through 14,400 volts of electricity through my body in three separate cycles.
Oh this is it? Yeah this is the place. Do you remember at all anything?
It looked like he was an orb of fire, probably 10, 12 feet around, bouncing around.
Finally, he hit the ground and completely grounded it. That blew the transformer
and actually started a grass fire, I think a half mile down the road.
There was complete chaos with the crew. They said that my body was physically smoldering, I was unconscious.
I assumed from what I saw, Curtis was dead.
Our boss went over to Curtis. He said he's breathing,
he's rolling around in dirt, but he didn't look swollen, he wasn't charred, he looked red.
You could see his jewelry burned into his neck. Wherever we touched him,
his skin would come off on his hands, his arms, like peeling a piece of saran wrap.
After another one, after another one, you could just keep going.
From that point, I was rushed into the university hospital.
I just thought, oh my god, I can't believe we're here, and I didn't think this happened in my family,
and why did it happen to him? When the doctor was talking to us, he had said that over the
next couple of days we might have to make a decision.
You walk in expecting to give someone a hug and say it's gonna be okay
and then you're confronted with a mom who thinks that she's lost her son.
It hit us like a ton of bricks at that point, I would say. Yeah, that our friend may die.
The first about five weeks I spent in intensive care in a coma. From that point on I was going in
for surgeries pretty well every other day.
The doctor would come out he'd draw me a picture and, you know, show me the little troubled areas,
and then every time he would come out, these circles got bigger and bigger on these troubled areas
and it just went on and on and on.
The right side of my face was extremely badly burned, some of the bone was exposed on my jaw and those sorts of things.
My right arm was amputated — that was kind of where it entered into my body —
and then exiting out my left leg that was also amputated.
As parents, nobody should go through this.
Then the day came where he wanted to see himself. Well, the room scattered.
So we went back and we lifted up the mirror, and he looked at himself and he turned his head back and forth,
and all he said was, hmm, just one side, eh? Like, amazing. Like, he just had such a positive attitude with everything.
It was a six-month span from the time I was admitted to the hospital from the time that I was released.
In that six-month period, I was right around 30 surgeries.
On top of those, I had another 12-14 reconstructive and plastic surgeries in Toronto.
So from the day of my injury
to the day I was pretty much done with physiotherapy and reconstructive and plastic surgeries,
was about a six-year period.
My life has changed in huge ways, obviously, with the amputations and the burns,
so I've had to learn to do a lot of things over, from tying my shoes to learning to walk,
to playing the sports that I used to love.
They've got prosthetics that I can rig up for my hockey stick and my golfing arm,
so some of those things I still do and I take pride in the fact that I'm able to do those things still.
After I was done with my physiotherapy and reconstructive plastic surgeries,
I was approached, seeing if I'd be interested in being a spokesperson for sharing my story.
Initially I had some reservations
about doing the speaking, about doing the media events, and those sorts of things,
just because that was never the type of kid that I was before.
I was never a safety-conscious kid — I was the farthest thing from it — so to throw me into a role
where I'm trying to prevent those things was a little bit of a transition for me.
But at the same time, once I started to get into it,
I really felt that I could be making a difference and it was important for me to share that message
in hopes that I would be making a difference.
So it's communication from management to you guys, it's communications from worker to worker...
My job kind of evolved into more of a training role. Whether it was return to work
or ergonomics or back injuries and that sort of thing.
There was a component there where I evolved into a bit of a safety trainer on top of this spokesperson role.
Thanks a lot for having me. (applause)
So if I was talking to a person who was involved in an injury and they were on their path to return to work,
I would really encourage them to get themselves surrounded by people that are supportive,
and to get out there and to realize further down the road is where you want to be.
And looking at the endgame and what it's going to take to get you there, as opposed to the short term,
where the days might be frustrating, or overcoming an obstacle,
just think of it as overcoming that obstacle to get back to where you want to be.
In the future I'd like to see myself continuing on with sharing my positive message.
Not only one of injury prevention, but also of motivating people
and encouraging people to pick up after a tragic event, and trying to help them through
those tough days that they'll inevitably go through when they have to deal with those sorts of things.
He's someone that values going out and earning an honest living
and putting forth an honest effort and he gets that from his parents.
And if he didn't put forth that effort, I don't think that he would be living the life
that he's that he's living right now.
I'm very proud of him for what he's done. Like, I mean, when we first met, he wasn't working.
He was still doing surgeries, and I really didn't know if he would ever work.
Yeah, I am very proud of him.
With all that he's gone through, I'm so proud of him.
He has endured so much and has come out on top.
From the day that I woke up out of my coma to the day I woke up this morning,
I can honestly say that there wasn't a day that went by that I was angry at anybody, or depressed, or felt sorry for myself.
And I think for me that was important in having a successful recovery and being able to do the things that I used to do.
Having those dreams and, you know, being able to get married and, you know, I always wanted to have a
family one day, and now watching my kids do all those things that I love to do is
something that was important to me to get to that stage where I'm at today.