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Monday, March 10, 2003

Do-gooder fired

Pizza delivery driver aided gunshot victim

By TAMMY MARLOWE, STAFF REPORTER

 

 

A single mom was fired from her part-time job delivering pizza after rushing to the aid of a gunshot victim while she was still on the clock.

 

"We feel just as bad as the next guy but we don't pay employees to be EMTs, which she isn't," Jason Boyd, a supervisor at Frank's Pizza in Selkirk, told a local newspaper last week.

 

Marcella McAulay was on shift for Frank's Pizza about 8 p.m. on Feb. 26 when her friend and passenger received a frantic cellphone call from her daughter.

 

"She said, 'There's been a shooting two doors down,'" McAulay recalled yesterday.

 

McAulay knew she was on duty, but she said she just expected to drop off her friend at her Robinson Avenue townhouse and continue cruising Selkirk streets while waiting for the next call to deliver a pizza.

 

But the situation escalated quickly when she stopped her car near the scene of the shooting.

 

"One of the victims opened up the door and yelled at me to come and help him. Another man was on the floor and was bleeding quite badly," she said.

 

McAulay, 34, rushed out of her running car and into the stranger's house. The man who was lying on the floor had been shot in the stomach, and police or ambulance officials were yet to arrive.

 

McAulay said she quickly made the decision to do what she could to help. "I'm in. I can't leave the scene, I've been asked to help. It was my civil duty," she said. "I hope someone would do the same for me."

 

'PRETTY SCARED'

 

She sat with the victim, kept him awake by talking to him and pressed pillows on his wound to slow the bleeding.

 

"He was pretty scared and he felt he was dying," said McAulay. "I just basically held his hand, told him to hang in there and that help would be there soon. I said, 'You're not going to die. You're not going to die here.'"

 

When RCMP and paramedics arrived, McAulay learned she was going to be held up for another few hours because she had to give police a statement. She called Frank's Pizza and asked a co-worker to phone her supervisor and fill him in.

 

When McAulay finished with investigators and returned to the restaurant about 10:30 p.m., Boyd was there to deliver the bad news.

 

"He said, 'What the hell were you doing there?'" she said. "He told me I was fired because I was a threat to the business."

 

McAulay said she tried to explain, but Boyd told her he "didn't care."

 

"I was shocked. Actually, disgusted," she said. "I'm not an EMT and I know that, but ... I wouldn't want anyone to turn away from me. It's a person's life that's at stake."

 

Boyd told The Selkirk Journal he didn't fire McAulay because she helped the gunshot victim.

 

"She wasn't dismissed because she was at the shooting scene," he said. "She was away from her job for no good reason."

 

McAulay's still trying to deal with the trauma of the violent incident and will start looking for work in the next few weeks. "I really relied on that job," she said. "Everything's really changed because of this."

 

Daniel Keep, 33, has been charged with aggravated assault and is being held in custody in connection with the shooting. The shooting victim is still recovering.

 

"She was away from her job for no good reason." You really have to wonder what would be considered an acceptable reason.

 

later......

"She was away from her job for no good reason."

 

What an a**hole...