ELORA – Tyler Smith thought suffering through survivor’s guilt and grief after surviving a horrific bus crash that killed 16 people close to him was something he had to do on his own.
But through seeking help for his mental health and speaking publicly about his struggle, Smith learned he wasn’t alone and there is power in sharing your story.
This was what he wanted to resonate with a full crowd of people who came out to hear him talk at a mental health event in Elora Tuesday night.
“Mental health is not a battle to be won but a journey to continue walking,” Smith said.
Smith was the keynote speaker at this year’s Here4Hope event, a life promotion and suicide prevention project in Wellington County launched in 2019, held at the GrandWay in Elora.
Originally from Leduc, Alta., Smith was one of 13 survivors of a bus crash carrying the Humboldt Broncos, a junior hockey team from Saskatchewan.
On April 6, 2018, while the team was travelling to a playoff game, the Broncos’ bus was hit by a semi-truck, killing 16 players, staff members and coaches.
Smith has no recollection of this day at all.
“I think when you go through something like that, you really do want to remember but I also think it’s my mind protecting me from that mental and emotional trauma,” Smith told the crowd.
He recalled waking up in a hospital days later having suffered a stroke, a broken collar bone, a broken shoulder blade, two broken ribs, a punctured lung, nerve damage and six inches of his small intestine had been removed.
He was unable to go to any of the funerals which he described as a “helpless feeling” and ended up putting all his energy into recovering physically and figured the rest would fall into place along with it.
“I never understood the layers, the magnitude, of mental health, I never understood anything around that, I’ve never lost anybody close to me in my life,” Smith said. “I never knew you could move forward with your grief, I just wanted to move on. There was so many questions that just flooded my mind every single day.”
From here, he said he distracted himself whether that was getting back to work as quickly as possible, drinking every weekend or even putting the skates back on and playing with the Humboldt Broncos again.
Meanwhile, he said deep down he had pent up feelings he was suppressing and was just going through the motions but still finding himself unable to talk about what he was going through.
Eventually, he admitted to his parents and billet parents he was not having fun playing hockey anymore. His billet mom made him promise he would seek help and he realized people knew he was in pain.
“I thought to myself, ‘oh my god, we tried so hard to put this off, bottle everything up, throw it on the back burner, suffer in silence, put this mask on, it was actually starting to deeply affect the relationships with my people, my loved ones,’” Smith said.
Smith went back home and through therapy found relief through just having someone to talk to about what he was feeling.
“I’m allowed to share, I’m allowed to go through it, I always thought I was alone,” Smith said. “I now realize that you’re never alone.”
As Smith has gone on to give public speeches about his journey, he said this message has been proven to him time and time again as he hears from others who feel compelled to share with him after hearing about his journey.
“There’s so much power in a story … you never know when somebody needs to hear something and you never know when somebody needs to see something,” Smith said.
“Your story can be the light at the end of other people’s tunnels.”
