My paternal grandfather had to go to a ‘pensionnat’ when he was 8-12 years old. This place, like a lot of institutions for children back in the day, was “managed” by religious figures called ‘Les Oblats’. A pensionnat is like a boarding school for boys where you get education by the Catholic church. Yes, it is the same type of establishment where Natives were forcibly assimilated. Anyhoo. One day my granddad was playing hockey outside and got a stick right in the forehead, probably the recoil from a slapshot. He fell in a coma.
The ‘Oblats’ placed him in bed and did not report anything for fear of losing their precious reputations (and probably also because they panicked). The hospitals and health ‘system’ was also “managed” by the Clergy at that time. They could have transfered him or called for a doctor. Nope. He was in a coma for 10 fooken days.
At the age of 70, he got a stroke in the area where he had received the stick, and was left paralyzed on his left side for two years, until he died.
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