Warning: This story contains distressing details.

Terry Aleck made the decision to come forward to the RCMP Native Indian Residential School Task Force after decades of depression and addiction stemming from the abuse he suffered at St. George's Residential School in Lytton, B.C.

“Dec. 7, 1986, is the day I decided to turn my life around. I had a rifle in my mouth and all I had to do was reach down and push the trigger,” Aleck recalled in a recent interview with the IJF.