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Mural helps student say thanks to the officer who saved her life

Dec 14, 2017 | 3:12 PM

 

MEDICINE HAT, AB — It’s never easy starting a new school, in a new city while trying to make new friends.

“I almost went through with committing suicide when I was in Grade 11,” said Deanna Girgis, a Grade 12 student at Crescent Heights High School. “I had the plan and everything.”

It’s not easy for her to talk about.

She moved to Medicine Hat from High River just in time to start grade eight, but the transition was far from easy.

“I was very underweight in grade eight, so I got bullied for my weight and my height,” she said. “And I was very anxious so I didn’t really talk to anybody and I got bullied for that.”

Soon home didn’t feel safe either and she thought there was only one way out.

“When she came to me and she told me everything, everything was laid out,” said Cst. Dwayne Wist, the school’s resource officer. “Right from the time, the means, the technique the location, everything. She was ready and there was no doubt in my mind that it was going to happen.”

Cst. Wist was one the person Girgis felt safe with.

The two met when Wist wanted some help decorating and began asking students who might be interested in painting something on the walls of his office.

“I knew when I first came into this office, it was just, it felt to me like a little cell block,” he said, laughing. “It was just all white cinder block and there was nothing in here.”

Girgis started with painting the vikings logo last year.

This year, she started working on a second piece, the service’s badge.

“I drew everything out with pencil on the wall,” she said, describing the piece.

Girgis takes time after school and during her spares, meticulous in the details.

“I’m not even close to being done, I still have to do the words,” she added.

The words in the centre circle will read ‘serving and protecting with pride’, everything the uniform stands for.

Girgis uses art and painting to express how she’s feeling.

She lets the world around her grow silent, just quiet enough to hear each brush stroke.

“Art can be very therapeutic for many people, students included,” said principal Andrew McFetridge. “I know that they’ve definitely developed a relationship.”

“He absolutely saved my life,” Girgis said. “He’s the one who got me the help that I needed.”

“I really can’t even put it into words,” Wist said. “Literally, I’m running goose bumps right up my entire body right now just talking about it.”

While the words may be hard to find, this is her way of saying thank you.

Girgis said she has her sights set on becoming a paramedic or a nurse after graduation, helping other people when they need it most.