As his brother lay dead in the road, Clinton Ellison quietly hid in the freezing woods and prayed the police would come to save him from a gunman ravaging the community of Portapique, N.S.
‘All I could hear was explosions from the fires and gunshots,’ says Ellison. He ran, terrified, into the woods to save his own life. 9:15
For four hours, Clinton Ellison lay quietly in the freezing woods and prayed the police would come to save him from a gunman ravaging the community of Portapique, N.S.
He had already seen his brother’s dead body lying on the side of the road.
Hiding in the woods, he could hear gunshots all around him and popping from fires raging through nearby homes and cars.
“Something right out of a horror movie, worse than a horror movie,” Ellison said Wednesday. “It’s a nightmare through hell.”
He was witnessing the early hours of a gunman’s 12-hour rampage through rural Nova Scotia that would end the lives of at least 22 victims, making it Canada’s deadliest mass shooting.
On Saturday, Ellison and his brother, 42-year-old Corrie Ellison, had decided to spend the night in Portapique to visit their father. The pair planned to return home the next day — Clinton Ellison to Halifax and Corrie Ellison to Truro, N.S.
But around 10 p.m., they heard a single gunshot. The pair looked outside and noticed a glow in the sky coming from a nearby fire.
Corrie Ellison decided to venture out to find out what was going on, even as his dad pleaded with him to stay. Eventually, he called and told them the fire was really bad and to call the fire department.
His brother and his father waited again. This time, there was no word. Clinton Ellison went out in search for his brother. He walked up the road, flashlight in hand.
“I could see a body laying on the side of the road, as I got closer I could see that it was my brother,” he said.
“I got one more step closer and I could see blood, and he wasn’t moving. I shut my flashlight off, I turned around and I ran for my life in the dark.”