In 2009, I was 30 years old. Life was pretty good, I was enjoying my job, I was enjoying my family life.
I remember the wife and I were just talking about how good life was.
And then I was injured at work.
I’m Mike Rousselle. I’m a husband, a father of three, and I’m an injured worker.
On the day of my accident, I was a sub-foreman working for Arrow Installations.
We do lots of line maintenance, new construction, live line work—you know, changing out poles while the line's still energized.
So basically, we were trying to get a bucket truck in to go up a pole to change a fuse for the line.
It was a tight spot and I think it was snowing or raining that morning.
And I’m pretty sure the bucket truck got stuck and it was the end of the day.
And I basically said to the guy I was with,
“I’ll just climb it and get it while we’re out here and then we don’t have to ever come back.”
The guy I was working with had his back to me when it happened.
So he said he just heard a big, like, arc or a big bang, I guess, and he turned around and he's seeing there was a big ball of fire around me.
He said it felt like it lasted forever. And then he said it finally went out and then I went unconscious.
I received a phone call around three o’clock that Mike had been in an accident.
It wasn’t too serious. He would probably just need some skin grafting, and he was in the hospital in Fernie,
and just to hang tough. They were going to transfer him to Cranbrook within the hour.
And as I waited, the phone calls kept coming in and every call got worse and worse.
I got a phone call it was at 12:30 that night and he said,
“Uh, I’ve got some bad news. You know they had to take Mike’s arm off.”
And that was when it was like, okay, this is bad and it still, it was almost surreal.
I couldn’t believe that that happened.
I remember thinking, “Well, he has children, and he has to work, and how are we going to continue on with life if he doesn’t have an arm?
And you told me you were just going to skin graft his hand.”
You get the phone call later and it was, "Yeah they had to take his leg."
You just kept thinking, like, this can’t be real.
The only thing I could think about was, I’m not going to be able to be the same guy.
You know, I’m not going to be able to be active. I’m not going to be able to play sports.
I’m won’t be able to go back to work. It’s devastating.
You get this feeling of like, you know, you’re going to be nothing.
And I can remember walking in the room and he was just so devastated.
And I would think, like, that’s not Mike. That’s not the Mike I was married to and who we had built a life together.
So it was like we had to slowly learn together what this new Mike was going to be.
First month in the Calgary hospital, I was strictly in the burn unit.
And then the second month, I exercised every day.
I worked on balance, strengthening muscles that I would need for walking with a prosthetic leg.
I think about a month into the hospital in Calgary, WorkSafe came and visited
and they basically said, “Everything is taken care of.” And there was never any pressure to go back to work.
It was like, “You know what? When you're ready, you come talk to us and we’ll work through what you need.
And you’ll be able to get back to work when you want.”
Once I finished rehab in Calgary, it was suggested to me that I should go to Vancouver to go to G.F. Strong.
First few months, I was just focused on walking. You know, getting back to walking.
And as soon as I started to feel good again, it was like, okay next step.
I've got to get back home and spend time with my family, relax, and just, you know, just take in a break.
And I did that for a year.
There was a point where I was back home, I was done with G.F. Strong, I was starting to live my life.
And I had another worker that was hurt 30 years ago and he had exactly the same injury as me.
He pretty much gave me the best advice I could have.
You know, “Forget about the old you, that’s not there anymore.
If you can learn to forget about him and focus on the new you,
you’ll be able to move forward.” And that was the best advice I had.
After that it was, I'd find a goal and then I'd attack that goal and that was the reason why I decided
to come back to work, because I was in a new me, new goals to set and achieve.
With work when Mike [Honeyman] would come and visit me, it was always,
“We’ll always have a spot for you.” And he'd always ask me, “What’s your plans?
Do you want to come back to work? Do you want to just, you know, not work?”
And I was like, “Oh no, I want to come back to work!”
It was just a matter of what it was going to be.
It was so unknown at the time, but it was good to know that I was going to be looked after.
When Mike [Rousselle] was ready to come back to work, he was gung-ho.
I was keen too, right? It was exciting, it was great!
And with WorkSafeBC and their Return to Work program,
it’s there for a reason; and at the time I didn’t understand it.
You know, I thought, “Oh, this is restrictive, right?”
You know, they said, “You know what? You need to slow down.
You know there’s precautions, there’s steps that you need to take, there’s plans.”
And I always thought it was not—I'm like, that’s not me.
And now that I look back I’m glad that they approached me and they, you know, they came up with a plan for me.
They really looked out for my well-being, and I didn’t see that at first.
And now I’m in the situation I am, I do see that that was a big part of coming back to work.
The first step was just going to work. I had no idea what I wanted to do.
I had no idea where my place would be at Arrow. I just knew I had to come and start.
And it was basically trial and error. It was try, you know, code course, design. Try quoting jobs, doing estimates.
You know and I tried all of those things and I’m like, “No, this isn’t for me. I don’t like this.”
I'm not an office person; I can’t sit in a desk all day.
I’d come in when I please. I would, you know, leave when I wanted to.
I had no responsibility at work, really, you know I was just there.
My wife could see I wasn’t happy. She was like, “This isn’t for you. You've got to find something different.”
She goes, “Maybe you should leave Arrow and find a different field of work.”
And I was like, “No, I love my job. I love being in the field. I love working in my trade.”
You know, I needed to get closer to that.
And when one of the general foremen retired, it was like that's the role I need to go
because I still get to be a part of the field and I still get to be a part of the office.
I thought that was the best fit.
I know Mike [Rousselle] would like nothing better than to be back out on the tools, running a crew and building power lines.
That’s what he likes doing, and he’s gotten to a point where he is out with the crews.
And he’s also doing a whole bunch of other things that are integral to the business running.
You know, he stepped in a big way.
I think if it wasn’t for Mike [Honeyman], I don’t think I would be able to have that return as smoothly as I have.
I’ve been very fortunate that I get the position that I get and I’ve got to do a trial and error type thing.
He’s always supported that.
Arrow could put all the things they needed to put in place,
WorkSafe can put everything in place for you, but if your attitude's not there, it’s not going to work.
You can make two choices. You can have an attitude where life sucks and poor me.
Or you can have the attitude where you’re going to get up and you’re going to make the best of what you’ve got.
You know, and I’d rather be happy than be miserable.
And that was a huge thing to my belief in life and how I should live.
You know, when you see Mike [Rousselle], you’re seeing someone without an arm or without a leg.
It’s not something you see every day.
And being able to just be around him and just see—it’s opened a lot of people’s eyes as to what people are capable of.
Before my accident, I did do Mixed Martial Arts.
I decided to try it again and I realized it was something I enjoy doing every lunch hour.
It’s a great workout and I get to do what I was doing before.
And, you know, I do it differently, but I still get to do it, and you need to see that side of it.
I'm really proud of Mike. Really proud, uh, I know there were some days where—long days.
I worried for him, but I’m really proud of him.
Yeah, he hasn’t ceased to amaze me yet.
I'm quite pleased with where I'm at. You know, being that I'm half in the field
and half in the office, I get the best of both worlds, really.
I get to do what I was doing before, just in a different way.
If I was talking to an injured worker that’s stuck in a position where they don’t know where they want to go,
is you have to be patient.
You have to take the help from people and understand that it’s a progression.
It’s a process, you know, and you have to try.
Don’t be afraid to try and don’t be afraid to fail. You’re going to fail.
You're not going to get it every time. But if you keep trying, eventually, if you're patient, you will get there.
And you will find something that you can feel happy with yourself, and get back to work, and enjoy your life.
I see Mike now, three years later, when he comes home from work and he feels like,
“Yeah, Arrow needs me. If I don’t come tomorrow, you know, things will not work properly. I need to be there.”
You need to find that no matter what it is.
I felt I found that and now I'm back to where I was before the accident, where I enjoy my life, I'm happy.
You know, I love my family and I love going to work.