MONTREAL - There wasn't a dry eye Friday at the Montreal health centre where Dr. Michael Moss spent the last 30-something years of his career, after friends and colleagues discovered he was one of two Canadians killed in the Mumbai terrorist attacks this week.
The septuagenarian and long-time family physician was days away from returning to Canada after a four week holiday in India, colleague Dr. David Weigens said in the lobby of the Cavendish health and social services centre.
"He was a big-hearted, generous, very experienced man and I think in some ways, the quintessential family doctor who stood up for his patients and who was always thinking of their best interests," said Weigens, who worked with Moss for more than 20 years.
"He would go out of his way for the care of his patients and frankly for the rest of the staff here. He's grieved not just as a colleague, but as a very close member of the family here."
Health centre executive director Francine Dupuis described the British-trained doctor as an old fashioned physician whose patients could count on him any time of the day.
A dedicated physician, she said he took a government buyout 11 years ago but was "bored" and couldn't stay away.
"He's part of the place. This is a small hospital so it's really like a family. He knows everybody, he's all over the place and he has a very, very fond and warm relationship with the staff," she said
"It's a shock."
Reached at their home in Montreal, Moss's family refused to comment.
Foreign Affairs confirmed the death of a second Canadian late Friday but no details about the victim have been released.
A statement released from Ottawa indicated the person's family has been notified.
More than 150 people have been killed since gunmen attacked 10 sites across India's financial capital.
According to Foreign Affairs, of the 21 Canadians at the sites, 17 were confirmed safe. Two others were injured and two are now confirmed dead. One of the injured was a Montreal actor who was shot three times and was recovering in hospital Friday.
A number of other Canadians witnessed the horror.
Vancouver resident Jonathan Ehrlich, who was in Mumbai on business and was staying at the Oberoi hotel, said a pair of lucky decisions kept him alive.
The first decision was turning down an offer to have drinks with a friend because he was tired.
That friend, Alex Chamberlain, and his associate Rohinton Maloo were taken hostage.
Chamberlain escaped as the hostages were marched up to the hotel roof.
Maloo did not and Ehrlich said he's since learned that the Indian citizen was killed.
Ehrlich's second lucky decision was not to get out of his hotel bed and answer the door when someone rang the bell.
"The first thing the terrorists did was to go into reception and demand the passports of the American and Western tourists," Ehrlich said.
"I bet you anything that that knock at the door was them."
Five minutes later, the first bomb went off. As Ehrlich made his way into the hall to see what was happening, a second explosion shook the building.
"I knew at that point that we were under attack," he said.
Ehrlich raced down 18 flights of stairs to the lobby, where he found people just standing around, trying to figure out what to do.
"I felt like a sitting duck. There was no police, there was no security, there was no one from the hotel there at all," Ehrlich said.
Ehrlich eventually found an emergency exit and slipped outside.
He was amazed that the throng of people who had gathered on the street could be so silent.
"It was eerily quiet despite all the people. For it to be that quiet in India is unbelievable," Ehrlich said.
He began yelling "airport" and was pushed into a cab by a hotel employee.
Ehrlich said he feels fortunate to have escaped with his life, but that he harbours a great deal of anger toward the terrorists.
"These people are completely evil. They have no soul. They are simply there to destroy all of the things that are good," he said.
Ehrlich said he hopes Canadians will support and visit Mumbai because if they don't, the terrorists will have won.
"I think it's very important that we as Canadians understand that Mumbai is Vancouver. It is Kitchener, it is New York, it is Plano, Texas. We are all linked. The people of Mumbai need our support, they need our love," he said.
Ehrlich plans to return to Mumbai - as soon as his wife lets him out of her sight.
"I definitely will be going back at some point in the next few months. I will go and lay a wreath and give these guys a hug," he said.
Ajaz Shaik was nearing the end of his holiday and looking forward to dining with friends when one of them called with a warning: turn back.
The 40-year-old Toronto man was in Mumbai on his way to dinner Wednesday night when he first learned about the terrorist attacks that turned parts of India's financial capital into a war zone.
He was left badly shaken by scenes that he described as "terrible."
Shaik said he saw a taxi explode not far from where some terrorists were hunkered down.
"(I saw) body parts," he recalled Friday after landing at Pearson International Airport. "Small, small body parts in the cab.
"You don't see here (anything) like that. ... It's like, oh, pieces of the body, the cab blown up. That was the really scary part."
Shaik said he was relieved to return home safely: "(I'm) going to hug my family, see them," he said. "They will be glad to see me back."
Shaik was more fortunate than Montreal's Michael Rudder and Toronto yoga instructor Helen Connolly, who were both struck by bullets when gunmen stormed Mumbai's Oberoi Hotel.
Rudder was hit three times: in the arm, thigh and torso. But after undergoing surgery, he is expected to recover, said his close friend Bonnie Mak.
"The last news I heard was that he's able to move his limbs all right (and) his blood pressure's normal," Mak said Friday.
Connolly was grazed by a bullet and has been treated and released from hospital.
She and Rudder were in India on a meditation retreat with the Synchronicity Foundation, a U.S.-based spiritual organization.
Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Canada had no advance warning of the deadly attacks, and he urged Canadians in Mumbai to remain vigilant while promising government support.
Intelligence services in a number of countries, including the United States and Britain, whose citizens were reportedly targeted by the gunmen, have also said they had no warning of the attacks.
North of Toronto, roughly 100 people attended a memorial service Friday evening at a Hindu temple.
The service was open to people of all faiths.
