Patricia Farrell is not even a week removed from the death of her son in a military training exercise gone wrong.
She looks over an array of seven photos of Pte. Shaun Farrell. One is of him as a newborn with a mohawk. Another shows him as he finished high school in South Africa.
“He never smiled that much, but on each photo, he’s always smiling,” his mother said Thursday.
Then she stops on one particular portrait: of her son standing before a Canadian flag wearing military fatigues.
“I see him looking at me and saying, ‘I was happy. This is what I wanted to do,'” she said.
The 23-year-old from Prince Albert, Sask., was one of four soldiers killed Saturday when a grass fire at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright overtook a live-fire training exercise on a nearby grenade range.
The other soldiers killed were: Pte. Aidan Goulding, 23, of North Vancouver; Pte. Hayden Lykkemark, 19, of Langley, B.C.; and Sgt. Morgan Wong, 26, of Edmonton.
Military officials say the fire began in a permanent danger area, preventing base firefighters from putting it out early. The fire was being monitored when a strong and sudden wind sent flames racing toward a group of 84 soldiers from the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry.
The fire wounded 39. As of Thursday, 27 injured soldiers remain in various hospitals, with 13 in critical condition, officials said.
Patricia Farrell, speaking to reporters in Prince Albert, Sask., said her son enlisted last year — a lifelong goal.
“He started saying when he was probably about five years old, ‘When I grow up, I’m going to be an army man,'” she said.
The family moved to Canada from South Africa in 2017.
Living with dyslexia and Asperger’s syndrome, the family said Farrell was once told he’d never graduate high school and that he’d have a lot to overcome.
But his mother says her son — armed with a quiet but fiery tenacity — refused to let labels or low expectations define him. His personal motto, she said, was “comfort kills dreams.” He had the phrase tattooed to his side.
“He knew it wasn’t always comfortable for him as a person to achieve his dreams,” Farrell said.
“He knew that … if he was comfortable, he wasn’t going to achieve that dream, so he had to, himself, get out of his comfort zone.”
The burn area on CFB Wainwright south of the town where a training accident occurred earlier this week, in Wainwright, Alta., on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov
From the get-go, she said her son wanted to be in the infantry. His end goal was to join special forces, she said.
“I once was on a call with him and said to him, ‘Oh, you must only be dreaming about all the bombs and everything you’re blowing up and shooting your weapon,'” she said.
“And he said, ‘Mom, I am not dreaming about these things. I’m living my dream.'”
His mother said that over the past week, she has received beautiful messages from his fellow soldiers. And the support coming in from people in Prince Albert and across the country has been “overwhelming,” she said.
Now, the family is simply trying to process the loss.
“What goes through any parent’s mind when they lose their child, their baby?” she said.
“I’m just wondering what my future is going to be like without him in our lives and without him being around.”
A family spokesperson says funeral arrangements are being finalized and his body will be brought back to Saskatchewan by week’s end.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 22, 2026.
— By Aaron Sousa and Daniela Germano in Edmonton
Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.