It was a very tragic event. It is very palpable and very real. It hits very close to home. There is no closure, there is no…. There is no reason. You don't understand why that happened. It was difficult for us to comprehend the tragedy that happened... We didn’t have any family in that plane but felt that everyone on the plane was a part of our family. We grieved with them and we cried with them, and we still feel the pain. We will all feel this pain for quite some time.
Born in Iran, Pouria Alipour moved to Canada 20 years ago and has spent time in Toronto, ON before settling in Montreal, QC. Pouria is now 29 years old and studying Medicine in the Class of 2023.
We invited Pouria to Resonance's Humans of McGill Medicine & Dentistry to tell us his story with regards to the Ukraine International Airlines PS752 crash.
I remember vividly last year at 10 o'clock PST that we got the news, within our community’s own news outlet, that one of the airplanes that took off from Tehran’s airport went dark. We didn’t think much of it [when we first heard], we thought that things like this would happen, [and] that if it went out it would come back. We didn’t think it was going to be serious. But the next morning was when we realized that it was a tragedy.
On January 8, 2020, Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 traveling to Canada, via Kyiv, was shot down minutes after taking off from Tehran, Iran, by an Iranian surface-to-air missile. Fifty-five Canadian citizens and thirty permanent residents were among the 176 people killed in this national tragedy. [1]
It hits home pretty hard, because as an Iranian-Canadian person (both myself and my wife), we travel to Iran back and forth fairly regularly. This is the path we take, and a lot of people who were on the plane were similar to us. They were people who lived here [in Canada] and went to visit their family for the holidays, they were coming back to their school, or back to work or what have you. The year prior to that happening, my wife - she went to see her parents for the holidays - and arrived in Canada on January 8th, 2019. So exactly a year before [the tragedy], she was on the exact same flight.
When we were planning in October-November [2019] on how we were going to spend our Christmas holidays, back when we were able to travel since there was no COVID-19, we thought to go to Iran where we had family and it's fun when we go back. We actually planned to go back and it could have been us on that plane.
It was a very tragic event. It is very palpable and very real. It hits very close to home. There is no closure, there is no…. There is no reason. You don't understand why that happened. It was difficult for us to comprehend the tragedy that happened. There were people that were coming back - most of them Canadians who were transiting. For reference, we can’t travel straight from Montreal to Tehran, we actually need to transfer to a European country (i.e. Turkey, Germany, England, France, Ukraine) and then go to Tehran. It is the path that we usually take.
Thinking about it, all that shock and the lack of closure, especially for the couple of families [of the victims] that we see and follow - it is very difficult for sure.
How has this experience impacted your outlook on life and community in general?
It’s a difficult experience, in the sense that you live with a sense of guilt. They call it survivor’s guilt, although obviously, we were not on that plane. But you live with that guilt of “what if it was me” ... One of the things that really hit me hard is that my wife (she goes back and forth to Iran quite a bit) would call me and we would facetime as soon as she sits in the plane before it takes off. I would say “bye” and “I’ll see you soon”, and then I would track where she was in the air on my phone with a flight tracker. So, it just hits you really hard, thinking that it could have been you. It could have been your loved one on that flight, your parents, your grandparents, your wife. And it’s difficult. And the worst of all is that it happened for no reason. It happened because of an error; it happened because of political reasons. Innocent people died because two sides were too stubborn to talk, or there was an error on one side. That makes it that much more difficult [to process].
In the community in general, there has been an unity to get answers. Right now there are a number of groups, one of which is actually spearheaded by the husband and father of 2 of the flight victims. He is a dentist in Toronto who lost his wife and daughter on the flight. He is [now] coordinating with the families of other victims to get answers. It did bring us closer, but it’s something that won’t be forgotten. It’s one of those things, there were times in the Iranian history, that [horrible] things happened, [but] rarely get forgotten. Something similar happened before I was born, during the Iran-Iraq war. An airplane full of passengers, about 200 to 300 passengers, were flying from Dubai to Tehran. The American navy shot the plane down over the Persian Gulf thinking it was a fighter jet. Everyone died on that plane, and to this day, that tragedy remains in the memories of everyone. And I think this [recent tragedy] is similar. We are not going to forget, for sure.
Has your vision of medicine also been impacted by this experience?
From the first day of medical school, we are taught about how the human body and systems work. [As future physicians], our main goal and objective, and everything we will do for the 10 -12 yrs of medical education and residency, is to prolong life and avoid death. However, I’ve learned how everything can change in a split second. 3 minutes after the PS752 flight took off, the first missile hit the plane. The pilot diverted the flight back to the airport for an emergency landing. But then 17 seconds later, the second missile hit the plane which destroyed the aircraft and then the plane crashed. It only took 17 seconds for 185 people to die; people who didn’t have to die. Mind you, this was also in the pre-COVID era. At that time, we didn’t have news of such sorrow so regularly and this was the big thing.
It is really difficult to comprehend and accept the death toll of innocents and children. There were so many children on that plane. At the same time, [as medical students], we’re doing everything we can and we are investing our lives into saving other people’s lives, while some people just take it, and it's gone. I’ve thought about that quite a bit. At the end of the day, I think it just showed me the value of life. After the tragedy happened, there was a coalition formed where every day, a story was written and told about each of the plane crash victims: who they were, how old they were, and what their life was. The people on that plane were brilliant, they were some of the brightest people that Iran had to offer. One of the victims that I knew of was a genius, a second-year medical student at the University of Toronto and him and his sister were on that flight. There were engineers, post-docs and [many other highly educated people]. There were also 3-4 couples who went back home to Iran to get married, and were just returning to Canada. They held the funerals of those couples in the same place where they had just had their wedding. These stories hit me very close to home, and they are all so palpable as 6 years ago, I similarly got married in Iran and then my wife and I hopped on a plane to come back to Canada.
My mother is a therapist who works with children with special needs and autism spectrum disorder. One of her clients who was 6 years old made a house out of legos before she left and she asked my mom to keep it somewhere safe to prevent the other kids from touching it so that she could play with it upon her return. But she never came back; she was on that plane with her family. My mom still has that lego house and she cries everytime she sees it. There was also a story of one father, who went into his son’s room and his toys were exactly how he had left them --he didn’t want anyone to move them. These stories are heavy. They really take a toll. I realized that at the end of the day, we’re all stories. Our lives are stories, and these stories are intertwined into other peoples’ lives. And that’s sacred. To be able to prolong life and the chapters of those lives, and to reduce suffering was something we all signed up for when we started medical school. I think that is such a privilege. And I am aware of this privilege even more so now than ever before.
In the spirit of the New Year, is there any strength that you have personally found from this experience, that will perhaps allow you to do things differently in the future?
Yes, for sure. You know, since that tragedy happened, we’ve been through so much during this past year that it feels like 10 years. 2020 felt like it took 10 years to pass. Everything was COVID-19.
One thing that helped me was [realizing that] we’re very fragile. You really don’t know what will happen tomorrow and the day after. So, living in the moment, being present, appreciating everything that is, I think it was a big lesson. Getting into medical school was no easy feat. Everyone in medical school is extremely brilliant. I wasn’t very brilliant, so I had to work double hard, triple hard to be able to sit with you guys in the same class. For me to get there and to do that, I was always putting my life on hold so that I could study more, so that I could do this more and do that more. You know, I could do more research to publish more papers and things like that, until I get to where I want to be. I have to do medical school and nothing else until residency. Once you’re in residency, there is fellowship. And then next and next, and there’s always a next. There’s always the next thing. But I realized that sometimes you need to slow down, and you have to take every day as it comes, because honestly, you don’t know what's going to happen tomorrow.
One of the people I knew who passed away on the play was much younger than me, and he was brilliant. He had started a STEM mentorship program, he had worked on stem cell neuroscience research, [and] he was going to become a neurosurgeon. I’m sure he would have been an amazing neurosurgeon. But in 17 seconds, he was gone. That was the takeaway lesson for me, to enjoy every minute of life. I know it’s a very cliché thing, but I think when people say it, it’s much easier said than done. We’re always working towards something. As medical students, what we have learned very well is delayed gratification, and that’s good right? Delayed gratification is great, but enjoying life as it is, is very important too. For me, that was a big lesson.
It’s still hard for me to comprehend and wrap my head around why this happened, even one year after. There are things that have changed. There are changes in our behavior. For example, we decided with my wife that whenever we travel, we would travel together. No one is going to be left behind. Regardless, there was no control in that situation. There are some behavioural changes and there are also some thought changes, a different outlook on life. But it was difficult for everyone in the community and my family. We didn’t have any family in that plane but felt that everyone on the plane was a part of our family. We grieved with them and we cried with them, and we still feel the pain. We will all feel this pain for quite some time. The night before the tragedy happened, my cousin was on a plane to go to the Netherlands. We had people leaving Iran just before and after the tragedy, people that we know were on different planes or were planning to go to [ to Iran], and they barely missed it.
I think doing things like this, remembering the tragedy, really helps, especially the victims’ families, to cope. The worst thing is to be forgotten.
Note: The above is a direct transcript from a live interview with Pouria Alipour conducted by the Resonance Humans team.
References
Canada GA. Canada's response to Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 tragedy [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2021Jan6]. Available from: https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/response_conflict-reponse_conflits/crisis-crises/flight-vol-ps752.aspx?lang=eng