Life is full of wasps and injustices

WEDNESDAY MORNING EDITORIAL — Life is so full of injustice that sometimes it’s a wonder we bother.

Every day, there are stories about people who get a raw deal, who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, who were victims of life’s cruelties in one way or another.

One such person is Lucie F. Roussel, the mayor of La Prairie, a community near Montreal. Roussel was at her cottage in the Eastern townships on the weekend when she stepped on a wasps’ nest. She was stung about 15 times, suffered anaphylactic shock, was taken to hospital, and died.

She was, as it turned out, allergic to bee and wasp stings. (It’s of interest that Kamloops resident Dianne Czezewski appeared in front of Kamloops City council last week for the second time strongly recommending that epinephrine injectors be kept at public places just as heart defibrillators now are. Such a practice wouldn’t help someone like Roussel who was some distance from public facilities, but it does remind us that allergies are an issue we need to pay attention to.)

The injustice of Roussel’s death is demonstrated by the fact that three times as many Canadians die from being struck by lightning each year as die from wasp or bee stings. Anyone who goes outside in August is familiar with the pain of a wasp sting, and a lot of us have been stung more than once, so one can imagine the effect of 15 stings.

The thing about Lucie Roussel is that, by all accounts, she was a fine mayor, conscientious, devoted, engaged with her community. She was mayor for nine years, a councillor for several years before that. She lost her husband to a heart attack five years ago, and leaves a teenaged daughter and a teenaged son.

Lucie Roussel spent her life building a reputation for integrity and hard work. She didn’t waste taxpayers’ money on personal travel or charge expenses from her cottage to the public purse in the manner that some other politicians have done.

Yet, Lucie Roussel is dead at 51 from wasp stings.