Mark Chapman
Day 3 · September 10, 2026 · 0:24:31
Key points Mark Chapman, 66, a former Sea King helicopter pilot with about 30 years of military service, later flew offshore oil-and-gas helicopters and captained an amphibious Harbour Hopper in Halifax. He says his licenses required regular physicals and he had 47 years of documented good health, including cardiac health, and was very physically active before vaccination. He received three Pfizer shots and says the day after his third, on December 20, 2021, his Apple Watch flagged atrial fibrillation and tachycardia. He describes ongoing cardiac problems, chronic fatigue, chronic full-body pain, numbness, muscle contractions, gastrointestinal issues, and cognitive and memory decline. He recounts being unable to deliver a presentation he had written and forgetting routine tasks, ending his career training pilots in flight simulators. He says he passed out and was picked off the floor five times in one summer, and in June 2025 suffered an ischemic colon requiring hospitalization, later followed by gallbladder removal and a temporarily paralyzed leg. He now uses a walker and scooter, is exhausted by simple tasks, and links his sudden decline to the timing of his third shot.
Speaker 1
0:02 So our next witness is Mark Chapman. 0:06 Mark, will you take the Bible in your right hand? 0:10 Mark Chapman, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God? 0:17 Yes, I do. 0:19 I'd just like to introduce you to the inquiry, although I did learn, just because you were sending emails to me and I'm overwhelmed with them right now, that you were in the military also. 0:30 Yes, sir, 30 years. 0:31 30 years? 0:32 And I assume that was as a helicopter pilot? 0:35 Pretty much. 0:36 Okay. 0:36 So we'll get to that in a second. 0:37 Well, let's get to it right now. 0:39 So tell us about that. 0:40 Apparently you did search and rescue Labradors. Speaker 2
0:44 No, I didn't fly the Labradors. 0:46 Flying was really my main activity. 0:50 And I actually soloed my first airplane at 15 years old. 0:55 I had a pilot's license before I had a driver's license for a car. 0:59 I joined the Air Force right out of high school. 1:02 I ended up flying the Sea King helicopter with the Navy. 1:06 I flew that aircraft for 25 years. 1:09 I had two sessions in the military. 1:11 I did 20 years, and I got out. 1:13 For three years, I flew the Nova Scotia Air Ambulance. 1:16 I brought the very first case to the roof of the Halifax Infirmary. 1:20 As the subsequent Gulf Wars were bubbling up, I got a phone call. 1:24 They asked me to come back, so I consented to do that. 1:28 Went back in for about another nine years. 1:29 I was a reservist for the time I was on the Air Ambulance. 1:33 So altogether, it's about 30 years time served. 1:36 And of course, I deployed. Speaker 1
1:38 Can you speak a little louder and we're going to move the mic closer. Speaker 2
1:40 Of course, I deployed often, including the Middle East and all the adventures that were going on over there. 1:48 Eventually, time came to move on to something else. 1:53 Turned out to be flying again and I was hired to fly 1:56 heavy helicopters in the offshore oil and gas industry. 2:00 And for a period of time, I was flying the longest offshore flight on Earth from St. John's to the Flemish Cap. 2:09 Out and back is about 30% of the way to Europe. 2:12 I used to brief the passengers that we were going 300 miles out. 2:16 The space station is only 235 miles out. 2:20 So that was kind of to put that in perspective for them. Speaker 1
2:23 To make them feel more comfortable. 2:24 Right. 2:24 There's no landing place out there. 2:27 So, well, first of all, I'd like to thank you for your service. Speaker 2
2:32 Thank you very much. Speaker 1
2:32 So you're 66 years old. 2:36 One of the things that many people won't know is that pilots, they have to get regular physicals, complete physicals. 2:46 And you have 47 years of documented good health before flying. 2:51 the vaccine, including cardiac health, as an airline transport-rated commercial pilot, master mariner, and commercial vehicle operator, which were all valid licenses at the time of your vaccination. 3:05 Absolutely. 3:06 So, like, you're a driver of all things. 3:08 If it had an engine, I wanted to do it. 3:11 Right. 3:11 Okay. 3:12 And you were also very physically active. 3:15 Like, when I was interviewing you, I appreciate that during COVID you came back from Thailand, but 3:21 you were telling me as soon as the temperature dropped to like 32, 32, you'd be out there 12, 15 K four or five times a week. 3:29 Like, and the point I'm just trying to make is you were a very active person. 3:33 You didn't, you, you didn't have preexisting medical conditions to explain any of this. 3:41 Um, and then also, um, perhaps David, did you get the, the, um, 3:49 the Air Force photos too. 3:50 So let's just walk through some photos of how you were. 3:53 So now I appreciate this one's more than a year ago. 3:58 So tell us about this though. 4:00 This is a beautiful photograph. Speaker 2
4:01 This would be during my second stint with the Air Force while I was in a staff and flying positions. 4:09 And about that time I was the senior air officer in the Atlantic fleet. Speaker 1
4:17 If we were having a different inquiry, I'm sure you'd have some super stories about going out in storms and sea kings. 4:22 Absolutely. 4:24 But we can't do that today. 4:25 So can we go to the next? 4:28 Tell us about this. 4:28 This is in Thailand. 4:29 That'd be in 2020 in Thailand. 4:32 So 2020, this is important because you look pretty happy and you look pretty healthy here. 4:36 Right. Speaker 2
4:36 Now, I had gone back to Thailand. 4:38 I was working in Thailand as my last company I worked for. 4:41 And I went over in early March. 4:45 And then Thailand closed the airspace to the country for 10 months. 4:50 I didn't leave Thailand for 10 months. 4:52 This is about in the middle of that period. 4:54 This photograph here, my buddy Banchard next to me here, had just had his birthday. 5:00 So our two ages added together meant this was the last day we could fly together because that's how the company controlled the age of pilots that were in the aircraft. 5:10 Their ages combined had a maximum number it could meet. 5:13 So we were sort of, 5:14 celebrating our last opportunity. 5:17 So everything was good. 5:19 And at the end of 2020, I came home. Speaker 1
5:23 Let's just move through a couple of photographs just so people can. 5:27 So this is during COVID, right? 5:28 Yes, this is during COVID. Speaker 2
5:31 You followed the mask mandate here. 5:32 You betcha. 5:34 And so flying out to the platforms, you had to be masked up in one method or another. Speaker 1
5:42 So flying to Speaker 2
5:43 resupply oil rigs with people out okay so it's because there's people in there 19 people in the back yeah oh my gosh okay so this was this was the protocol and if you didn't do that you had to wear two or three cloth and paper masks but that that one worked pretty well so next photograph david 6:07 And when I wasn't working in aviation, which is a touring business, I'd do six weeks away and six weeks off. 6:15 I did this. 6:16 I was the skipper of the Harbor Hopper in Halifax. 6:19 There were only about six people in the world could do that job because you needed a 60-ton master mariner ship captain license and a bus driver over 24 passenger license to operate that machine, which is amphibious. 6:32 It weighs 10 tons and it's wider than a traffic lane. 6:36 And we do a half an hour in the city and half an hour in the harbor. 6:40 So if it floated or flew or drove, I was licensed to do air, land, and sea. Speaker 1
6:50 That's really quite spectacular. 6:52 And I think that's our last photo, isn't it? 6:54 Okay, let's keep going. Speaker 3
6:59 You see I'm sitting on a walker. 7:02 And that's Speaker 1
7:07 That's the clan. 7:09 Okay. 7:10 So you didn't have COVID, but you get three shots. 7:17 I did. 7:18 And the first two, really, there was nothing of notice. 7:22 But your third was December 20th, 2021, all three Pfizer. 7:26 Can you share with us what happened? Speaker 2
7:29 The very next day, after the third one, my Apple Watch went off. 7:36 and said I was in atrial fibrillation and tachycardia. 7:40 The next day? 7:41 The very next day. Speaker 3
7:43 And I knew immediately that that was the end of all of those medicals. Speaker 2
7:50 So there's a time gap before you have to do another medical, so I could continue until the next medical came along. 7:59 And I worked through 2020 8:04 primarily on the Harbour Opera because I couldn't get back to Thailand. 8:08 And we operated that machine with plexiglass shields between the seats, which is ridiculous in an outdoor machine. 8:14 But anyway, that's what you had to do or the government wouldn't allow it to operate. 8:19 But during the year, things started to go wrong. 8:23 And it was the cardiac effect. 8:26 And I went to see cardiologists and they couldn't explain any of it. 8:29 I saw a cardiologist who specialized in heart rhythms. 8:34 And I told him that my heart rate will not accelerate under stress, but it does accelerate when I'm not stressed. 8:42 And he said, well, he'd never heard of that before, and he didn't know what that was. 8:45 But that exists to this day. 8:47 I get tachycardia almost daily, and I still get atrial fibrillation as notified on my wrist. 8:54 Just this morning, I received a notification from my Apple Health Act that there's been an abrupt change in my heart rate. 9:01 I don't know what that's about yet. 9:02 I have to look into that. 9:05 And then during the year, I started to get tired. 9:09 You know, the Harbor Hopper is a big machine. 9:11 You kind of have to muscle it around. 9:13 And I would get tired just walking up the stairs to get on the darn thing. 9:17 And I'd say, what the heck is going on here? 9:19 What is wrong? 9:20 And I would, at the end of a day, it would be 14 hours, maybe eight tours. 9:26 I'd be completely whipped, which was new and different. 9:32 And at the same time, and I'm suffering from it now, my mental ability to organize thought started to fade. 9:42 When I was in aviation, I had, for two companies, built them complete crew resource management programs, put together a 300-page fully cited textbook for that, and instructed that course. 9:56 During this summer period, a colleague and I went to Greenwood, 10:00 where I was volunteering to do that kind of training for free to private pilots because they have to do it as well. 10:08 And I was giving a lesson on critical incident stress reaction. 10:15 A presentation that I wrote that I had given many times, and when I stood on the stage and clicked the first slide and saw the outline, I didn't recognize it, and I didn't know what was in the next slide. 10:30 I'd had enough experience teaching that kind of material that I could click to the next slide, quickly look at it and fake it as if I had known what was coming. 10:41 And I got through that and I went to my colleague Mike and I said, Mike, I can't do this anymore. 10:47 It's just not working. 10:48 I mean, I wrote that presentation and I couldn't give it effectively in my mind. 10:56 Short-term memory suffers. 10:59 I wrote headings down here because I just have a hard time putting it all together. Speaker 1
11:03 And I'll help you with things. 11:04 So, like, even on the brain fog, you told me about you're driving across the bridge. Speaker 1
11:11 And you get on the other side, you even forget why you were going. 11:14 I got on the other side. Speaker 2
11:15 I said, I can't remember why I came over here. 11:17 I'm not lost. 11:18 I know where I was. 11:18 But it's like, why did I come over here for? 11:20 So I pull off the road. 11:21 I look at my calendar. 11:22 I go, oh, I'm supposed to go to the pharmacy. 11:25 Okay. 11:26 Off we go. 11:27 But that kind of thing would happen or I'd go down a street that I'd driven on for 25 years and it was like, it's like the first time. 11:35 And that's a little, a little frightening. 11:39 Right? 11:40 So. Speaker 1
11:41 I want to pull you back to this chronic fatigue because you're talking about how, you know, on the Harbor Hopper, basically even walking up the stairs, you know, it's like, what the heck? 11:52 Because, I mean, you were walking 12, 15 K and, 11:55 and all of a sudden you're wiped out by the end of the shift. 11:58 You were telling me on an earlier interview that even last month, you ended up passing out a couple of times. Speaker 2
12:04 Can you share with us about that? 12:05 My wife has picked me up off the floor five times this summer. 12:10 I have such limited metabolic reserve that if I get a cold or the flu, that's all it takes to wipe me out. 12:20 And I had three times where I completely passed out and hit the floor. 12:24 And it's pretty confusing when you come to and realize that your face is pressed up against the floor and that you're horizontal and your wife is trying to pick you up off the floor. 12:37 And that happened five times this summer. 12:41 The reserve is gone. 12:42 My metabolic reserves are erased. 12:47 As I went through this year, 2020, I started to get, when I heard somebody testify here yesterday, I think, 12:53 described his legs as being a drunk man's legs. 12:57 That's exactly what I told my doctor. 12:59 I said, I have drunk legs. 13:01 I don't walk correctly anymore. 13:03 My gait is totally messed up. 13:06 At the same time, I have gross motor trouble here. 13:11 I'm surprised I haven't knocked this glass of water over. 13:14 That happens all the time. 13:16 Or I'll burn my hands because I can't feel the heat on a stove. 13:22 That, coupled with my memory and cognitive issues, difficult to focus. 13:30 And so I tend to jump from task to task and not finishing any of them. 13:34 And that has a truly dangerous side effect. 13:38 I always forget to turn off the stove. 13:41 I know I forget to turn off the stove, but I still forget to turn off the stove because my brain jumps from the food is cooked, the job is done. 13:50 It's not done. 13:52 So I don't recognize their risk, and I leave it on. 13:57 Or I'll get something from the refrigerator, and when I've got it in my hand, the job is done. 14:01 Don't remember to close the door. 14:04 This is not normal for me. 14:07 I was at the peak of my aviation game. 14:12 I was training people to fly those helicopters in flight simulators. 14:18 I was a flight simulator test pilot at CAE for the S-92 project. 14:23 I was qualified in five countries to train people to fly the S-92 helicopter. 14:28 I've flown, I've operated and trained people in every S-92 flight simulator in the world. 14:34 Lafayette, West Palm Beach, Farnborough, Aberdeen and Brunei. 14:41 They built another one since then, it's in St. John's. 14:43 But to do that, you have to function at about 140% 14:51 of the capacity of the aviators that you're training. 14:54 Because they're busy doing their thing. 14:56 You have to control the scenario, be ready to critique their performance, operate the simulator, know what's coming next, and so on and so forth. 15:05 So it demands a tremendous amount of organizational power. 15:10 And I've lost it. 15:11 It's gone. Speaker 1
15:12 Can I bring up another thing? 15:14 Because you also deal with chronic pain. 15:17 I do. Speaker 2
15:19 somebody here said they had tramadol. 15:22 I have tramadol. 15:22 See my bag right there. 15:24 I have metoprolol as well because if I get trachycardia, I need to take. 15:29 I get chronic pain. 15:31 I have a hard time sitting still. 15:34 The pain is from the ears to the toes. 15:37 And it's just like the whole body is hurting. 15:41 There are many nights I'm up at midnight because I just can't lie there anymore. 15:46 And I have to get up. Speaker 1
15:48 And this is basically daily, so you'll be in pain now. Speaker 2
15:51 I am, absolutely. 15:54 I feel like I'm sitting on a tree trunk. 15:56 I'm not. 15:57 I'm sitting on a cushion and a chair, but it feels like I'm sitting on a piece of wood. 16:03 You know, my feet are numb. 16:05 I can't feel them at all, except for the times when they feel like they're freezing and burning and hurting all at the same time, which occurs occasionally. 16:17 And I also get somebody else mentioned, uh, muscle contractions. 16:22 I'll get a random muscle in my body will decide it's time to fully contract and stay that way. 16:30 I do one finger might be a calf might be the side of my head. 16:34 And that muscle will go to instantly to full contraction. 16:39 And you can't release. 16:40 You have to take something like a flexor to try to get it to give up. 16:45 And, uh, 16:46 And those are random. 16:49 There's no way to predict them. 16:52 And they're not that infrequent. 16:56 And so the evidence is circumstantial. 17:00 I started having trouble the next day. 17:01 I think that's pretty seriously plausible connection. 17:08 But all of these things that have gone crazy, it's like a kaleidoscope of symptoms that I have. 17:16 I have gastric trouble. 17:20 For some unknown reason, my GI tract will go into turbo mode at the most inappropriate times. 17:29 And that's a problem, right? Speaker 3
17:31 Because it now wants to get rid of everything. 17:36 Shall I talk about this summer? Speaker 2
17:39 I had, on the 27th of June this year, 17:45 was sitting reading email, and I suddenly felt really tremendously bad. 17:50 Within 15 minutes, I was in huge abdominal pain and nausea. 17:58 I spent the night in the bathroom. 18:03 My wife found me on the floor in the morning. 18:05 By that time, I was passing great red blood. 18:09 We called 8-1-1. 18:10 They said, call 9-1-1. 18:11 We went downtown in the ambulance. 18:14 Got downtown, and half a day they said that they had unexplained thickening of the colon, and they didn't know why, but they were going to open up and have a look. 18:27 So they opened me up, looked inside, they didn't do very much else, and they closed me back up and sent me to the IMCU. Speaker 3
18:37 I was there for four days, and in the middle of that, 18:44 I texted my wife. Speaker 2
18:46 I said, Sharon, you need to consider the possibility of my death, because I didn't think I was going to get out of there. 18:57 So after four days there, they sent me to the VG Hospital to recover, and that's where I discovered I had a paralyzed right leg. 19:05 Couldn't walk, couldn't stand up. 19:08 It took me two weeks before I could stand up and move enough for them to let me out of there. 19:14 I got home and was being seen by the Victorian Order of Nurses and Wound Care. 19:21 They finally discharged me from VON care. 19:25 The very next day, I had chest pain, 10 out of 10. 19:32 I didn't know whether that was a heart attack, a collapsed lung, or an aneurysm. 19:37 Back in the ambulance, back downtown, after a day in the ER, they said, 19:44 your gallbladder has become inflamed and thickened. 19:48 That sounds just like what had happened to the colon. 19:51 So they scheduled me for OR to get that out. 19:53 Three days later, they took that out of me. 19:56 Now, my visit to the surgeon from the first event, she said I had something that she would call an ischemic colon, which means the blood flow to your colon is blocked off. 20:10 Well, why was that? 20:12 She doesn't know. 20:14 Will it happen again? 20:15 She doesn't know. 20:18 It may have been a clot. 20:21 And what might have saved me was I'm on blood thinners for life because of the atrial fibrillation. 20:27 So if you have AFib, you can form a clot in your heart. 20:30 And if they cardiovert you, it can bust out and hit you in the brain and give you a stroke. 20:35 It might have been that blood thinner that saved me from the ischemic colon because they were presuming it was necrotizing. 20:44 So they just basically put me back together and let me recover. 20:49 What's next? 20:50 No idea. 20:53 I won't be surprised whatever comes next. 20:57 It's just one thing after another after another. Speaker 4
21:00 Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for your service, first of all, and serving our country. 21:08 My question, you know, in the area of flying and pilots, it's a 21:14 It's a small fraternity. 21:15 I know that during COVID, I heard from pilots, pilots concerned about taking the vaccine, pilots that actually were injured from it. 21:23 My question, and I realize you're not a statistician, but anecdotally, do you know of commercial pilots, you know, people you know in the business that have had the same issues as you? 21:32 I mean, I've heard this, but you don't have personal stories. Speaker 2
21:36 There was a period of time where Transport Canada would settle during COVID for a telephone interview for the medical office. 21:42 There's no ECG done there. 21:45 There were pilots that died of heart failure after the COVID thing got rolled out in the United States when it collapsed in Canada. 21:56 They had to very carefully look at whether the existing cardiac standard was going to be doable after COVID came out because that might eliminate almost everybody. 22:12 So it's definitely a problem for sure. Speaker 4
22:15 Is that because I have heard we've had a shortage of pilots, commercial pilots. 22:21 And then I realize under temporary foreign workers, certain airlines are trying to bring more pilots in. 22:26 But I was just kind of curious. 22:29 Mike, go ahead. Speaker 2
22:30 Yeah, it did have a big effect. 22:34 And, you know, like many of the other people that we've heard from, I didn't want to take this stuff. 22:42 And I took it. 22:44 My wife's a nurse. 22:46 She was administering it. 22:49 And I didn't want her to take it, but she had to do that in order to work. 22:54 And I had to take it in order to drive that Harbour Hopper. Speaker 3
22:57 So I got it. 23:00 I got all three from my wife. 23:03 That happened to be the way that turned out. Speaker 2
23:06 And so I don't know where we go from here. 23:11 But in terms of my chronic fatigue, I can walk one aisle of the grocery store and back. 23:21 That's a lot less than 15K at 32 degrees. Speaker 3
23:25 I have an electric scooter to get around. Speaker 2
23:30 I use a walker. 23:34 This morning, I arrived with the walker on Wellington Street side. 23:38 They wanted me to walk around to the other side. 23:40 I told him I won't be able to do that in time to get here. 23:45 So I would have to stop a lot and rest. 23:49 I get exhausted wrapping a Christmas present or having a shower or even eating. 23:57 And have difficulty sometimes manipulating the utensils. 24:04 So the world is different in a big way. Speaker 4
24:09 We thank you very much for coming in today and sharing your story with us. Speaker 2
24:12 Well, thank you very much for setting this up. 24:15 It's remarkable. Speaker 3
24:16 Thank you. 24:16 Thanks so much.