'It's really hard to cope': Blackville mourns together after recent string of deaths
4 people from the area died suddenly within a span of just 2 months
More than 350 people gathered in Blackville on Monday, to mourn a string of recent tragedies as a community.
A kilometre's worth of vehicles lined the street leading up to the interfaith vigil at the municipal park. There, people from the surrounding area came to collectively grieve the deaths of four people in less than two months and show support for the local families.
Like most people in the village of about 1,000 people, Chris Sturgeon, a volunteer firefighter in the community, knew all four people.
"It's a tight-knit community," Sturgeon said. "Everybody knows everybody, so it's hard. It's really hard to cope with and move on from."
On July 3, Blaine Sturgeon, 55, and his 29-year-old daughter, Falon, died after their homemade raft overturned on the Miramichi River.
Days earlier, 14-year-old Thomas Anthony Dunn was killed when his dirt bike collided with a car.
In May, 18-year-old Marshall Curtis of Gray Rapids was killed in a car crash. Darren Brophy, a fellow 2017 graduate of Blackville School, died last fall.
Sturgeon was just one of many community members who felt compelled to help out, and that's how a vigil came to be.
'We're really struggling to understand'
Shelley Donahue, an organizer of the event, said people were asking what they could do to help families during this time and the idea of a communal gathering was created to assist anyone hurting.
The deaths also touched Donahue's family.
Her 13-year-old son lost his best friend and her 18-year-old daughter is a graduate from the class of 2017, Donahue said.
"We're really struggling here to understand why this is happening, and what it is that we can do to help those that are having a hard time coping," she said.
Donahue recalled what it meant to her family when the community came to their side after the sudden death of her husband in 2010.
During the vigil, the victims were remembered by loved ones, religious officials shared words of comfort and music played into the night air. Listed on the program were numbers for mental health hotlines and services.
The deaths led Horizon Health to offer one-on-one grief counselling sessions in the community.
With files from Shane Fowler and Shift New Brunswick