Serendipity

"It was close. Very, very close. It was one of those decisions where we kind of put ourselves at risk in the environment, but I really didn't have a choice."
Dan Regnier, Long Sault volunteer firefighter

It was a lucky day for a 12-year-old boy travelling in the back seat of his father's vehicle, Friday night on the Queensway in Ottawa. In a sense, fortuitous even while it was a violent accident that brought him to that point where his life hung on a thread and a complete stranger, without thinking twice about the danger he was placing himself in, hurried to his rescue.

Yasser Alshnaif was driving along the highway at 9:30 p.m., coming from a ceremony held for students from Saudi Arabia. Mr. Alshnaif was garbed in a traditional white floor-length garment. He wasn't wearing a jacket, and it is extremely cold in Ottawa, nothing like what Saudi Arabia experiences during their winter months.  As the car Mr. Alshunaif and a friend were travelling in came abreast of a crash near an off-ramp, they took note.

The scene they witnessed was that of two vehicles after a crash. One car was hit by another vehicle. And within one was a father and three children. As Mr. Alshnaif exited his car, he heard a voice in the darkness, warning him to remove himself from the near proximity of the burning car. "I was shocked. How do you want me to run away when a child was stuck there?"

This was the twelve year-old boy whom Dan Regnier and a friend hadn't been able to get to, though they had rescued the boy's father and two siblings, all of whom were in a semi-conscious state. "It seemed like forever, but it was not that long", Mr. Regnier said, of their concern for the boy still trapped within the burning vehicle.

"It was literally two to three seconds and we would have watched the kid burn. It would have been a tragedy." But it was not after all, because Mr. Alshunaif and his friend pried open the back door of the vehicle where the boy was trapped and freed him from impending death. "His leg was stuck with the seatbealt", explained Mr. Alshunaif. "He said, 'Please help me. Pull me!  Pull me!"  And they did.

Mr. Regnier, on his way home when he came across the burning car pulled over, ran across the highway and went into action. He smashed a window with his boot and released the front seat of the car, pulling its occupants to safety; the man, is daughter and a second child all hauled out from the driver's door, with the help of a few others who had stopped.

The driver of the second vehicle experienced a few bruises. And soon after police and firefighters arrived and took charge of matters. The burning car in which the family of four was trapped exploded soon after the extraction of the father and three children. "Saving those people was a great feeling. Probably the most rewarding moment of my life", said Mr. Regnier.