Funeral for Victoria officer who spent 30 years mostly unresponsive after crash

Const. Ian Jordan was injured in a crash with another police cruiser as both officers raced towards the same emergency call in September 1987.(Photo: Christ Church Cathedral, Victoria, BC/Facebook)

VICTORIA — A Victoria police officer who lay in an unresponsive state for 30 years after an on-duty collision is finally at peace, a funeral service heard Thursday.

Const. Ian Jordan was injured in a crash with another police cruiser as both officers raced towards the same emergency call in September 1987.

The accident left him unresponsive, unable to walk or speak and confined to a hospital room, but his life story is one of enduring love and unbreakable bonds, Rev. Andrew Gates told mourners.

Jordan died on April 11 after suffering complications from a lung infection. He was 66 years old.

“After 30 years, Ian is finally at peace,” said Gates, a military chaplain and the padre for the Victoria Police Department.

Gates said he visited Jordan often, praying the fallen officer would greet him just once with a simple hello. It never happened.

“My God, how hard we tried,” Gates said. “I knew Ian was trapped inside that body, and I wondered if he knew who I was. I feel that I’ve walked a dear one home.”

Hundreds of people lined a procession route of uniformed officers ahead of the service, and outside of the church, some members of the public wiped away tears.

About 500 uniformed law enforcement officers from across Canada and United States marched in the procession, including the entire Victoria Police Department.

Jordan’s coffin, draped with the Canadian flag, was carried into the church by uniformed pall bearers.

His wife Hilary Jordan and their son Mark walked arm in arm up the steps of Christ Church Cathedral, where about 1,000 mourners, mostly law-enforcement personnel, paid their respects to the officer.

Mark Jordan was 16 months old when his father’s accident occurred. Now he is a 32-year-old lawyer, living in Edmonton.

“Thank you for the kindness and support you have shown my father throughout the years,” Mark Jordan told the mourners.

He also paid tribute to his mother for the “unconditional love and dedication she gave to my father over the last 30 years,” and said he wanted her to know that she made her son feel like he never missed out on any of life’s gifts, despite what she lived with daily.

At the end of the service, mother and son touched Const. Jordan’s casket, saying their last goodbyes.

The service also heard how Ian and Hilary Jordan were high school sweethearts in Victoria who got engaged at 19.

Ian Jordan was in law school when he joined the Victoria Police Department’s summer program and decided to change career tracks. He was an active duty police officer for less than three years before the crash.

Chief Const. Del Manak described Thursday how he would visit Jordan regularly to provide regular department briefings.

“I would talk to him,” Manak said. “I would give him updates and let him know what was going on in the police department. I would let him know of the men and women who are always thinking of him.”

The chief said he always looked for signs of responsiveness from Jordan during his visits.

“I don’t know to what level of awareness he could understand but I do believe in my heart that he knew people were there, that people were talking to him,” Manak said.

Hilary Jordan said earlier her husband’s eyes would light up when she spoke of their son.

She said doctors could never say if he was conscious and unable to communicate or if the responses he showed were simply reflexes.

Retired Victoria police Sgt. Ole Jorgensen — the other officer involved in the crash — said he visited his friend often and that Jordan sometimes seemed awake.

Manak said Jordan never left the minds and hearts of the department’s officers, who are like a family.

“It’s tight knit and you never leave somebody behind and forget about them, regardless of how much passage of time there’s been.”

The Greater Victoria Police Chorus sang Amazing Grace during the service.

The funeral ended with a recorded police dispatch call: “Ian Douglas Jordan. End of watch, April 11, 2018.”