OLDS — Gord Bueckert has literally undergone trial by fire.
On Halloween night last year, a Corvette he was working on in a garage caught fire and burnt the Olds resident pretty badly.
“My Corvette had a fuel leak that I was going to fix and it got away on me. The fumes hit the heater and it exploded, essentially,” he said during an interview. “I was in the garage where it happened, so I too was on fire.”
Bueckert said he had always been nervous working around fuel tanks.
Fortunately for him, his face was spared, but “I couldn’t walk for a few months and had lots of plastic surgery done on my legs.”
Bueckert is one of about nine speakers who can be heard during The Conversation Has To Happen, a series on depression and suicide prevention offered in Olds.
In previous years, The Conversation Has To Happen was a one-day seminar. However, for the second year in a row, due to current COVID-19 restrictions, it’s being offered in a variety of media.
Until the end of the month, interviews with or profiles of The Conversation Has To Happen speakers will be featured in The Albertan as well as on the radio stations 96.5CKFM and Rock 104.5 in Olds.
Bueckert’s talk is called Refined By Fire.
He said his healing journey has not just been physical.
“It’s affected me mentally to some extent. So I’m having flashbacks and different things like that go on,” he said.
Bueckert said he was able to heal not only due to the surgeries but also from the love and support of family and friends and his faith in God.
Another key in his healing has been not doing the “bad stuff”: “taking your own life, going out and hurting yourself more, hurting others.”
That healing journey wasn’t easy.
“You know, there’s times where I didn’t know if I was going to make it,” he said. “I didn’t have thoughts of ending my life or anything like that, I was just happy that I had family that cared about me a lot and they were willing to do for me.
“So I can’t say what other people want to do. I’ve just heard of many people who will try to take their life thinking that it’s not worth it, their life has nothing for them.
“But just trying to tell people that you know what, no matter what you’re going through, that life is good.
“Life is what you make it. Find a friend, find your pasture. Find someone who’s been through it or has been through something and talk.
“Talking is huge. If you can get it out, it makes all the difference. So don’t hold it in, don’t bottle it in. Talk to somebody.”
Bueckert gave up the Road House Garage, his vehicle repair business.
Now he drives a school bus and still teaches a pre-employment motorcycle course at Olds College.
He also still does some repair work for friends and himself.
“I tinker around. I buy old stuff and different things and fix it myself,” he said.
“I actually worked a part-time job for a while in Carstairs at a shop there, but my leg just hurt me too much. After a month (I said) I just can’t do that. I’m going home just in agony, every single day. I just can’t do that,” he said.
