Four decades after an Orillia police officer was shot and left on the side of the road to die, Orillia Mayor Don McIsaac has proclaimed Jan. 2 as Neil Hurtubise Day.
Hurtubise is a well-known retired senior constable of 30 years who was shot in 1981 after a routine traffic stop proved anything but routine.
“I was supposed to be off that night,” Hurtubise recalled during a conversation with OrilliaMatters. “I headed north on Highway 11 and just a couple miles north of Orillia I saw a couple of vehicles travelling south and the one, I couldn’t see any lights on the back.”
Hurtubise made a U-turn, took off after the vehicle, and pulled it over. When he approached the diver's side door, he noticed all the interior lights were turned off. The driver rolled down his window and started firing bullets at the Midland native.
“They got me about 30 inches away,” he said. “They got me in the face, the second shot hit the jugular vein, the third shot went into my shoulder, and two more went into my left lung.”
Somehow, Hurtubise was able to crawl back to the cruiser on that cold snowy night while using his pistol to fire back.
“They were still shooting but I wasn’t getting hit then,” he said. “I was able to open the cruiser door and the next thing you know one shot had taken the window out of the cruiser door.”
Hurtubise called for help and the other two officers working at the Orillia detachment that night raced to aid the severely wounded officer.
“When I got to the hospital in the emerge there, I remember them putting me on a stretcher, and the next thing I know I was in one of the emergency rooms and then in one of the operating rooms,” he remembers.
Hurtubise was in intensive care following the incident; two days later he was finally able to speak to his wife on the phone.
“I just said 'It’s me,'” he chuckled with a tear in his eye. “My wife Pat was a very strong lady. She was my guide that night, that’s for sure.”
McIsaac says it’s important for all Orillians to honour and acknowledge Hurtubise on the 42nd anniversary of the incident.
“I’ve known Neil for certainly more than 50 years,” McIsaac said. “He’s always led by example and is one of the most unselfish human beings I know.”
McIsaac recalls being told that when Hurtubise was shot, one of the first things he asked was “Are the boys OK?” He hoped he didn’t injure his attackers when he returned fire.
“He was more concerned about them than he was for himself,” McIsaac says. “That tells you a lot about him.”
McIsaac says Hurtubise has done a lot for Orillia, and he is more than deserving of having a proclaimed day named after him.
The proclamation also comes just two days removed from when the now 87-year-old Hurtubise was robbed in downtown Orillia.
“Neil Hurtubise brings light to darkness,” McIsaac said. “Through this terrible thing he went through, thousands of people reached out to him to make sure he was OK. It makes me proud to see the support and outreach he’s had.”
Hurtubise says the way the community has rallied around him has been "touching."
“I’m really surprised,” he said of the upcoming day in his honour. “I didn’t expect anything like this.
“That kind of gives me shivers up my spine,” said Hurtubise, whose name is on the street leading off the Highway 12 bypass into the OPP's Central Division Headquarters. “This is really nice.”
