Sea to Sea for PTSD - Chad Kennedy's Story

After a career in law enforcement Chad Kennedy knew he was suffering from PTSD. He’d seen the signs before… in his father. 

One night, hell bent on destruction and suicide, he eventually passed out, waking up in the morning to a surprise. In his drunken stupor he’d gone on social media. He had somehow pledged to walk across Canada, to raise awareness for PTSD, and people were responding to him. 

He didn’t remember any of it. But now he had to do it. In August last year Chad and his team at Sea to Sea for PTSD wrapped up the first leg of the cross-Canada trek in Montreal (having started on the west coast). This June, he’ll pick it back up in Quebec City, walking all the way to St John’s Newfoundland.

In this episode Chad shares his personal story. And if you’ve trouble recognizing him on the road, he’s the one walking 50 kms per day, coffee in one hand, cigarette in the other.

Guest Chad Kennedy, Sea to Sea for PTSD
Website https://www.seatoseaforptsd.ca/
Donate https://www.seatoseaforptsd.ca/donate

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Transcript

Announcer (00:02):

You are listening to the Safety Moment Podcast by Utility Safety Partners. Safety is always a good conversation and it's a click away. Here's your host, Mike Sullivan.

Mike Sullivan (00:15):

Welcome to The Safety Moment. I'm Mike Sullivan. Nice to have you back. Joining me today is Mr. Chad Kennedy. Now I'm going to let Chad introduce himself, but I met Chad a few weeks ago at the Utility Safety Partners Safety Conference in Red Deer, Alberta, and Chad was our keynote speaker. He was sponsored by Aztec training and the story that he told us that you could hear a pin drop in the entire audience, and I knew it. I just had to have 'em on as a guest on a future podcast. So here we are, Chad, welcome to the Safety Moment podcast and tell everybody who you are.

Chad Kennedy (00:53):

Hey Mike, thanks for the invite. Pleasure to be here. Yeah, I'm Canadian Armed Forces veteran non-combat. I've got to throw that in there. Also, almost 20 years in law enforcement. For the last 15 years I've been with the Alberta Sheriff's Highway Patrol, and most currently the last two years I've been off work because of post-Traumatic Stress and going through my healing journey. So that's me in a nutshell. That's

Mike Sullivan (01:24):

Kind of what we're talking about today, right? The whole PTSD and the effects of it.

Chad Kennedy (01:30):

Oh, yeah. When you have this demon living inside your head, it is, it's a ton of weight and a daily challenge to keep yourself in check and make sure it's ourselves talking and not the demonn talking for us.

Mike Sullivan (01:46):

Yeah. Now, in your case, I mean, P T S D can be one traumatic event, obviously, or can be a multiple events over time that just metastasize and render us, almost paralyze us. And in your case, I believe it was more the latter, was it not?

Chad Kennedy (02:07):

Oh man. I worked in Fort McMurray for the first three and a half years of my highway patrol career and Highway 63 if Northern Alberta used to be called The Highway of Death. So many horrible things that I've witnessed on that highway and so many horrible things I could not talk about because of the stigma associated around mental health. So yeah, I carried a lot of weight on my shoulders up until I transferred down south to the Bow Valley in 2011. And sort of the bad stuff you shuffle away into the back of your mind in the filing cabinets.

(02:55):

Geez. And then July 18th, 2020, everything sort of flooded back to haunt me with the big bus crash at the Columbia Ice Fields in Jasper National Park. And that was really, I guess my breaking point where I can't do this anymore and I wasn't able to get help. And obviously not, obviously a lot of people that know my story and that I've shared it with is two weeks after that, August 2nd, 2020, well, self-medicating with my good friend Captain Morgan, and he's still my friend, but I had made that decision to die by suicide. I had the plan and then it was the, there's good Captain Morgan and the bad Captain Morgan, and the little angel Captain Morgan said, we need to raise more awareness about mental health and post-traumatic stress, and what are we going to do about it? It's like, well, that's in a drunken stupor. I announced that I would walk across Canada to raise that awareness. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Mike Sullivan (04:08):

I guess, right? Well,

Chad Kennedy (04:09):

Hell yeah. an

Mike Sullivan (04:10):

Better than the alternative anyway.

Chad Kennedy (04:13):

We'll never know, thankfully. But yes, I'm, I'm extremely grateful to still be here to share my story and help start what I call critical conversations surrounding mental health and try and normalize that conversation.

Mike Sullivan (04:30):

Now at the conference when you were telling this story, and it was fascinating obviously, and you said that, you know, made this decision to walk across Canada and then you promptly went to bed and you didn't wake up till the next morning, and I think you said your wife said, what's this about a walk? And you had sort of forgotten about it.

Chad Kennedy (04:52):

I was heavily medicated, yes. But yeah, I got called out on it and I went back to the,

Mike Sullivan (05:02):

Now you had posted this on social media, right? Heck

Chad Kennedy (05:05):

Yeah. And not just on my page, but a first responders page that has like 11,000 plus followers from right around the world.

Mike Sullivan (05:14):

So you were committed to do something? Yeah,

Chad Kennedy (05:17):

Yeah. My spouse at the time, Tamara had said, it's not too late, it's only on social media, you can back out of it. I was brought up in a business world, and I always believed that if you say you're going to do something, you'd do it. And I had no idea how to do it. But we work through that and I've got an amazing team now to that has helped me from that point to where I'm at now, and obviously gearing up for the second leg of the walk. But yeah, it cost me a relationship. It costs me nine years of my life, but sometimes the thought process I have is kind of wonky, but sometimes it takes losing everything to gain everything when it comes to your mental health.

Mike Sullivan (06:15):

I can understand that. I've lost a couple of friends over the years who unfortunately made a decision to take their lives and because they were dealing with something and they, unfortunately, they were never able to come to grips with whatever was eating them alive. Honestly, that's probably what it comes down to. And so when I talk to somebody like you who's been to that edge and who's made the decision to not go over the edge, a tremendous amount of respect for you and what you've been through and now to be doing what you're doing. I mean, the Long Walk when, I don't know if you ever read this story, the Long Walk. It's by Richard Bachman, who is actually Stephen King now. The Long Walk is about a long walk, and these people are forced to do this long walk and the pain that they end up going through from bad feet to, you name it, to hip joints and everything else. So how did you prepare? I mean, going out for a walk, you're not walking the dog here for a kilometer, you're going thousands and thousands of kilometers across country, up and down hills and all kinds of weather. What did you do to, what kind of shape were you in before you did this?

Chad Kennedy (07:41):

Dude? Typical, well, I can say traffic cop, but I've also been in the construction world is I've got that beer punch and the fast food punch. It was literally a week after I announced that I was doing the walk. I was on the depressive train, I was depressed, I was down. So depressive train, if I refer to the couch as the depressive train, that's exactly what it is. Popped up off the couch, went over to Sport Check and bought myself a new pair of sneakers and went out for a walk, said, man, I'm going to walk 10 kilometers today. I did not walk 10 kilometers. I walked eight and a half, and it hurt like hell. Yeah. There was no real pace to it. I walked at normal pace and I, man, I was feeling pain for the first three days. I used muscles that I wasn't used to using. And then just every day was like, man, this getting out and going for a walk is very therapeutic.

Mike Sullivan (08:54):

Yes, it is.

Chad Kennedy (08:56):

So I just continued training and there were times I'd pushed myself to going out for a 20 kilometre walk September of 2021, we did a training walk across Alberta, across the southern part of Alberta where I tried six different, a

Mike Sullivan (09:17):

Training walk across the province. Yeah, well, yeah, that's okay.

Chad Kennedy (09:23):

Yeah. Okay. Well, it was to see how the team jived and I tried out a few pairs of different shoes or hiking boots, and every one of them destroyed my feet. So after that, I tucked my tail between my legs and went and got properly fitted for walking shoes. So I learned from that, and I still go out now I'm up to, what did I do yesterday? Like 18 and a half kilometers. But yeah, it's not just a walk, believe it or not. You have to train to walk.

Mike Sullivan (10:04):

You do. It's interesting. This is kind of fascinating conversation because when the pandemic began, we all started working from home and everybody went home or working from home for 30 years. I went to work, I went somewhere to work, and now I'm home and I'm working from home. I wake up at home, I work at home, I have supper at home, and then I'm, I'm home, and the next day I do it all again. I don't go out. Now, I'm very fortunate. I live very close to the Bow River Pathway, and one day I said, well, I mean, I go out there from time to time. We had a dog a while back, and I'd take her out there and I said, I'm going to go for a walk. I need a change of scenery. And so I started walking every day and in just a couple of kilometres, just a change of scenery. And then I wasn't wearing the right shoes, and then I started doing more and more and more. And then I was doing 10, 12 kilometers a day, and that was three years ago. And so I typically do 10 kilometers a day, but like you said, it hurt. I, there's muscles there. I didn't think I was using in planter fasciitis. And you tear this, that the shoes, I mean, I've gone through all kinds of pairs of shoes. I can't imagine, how many kilometers do you get into a pair of shoes?

Chad Kennedy (11:17):

Oh, geez. I think I lucked out. I probably pushed it a bit because, well, I'm just not right in the head anymore. I blew through four pairs of the shoes that I wear over just about 4,100 kilometers. So I guess honestly, I got about a thousand kilometers per pair of shoes.

Mike Sullivan (11:44):

And that's kind of what I actually, interesting to say, that I'll go through a pair of shoes in about three and a half to four months. So it's about a thousand kilometers. So I'm doing 10, 12 a day. Yeah, well, so we were both the same. Yeah, it's about both the life lifespan of a walking shoe, I guess. Yeah. So now you had this great idea and you just went and did it one step at a time, really. That's what it comes down to. Yes. How did you get involved? How did you bring or marry this with the fight for PTSD?

Chad Kennedy (12:14):

Well, my father retired RCMP member, he is still dealing with his demons with complex post-traumatic stress. So when I was going through my dark moment, I'm like, man, here's my dad who has survived all these years. My mom at his side and me watching what he's going through, man, what a let down. If I were to die by suicide, I'm letting my dad down, warrior strong, that guy. And so that the focus was more about starting the conversation and raising awareness. And man, it took a lot of, I guess, coaching from other advocates for, with mental health, I had no idea what I was talking about or what I was doing. All I could do was share my story. If you asked me to define post-traumatic stress, I'm like, man, if you've got it, you get it. For somebody who doesn't have it, just imagine your angriest moment in life. And that just continues. That consumes you, anger, upset it, continual,

Mike Sullivan (13:29):

Continual.

Chad Kennedy (13:29):

Oh, it's infinite. So it became a big thing for me to find the right help. Somebody who I could go to as a clinician that was trauma informed, wasn't just a psychologist that was going to try and drum up what life was like when I was three years old. We all know what it was back in those days, we got spankings, man,

Mike Sullivan (13:55):

Unless you're change like me. Oh yeah. Oh

Chad Kennedy (13:57):

Yeah, you're one of those.

Mike Sullivan (14:00):

Oh yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. The youngest of six kids. No, I wasn't.

Chad Kennedy (14:04):

So yeah, we as in the team really, I didn't know how to go about walking in anywhere and just having a conversation. That was the toughest thing. So during our practice walk, we had the opportunity to chat with RCMP members and a lot of rural fire departments where we just went in and said, Hey, this is what this walk is about. I'm here to start a conversation about mental health. And I don't want you to just listen. I want you to hear what I have to say because there's somebody within your organization that is really suffering, and that's not fair. Nobody should have to suffer. We need to start finding the cues and getting them

Mike Sullivan (14:54):

Help. Well, and it's not just guys, we talk all the guys. They don't let their emotions. Let's face it, it's everybody.

Chad Kennedy (15:00):

Yeah,

Mike Sullivan (15:00):

It is guys and gals. I mean, doesn't matter age. It has no window of, oh, at this time of your life you could suffer P T S D and other times don't. Everybody is susceptible to PTs D, and yet society, like you said earlier, we don't talk about it, but lately, when I say lately, maybe a couple of years, last number of years, that's changing, it's becoming less taboo. That's becoming more accepted, that people do suffer from ptsd. S d, it is a thing, and it, it can be debilitating, it can be consuming, it can consume not only the person, but everybody around them. And your case, it almost took you, and what you're doing is now, personally, yes, I'm no doubt it's rewarding. You're here, you're sucking wind. That's good. It's personally rewarding. But what you're doing is bringing light to this dark topic that has been in the shadows and for too long.

(16:09):

And I can't imagine for somebody in the law enforcement or in, well, law enforcement's, what comes to mind? First of all, when they hear what you're doing and they hear what you've been through, there's got to be some sense, an amazing sense of relief that, oh, it's not just me. Maybe this is what it is. That reaction mean. And you mentioned that when you were in Red Deer, that it could be the biggest guy in the room. All of a sudden he comes to you and says, I don't know what I would've done if I didn't hear you today.

Chad Kennedy (16:50):

That's right. Well, you've seen me. I'm not a tall guy, but I use the comparison when I work with somebody who's six five, and believe me, at my height, everybody is six five. But that is, it happens in every field. We look at that big guy who is the poster child for anybody or big woman, look at me and they can do the job. They're great. They're always in high spirits. And I look up to them for inspiration, motivation. That is somebody I get to look up to, but I don't realize what's going on with them. And when they look at me and they may want to talk, they look down at Chad and say, shit, man, this guy looks up to me. I can't let him down by showing weakness. So we put on that mask, and that's a conversation stopper is we are assuming what somebody else is going to think. And I think most of us, as we get older and wiser, we're very open to telling the people we work with. Absolute strangers, friends, family. The most strength you can ever have is asking for help.

Mike Sullivan (18:12):

Yes.

Chad Kennedy (18:14):

If one of our kids ask for help, a lot of times they don't because they're afraid that the answer's going to be no. But we would do anything

Mike Sullivan (18:23):

To help somebody. Oh, for sure. And asking for help doesn't mean somebody's actually coming out and saying, I need help. The signs have to be there. I mean, if you're close to somebody, you're something off, and maybe their behavior is actually asking for help. And you have to be able to interpret those signs. And I think we're getting better at it. I hope we're getting better at it. People suffer for all kinds of reasons, and whether something had happened in their past or recent or a culmination of events and being able to be there for one another is important to, industry has their employee assistance programs, and you hope that those programs are providing the right help, but at least there's something there. And if you have an organization that really truly cares for its people, that's also important. It's not just, oh, I have a problem. Oh, here's the EAP card. No, no, it's not that. You know, need to. Okay, let's see what we need to do here and make a decision. A few weeks ago, Utility Safety Partners held its first safety conference post Covid, actually. But our first one under the Utility Safety Partners banner, and Chad Kennedy was our keynote speaker. Here's what some people had to say about the conference. And Chad Kennedy, I'm here with Baz Owel. He was our master of ceremonies today at Utility Safety Partners Back to Life Conference, Baz representing the USP Board of Directors and Global Training. What was your take on the conference today here in Red Deer?

Baz Owel (20:18):

Oh, Mike, thanks. It was a great day here in Red Deer. I think the participants, it was outside my expectations to get this many people and back to an in-person session. And I've heard lots of great compliments, compliments about getting back to face to face and how nice it is to be able to see other people and share this message about damage prevention. So it's been a great day so far. Looking forward to engaging more with the folks out here and

(20:46):

Speaking more about damage prevention.

Mike Sullivan (20:48):

Thank you, Baz. And to that point, we had over 240 people register for the conference today, so it's definitely a big win for everybody. Brad, I'm here with Brad Watson from, actually he's retired gentleman now, former 42 years at TC Energy. And Brad, what is your take on our first conference under the new banner, utility Safety Partners?

Brad Watson (21:10):

I'm so happy to see us all back in a room together. We haven't had an opportunity to do this for the last three years, and like you move away from the central focus of the whole thing, it's great to be in a room with people all of the same mind.

Mike Sullivan (21:29):

I'm here with Jeff Mulligan from Aztec Safety. Jeff, what's your take on this year's Utility Safety Partners Back to Life conference? Our first time back together in many years, and under the first time under the new banner Utility Safety Partners,

Jeff Mulligan (21:43):

It exceeded my expectations this year, Mike. I was expecting a little slower start and a little slower momentum. We got good momentum, we got a lot of enthusiasm and decent attendance, so we're getting good interaction at the booth and in our breakouts.

Mike Sullivan (21:57):

Excellent. Thank you. Thank you very much. And Jeff and Aztec Safety, one of our key sponsors, and we thank them very much for their time. I'm here with Ken Rowden, the new Safety Ambassador for Utility Safety Partners and for the Calgary area. And Kent, this is your first conference with Utility Safety Partners. What's your take on the conference this year?

Ken Rowden (22:17):

Take on the conference is a very effective tool for promoting awareness and education around pipelines and spreading the word, so to speak, keep facilities safe.

Mike Sullivan (22:26):

I'm here with Mark Bradley, the gentleman representing Trans Northern Pipelines. And Mark, what was your impression of the conference this year? First time we got together a number of years.

Mark Bradley (22:36):

It's nice to get together for the first time in a number of years. I am happy to see that there's a good mix of industry suppliers, safety companies, and many of the subcommittees have had an opportunity to meet in person. So first time in a couple of years that we've seen each other face to face, which I think is a positive point for being here.

Mike Sullivan (23:00):

Thanks, Mark. Now let me go back a little bit to the actual physical element of walking. And now you mentioned when you're in Red Area, you're doing 40 kilometers a day.

(23:22):

(23:22):

And How long does a kilometer take you? What's your pace?

Chad Kennedy (23:26):

Well, right now I am doing about 6.3 kilometers an hour. So I don't know, six and a half hours.

Mike Sullivan (23:36):

So that's a kilometer every nine minutes and a half, nine and a half minutes, something like

Chad Kennedy (23:41):

That. Your math is better than mine. Yeah. And you know, learn from that. When we walk this year,

Mike Sullivan (23:48):

You're moving, man, you're moving.

Chad Kennedy (23:50):

Believe me, when I got in a lot of trouble from people trying to keep up with me, they're like, man, it's not a race. Well, but it's not like I woke up one day and this is my walking pace. This is when I'm walking the highway. Yeah, I tell you, especially in the Ontario Heat and humidity. Oh yeah. You want to get that walk over and done with. So you can in the morning, get back to camp and have a cold beer and have an nap and rest your feet. But yeah, I learned last year, so what started off as 40 kilometers a day? We started stretching a lot of times into 200 kilometers a week. So it was spread out over seven days. We had a lot of timelines we had to meet. So for us to drive half an hour, that's what, 50 kilometers?

(24:42):

Yeah, 50 kilometers. That's a day. And a bit of walking for a half hour drive. But we would have to show up and whatever a community had planned for us. And it's like, okay, now I've got to do makeup steps. How am I going to do that? So I'm walking the community, I'd start my watch, and for two days it could just be a slow, normal pace, walk through the wilderness or walking to a Walmart. It could be, I counted every step as to not rip myself off. And this year I suggested, well, actually, I told my logistics officer, let's do 150 kilometers a week for me to crunch out 30 kilometers and make it someplace. The timelines are shifted. So it's not like that difference of 50 kilometers makes a lot when you're walking. Yeah.

Mike Sullivan (25:37):

Oh,

Chad Kennedy (25:38):

For sure. So we did learn, and it was, believe me, at times, extremely painful, especially when it decided it was going to rain. And it doesn't matter what you're wearing on your feet, water gets you in the top

Mike Sullivan (25:54):

And the blisters start and yeah, that's the worst. Yeah,

Chad Kennedy (25:56):

That's worst. You lose flesh where you didn't think you could lose flesh on your feet. Yeah.

Mike Sullivan (26:01):

Yep. What kind of injur injuries have you had? I mean, I mentioned planter fasciitis. Must have gone through that. Oh, I've gone through. What kind of stretching do I,

Chad Kennedy (26:13):

Man, I don't stretch. I get up. I

Mike Sullivan (26:17):

You're not the poster boy for,

Chad Kennedy (26:18):

No, I'm not that. So when I tell people genuinely, I'm just a guy. I get up in the morning, I have my three or four cups of coffee, a few cigarettes, and I might wolf down a granola bar, and then that's

Mike Sullivan (26:34):

Like the Gump Worsley here of the Walking World.

Chad Kennedy (26:42):

And I'm brutally honest. Yeah. People see me walking down the highway, I'll have a smoke, and they're like, they'll stop and I'll meet them in the community. Or they'll stop along the highway and they're like, dude, you smoke cigarettes. I'm like, well, yeah, I'm just a guy. I'm a human being. That's

Mike Sullivan (26:57):

Right. You no Superman to my chest. Right, okay. But interestingly enough, that makes this even more interesting, I think, because people think, oh, I have 40 kilometers a day. How does a person do that? Or even 18 or 10, anybody can do it. If you can stand on two feet, you can put one foot in front of the other. And the benefits of walking for your health is tremendous. It's all out there. You see it all the time. And anybody can do it. And it's not just about physical health, but it's mental health. And here you're marrying the two, but it can injure yourself from something as simple as walking. And you have to be ready for that. What kind of, you mentioned your team earlier, who is on the team, the Chad Kennedy team to make this work? That's

Chad Kennedy (27:50):

The Chad Kennedy team. So the two folks that have been with me since I announced it in August of 2020, there's Rick Charney who drives the C to C truck behind me. Keeps my ass safe on the highway and legit, Lisa, I don't know what I was going to say. Lisa Brent Nohl out of Ontario. She's a dispatcher with Halton Regional Police, another post-traumatic stress warrior, and she does all the planning. She pops up here and there, she flies or drives places so she can hang out for a week and do some walking and talking. And I've got an amazing executive board made up of active and retired military. Big Mike, a corporal with the RC m p, who's my executive director. And I've got a ticket defense guy, believe it or not. That is my vice-chair. And I You would've met him at the conference, Derek Cameron. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, man, I've got such an amazing team. And so

Mike Sullivan (29:05):

Coalition of the Willing here, right?

Chad Kennedy (29:06):

Oh yeah, it is. And two that have devoted so much time to the campaign, I think that everybody does as a volunteer group. Everybody has put 150% into this. My Passport of directors and team did as well. And a lot of what we do is we collaborate with different groups across the country. So for example, when we step off in Quebec City, June 2nd, we've got veterans and police people and other mental health resources who are actually planning the step off campaign for us, help us raise some money, help with accommodations in food. And that sort of just carries on across the country. It, it's amazing. So the ownership, I'm just the legs and the voice really. And if people are lucky enough, they'll catch a glimpse of my face. But really, I'm a spokesperson for a campaign that, yes, I dreamed up. Well, captain Morgan dreamed it up. So really the ownership goes back to everybody else. I can just be a voice in the legs and really walk the talk. You

Mike Sullivan (30:27):

Literally.

Chad Kennedy (30:28):

Yeah. And so everything goes right back to everybody across Canada and the United States and wherever they follow us around the world. It's never a me thing, like mental health. We think, oh, I'm isolated. I'm in a bubble and it's all about me. Well, it's, we thing, it's a global issue, period.

Mike Sullivan (30:52):

Oh yeah. There's no boundaries here.

Chad Kennedy (30:53):

No

Mike Sullivan (30:54):

Boundaries at all. Chad, this is a fascinating topic to me. And again, I think it helps anybody who's listening to this, if you are, are experiencing ptsd. If you know somebody who's experiencing ptsd now there is help out there. I mean, what you're doing is drawing awareness to it. But what do you tell somebody who says, I need help? Where do they go,

Chad Kennedy (31:20):

Man, I get a lot of emails, messages and phone calls. Usually what I do is have a quick chat with him. What is going on and what is the best fit? And it's just the middle man. So when it comes to public safety and military personnel, there's contacts I have through the Calgary Veterans Services Society or Legacy Place Society, and sort of the people that have the right contacts. So obviously the first step is them mustering the strength to be able to call me or send me a message, say, Hey, this is what's going on. It's like, Hey, I can put you in touch with, or are good friends at can Praxis here. There's always somebody I could say, man, this is good for you and your family, or This is good for you, and I'll put somebody in touch with somebody else. It's all about networking. But really, as you would, if somebody was able to come to you and say, oh, Mike, I'm really struggling. We're going to find them the help. And that's, we're

Mike Sullivan (32:32):

Going to find 'em the help. Exactly.

Chad Kennedy (32:33):

Between us two and the four

Mike Sullivan (32:35):

Now, now I own this with you until we can help find some, find the help. Yeah, that's right. Exactly, exactly. The website is Sea to Sea for ptsd.ca. If you're looking for more information on Chad, I direct you to go to that website. There's a ton of information there. Chad, where is your walk taking you next?

Chad Kennedy (32:54):

Well, the walk is taking me from Quebec City right to St. John's, Newfoundland. I'll be taking the safety truck actually to Ajax, Ontario, where I'll be speaking at a mental health conference. And then from there, Rick and Lisa will hop in the truck with me and we'll drive to Quebec City and do an official lunch.

Mike Sullivan (33:16):

Quebec City, I think I mentioned to you, I grew up in Quebec, beautiful city. That's a heck of a walk to St. John's, Newfoundland. And that's where I have my Canadian roots. There's a town just north of St. John's, Newfoundland called Pooch Cove by 30 minutes north of St. John's, Newfoundland. It's the landing place of the first Sullivans in North America. Wow. Yeah. So if you ever get a chance, maybe, hopefully you will get the chance when you're there to take a quick spin up, the Pooch Cove. It's a small little town. You'll see a road called Sullivan Loop, and that's where the Sullivans in Canada originate from there. So

Chad Kennedy (33:55):

That's really cool.

Mike Sullivan (33:57):

Good luck to you. I mean, I'm so glad to have met you. And I mentioned to you when I saw you. Yeah, I'd love to go walking with you. And then you told me your pace and how no, maybe I even going to pass. I think maybe I'll just drive by and wave, but you know, give me inspiration to keep going. Two days ago while I was out for my daily 10, and I heard somebody walking up behind me and they're getting closer and closer, okay, I'm, they're a little faster than me. And I happened a glass behind and she was quite a bit taller, so she had a longer pace. And we walked for a bit and we talked for a bit. And I asked her, how many kilometers are you doing today? Cause I've seen her before. Cause I'm up to 11 today and I've, I've got more to do.

(34:37):

She said, I did a marathon on the weekend and today and everything went great. And today I just feel like crap. I just can't seem to get it together. And as we talked, she said, I'm probably sharing too much information, but I've lost 300 pounds from walking. And I was like, oh, I couldn't believe it. And I said, well, good for you. I mean, just keep going. And that was her goal. That was what was chasing her. And maybe P T S D was chasing you, but I think you're chasing it now and it's keeping you going. So once again, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I really appreciate you being here. And thanks so much for being with us in Red Deer. I really hope our paths cross again, not just like this or, but somewhere, maybe on a path somewhere. I would really like to have a chance to sit down, have a colon with you as well.

Chad Kennedy (35:28):

Anytime. Anytime. Character's not too far away, man.

Mike Sullivan (35:35):

That's going to wrap things up for this episode of the Safety Moment. I'd like to thank our producers Stories and Strategies. If you have an idea for an episode, please email us at info@utilitysafety.ca and just put podcast in the subject line. If you like what you heard, I hope you'll choose to subscribe to the Safety Moment and you'll receive first notification of new episodes. When you do so, we'd also love it. Love it if you gave us a rating on whatever directory you're listening on or perhaps even a written review. You can also follow us on Twitter at Utility underscore Safety. I'm Mike Sullivan, the president of Utility Safety Partners. And remember, one click costs you nothing. Not clicking could cost you everything. And it's dig, save, month.