Less than two days after his wife collapsed and died in front of her three children, Vince Whalen was sitting in their family home alone.
“This is hard,” he told The Telegram Thursday, his voice quivering. “Everyone is at the funeral home and I can’t be there. I’m here by myself and I can’t do anything.”
Whelan — a maintenance supervisor who works rotational shifts for an industrial company in Fort McMurray — took what seemed like the longest flight of his life home Wednesday after receiving the devastating news about his wife.
“I’m still in shock. You don’t expect this. She was only 49 years old … I went downstairs today in her beauty salon and I had to walk out. I started to cry.”
Karen Goobie-Whalen was in the kitchen of their home in Queen’s Cove, near Goobies, with the couple’s children — oldest daughter, Brianna, 19, and 17-year-old twins, daughter Rhea and son Ryan — Tuesday when she suddenly collapsed on the floor and died.
“I’m still in shock,” said Whalen, who was married to Karen for 22 years and together for 27 years. “You don’t expect this. She was only 49 years old … I went downstairs today in her beauty salon and I had to walk out. I started to cry.”
While the cause of her death hasn’t been officially confirmed yet, it’s believed she suffered a massive heart attack.
Brianna, a second-year nursing student at Memorial University, performed CPR on her mother, but to no avail.
Whalen worries most about his children after witnessing her death. Upon arriving home he wanted nothing more than to be with them, but felt he couldn’t, as he was following the provincial government’s COVID-19 regulations for rotational workers.
The standard guidelines state that rotational workers have to self-isolate for five days after arriving back in the province before being tested. They can leave isolation after seven days if the test is declared negative. Whalen said when he tried to get a quicker appointment, the earliest he could get was Friday.
“(My kids) only have one parent now,” said Whalen, who is grateful for the help of extended family and friends. “This is an emergency situation and it’s not right I can’t be with (all) my family right now.”
Whalen, who has been a rotational worker for 14 years, expressed his frustration on a Facebook post in the Rotational Workers of Newfoundland and Labrador group page, “Can’t even go to the funeral home to see her. This is not right.”
It got a huge response from hundreds of people who expressed outrage at the government’s regulation.
Exceptions can be made
However, the situation is more tragic, given the fact that, in his grief, Whalen might have gotten exception had he been aware of the regulations in these special cases.
When asked about Whalen’s situation Thursday at the House of Assembly, Health Minister Dr. John Haggie said there’s no obstacle to reuniting the family of a rotational worker in such circumstances, as noted in the revised government guidelines regarding rotational workers. He said there are flexible arrangements with the funeral homes and flexible guidelines have been worked out to allow visitations during isolation. He said the guidelines state that in this situation, a rotational worker’s family is their bubble.
“I think it was simply a question of conveying those to someone who was very distraught, likely very tired, and obviously under a lot of distress,” said Haggie, who said the situation would’ve been dealt with had Whalen called the exceptions line.
“I would argue the issue here was simply — and perfectly understandable, after a long trip, under those circumstances completely out of the blue — it’s impossible for someone to think straight. What’s logical to us here in this discussion is not when you’ve got tears in your eyes.”
Nonetheless, Tory MHA Lloyd Parrott, who stepped up to help Whalen try to get a quicker test, said Whalen’s experience highlights a big problem with testing for those who enter the province. He said there needs to be point-of-entry testing, particularly for rotational workers.
“This is just unacceptable …,” said Parrott, who said rotational workers often feel they're treated like second-class citizens. “We should be testing rotational workers as soon as they get here. ...
“It’s sad that someone had to die to show what’s happening with these people.”
Rosie Mullaley reports on breaking news in St. John's
