Survivors of James Smith Cree Nation stabbing rampage try to move past their 'never-ending pain'
CBC
WARNING: This story contains distressing details.
Keenan Head was sleeping when death came to his doorstep.
It was sometime between 5:30 and 6 a.m. on Sept. 4, 2022. His girlfriend heard the crunch of tires on gravel in the driveway, followed by heavy steps up the small wooden porch to the door of her home.
She shook him awake and he stumbled toward the door, where he saw his childhood friend, Myles Sanderson — who at the time was in the midst of a deadly armed rampage through the James Smith Cree Nation, about 200 km northeast of Saskatoon.
"He was just saying, 'F-you, f-you' all the time," Head said.
"I thought he was punching me … I thought he was giving me some bro shots."
But they were knife wounds.
"I was stabbed 20 times," Head said.
"First, the paramedics counted 18, and I snapped out of it and they counted 20. Twenty stab wounds and a punctured lung."
Head's girlfriend was also stabbed four times.
Sanderson is believed to have killed 11 people — including his brother Damien — and injured 18 others in the small Cree nation and the nearby town of Weldon, Sask. It was the deadliest stabbing spree in Canadian history.
Sanderson was arrested and died in police custody after an intense four-day search.
Half a year after the massacre, Head and other victims who spoke to CBC News say they continue to struggle and need more support as they search for answers behind layers of trauma.
They'll have to wait until early 2024 for two inquests to begin — one looking into the massacre, the other into Sanderson's death — to allow the RCMP time to conclude its investigation.