Sask. man walks miles to highway after gun blast during nationwide robbery

Josh Peterson knows gunshot wounds. He says he expected the worst when he showed up at the hospital emergency room to check on his 66-year-old father.

Peterson is a veteran agent in Prince Albert, Sask., about 130 kilometers northeast of Saskatoon. On October 24, he received news that his father, Orlan, had survived a close-range shooting during a robbery north of the city.

Josh rushed to the hospital and had disaster scenarios in his head during a ten-minute drive “that seemed to last forever.”

“It was terrifying, I was actually thinking about what the funeral was going to be like, how I was going to tell my brother and sister,” Josh said in an interview.

“Then it was terrifying to go to the hospital and to the emergency room. But when I turned the corner, where I could see his face and he was still conscious, I was able to go in and squeeze his hand, you know you, and just say, ‘keep fighting daddy.’ And he was very happy to see me.”

Orlan Peterson, seriously injured in a robbery that triggered a dangerous persons alert across the province, had walked half a mile to a busy highway. A passerby stopped and called 911.

“I’ve always said he’s one of the toughest guys I’ve ever met,” Josh said.

“No let up.”

‘I can tell the story if you want’

Josh is a supervisor with the Prince Albert Police Department, with just over 18 years under his belt. On the morning of October 24, he was resting and preparing to transition to working the night shift.

Orlan is a senior site superintendent at RNF Ventures Ltd. in Prince Albert. He is a red seal journeyman carpenter with a wall of awards and 25 years of service.

Josh said his father told him at the hospital what happened that morning on Lempereur Road, north of Prince Albert. Josh met CBC five days later, on October 29, in a Prince Albert hotel room.

“I can tell the story if you want,” he said.

It’s important, he added, because ultimately the good outweighs the bad.

“Sorry brother, I have to shoot you”

Josh said his father arrived at the job site about 9 miles north of the city around 6:45 a.m. CST. He was driving a company Dodge Ram truck.

“It’s pitch black because it’s a rural construction site. To get lighting and electricity, he was filling the generator with gasoline. And then suddenly he saw two vehicles coming into the job site screaming. He talks about seeing the dust in the sky and, for example, the headlights,” Josh said.

“All of a sudden this guy came running up and shoved the shotgun in his face and said, ‘Get on the ground,’ and, ‘Where’s all your stuff?’ And (Orlan) said, ‘It’s all in the truck. Take it, take the truck, it’s yours.’ And then the guy hit him in the back of the head with the butt of the shotgun. And then Dad said he felt the cold barrel on the underside of his head, like in his neck, and he just started praying about it.”

Josh said that instead of pulling the trigger, the man ordered Orlan to get up and enter the trailer.

“Once they got into the work trailer, the attacker told him, ‘Sorry man, I have to shoot you.’ And Dad said he just buried his head and started praying.”

Orlan shifted his weight and pointed his left side forward, absorbing the bullet wound in his shoulder and arm.

The man left the trailer and left Orlan for dead.

“Dad said he never lost consciousness, but at first he thought he was in his stomach because his whole body was on fire,” he said.

While he was bleeding and in pain, Orlan had other concerns.

“He was afraid they were going to come back and kill him once (they) knew he was alive. So he found a jumper wire and shut the trailer door so they couldn’t get back in,” Josh said.

“He spent about an hour in the trailer.…Because his watch was on his left hand, he couldn’t reach it to see it. He was just trying to keep his hand up. But he estimates that around 8 a.m. he was like, “Okay, I gotta go.” So he just started walking.”

Dangerous persons alert

Josh said he heard what happened before the countywide alert went out.

A friend of Josh’s lives just north of his father’s job site. An electrician at the friend’s home said that morning that he heard a man had been shot down the road, “and he looks like Orlan Peterson.”

The friend rushed to the scene, saw Orlan in the ambulance and called Josh.

At 9:55 a.m. CST, the RCMP issued a dangerous persons alert across the province, with cellphones buzzing with the ominous message of a shooting, armed suspects on the loose and the need for the public to take shelter immediately. A warning was issued for three or four men, armed and dangerous, wearing black balaclavas and driving in Peterson’s white work truck.

Further updates came in the following hours. The four suspects are believed to have been driving north toward Tobin Lake on Highway 123.

RCMP canceled the alert at 4:12 PM CST that same day.

The truck the suspects were traveling in crashed into a truck on a northbound road. The group took off on foot into the bush, but was spotted three kilometers away by the Saskatoon police plane flying along the banks of the Saskatchewan River.

Two of the suspects, a man and a woman, have been arrested and charged with nine charges related to the attack, including aggravated assault, robbery with a firearm and discharging a firearm with intent. None of the allegations have been tested in court.

Police are still trying to identify and find two other suspects who disappeared into the thick, dense brush and swampland.

A life full of kindness

Josh said he is surprised, but not shocked, by the outpouring of support for his father as he recovers in a Saskatoon hospital.

Josh’s friend Brad Grolla organized a GoFundMe page to help offset medical costs and it has raised just over $103,000.

Peterson’s longtime employer, RNF Ventures Ltd., said on its employee profile: “The relationships he has developed within the industry speak highly of his easy-going nature and ability to get things done.”

Josh said he still thinks about the conversation with his father after the shooting. Instead of thirsting for revenge, he said Orlan wondered what living conditions had led the man in the trailer to shoot another man in cold blood.

“My father treated everyone like they were important. He is one of the most kind and gentle people I have ever met in my life,” he said.

“What’s most important? Make sure you treat everyone like they matter. Show compassion. Do your best to be hospitable.

“I guess you’re never too old to stop learning from your father.”