A 44-year-old mother of three who was involved in a crash and daring rescue last Thursday on Highway 1 in Coquitlam has now had her condition upgraded from critical to serious.
The Langley woman is alive thanks to the quick actions of four Good Samaritans after she suffered a major heart attack while driving in rush-hour traffic.
Shortly before 9 a.m. July 21, the woman was driving west near the Brunette Avenue exit when she apparently lost consciousness. Her Volkswagen Golf slammed into a concrete barrier and kept going.
Witnessing the crash, Laser Valley Technologies sales rep. Courtney Smith, said he first thought it was a case of road rage.
"I saw this black VW out of control, go across a couple lanes into the HOV lane and almost hitting a Ferrari," he told The Tri-City News the next day. "A couple of cars boxed her in and I thought they were just trying to calm the person down.
"But by the time I drove by, I realized that the lady was unconscious and slumped over into her passenger seat while we were going around 80 km an hour."
Harvey Sashi, a 22-year-old BCIT student, was one of those drivers trying to pin the erratic vehicle against the centre median from the side while Ron Macleod, an enforcement officer with the provincial agricultural land commission, got behind the Volkswagen and activated his emergency lights.
"So I drove up in front of her," Smith said, "and slowed down until she touched my bumper but I realized her car was too heavy. So I drove up further and stopped, and when she hit me, I let go of my brakes so it bumped me forward and that pushed her into the meridian and stopped her."
In a press release Friday, RCMP "E" Division spokesperson Cpl. Annie Linteau called Smith's actions, putting himself and his Kia Sedona minivan between the VW and other motorists, "an amazing display of bravery, skilful driving and quick thinking."
Smith, MacLeod, Sashi and his passenger and fellow student Ibsan Islam, all jumped out of their vehicles and tried to open the woman's car doors.
"She was completely unresponsive but her eyes were wide open," Sashi said.
Smith grabbed a tire iron from his van and smashed the rear passenger window because the driver's side was pinned against the concrete median, he said.
MacLeod reached in and checked the woman for vital signs through the broken window. She was not breathing and had no pulse.
The men unlocked the front passenger door and pulled the woman out, laying her in front of her car.
"Mr. MacLeod began performing CPR right there in the HOV lane, with little regard for his own safety," Cpl. Linteau said. "An RCMP traffic officer arrived two minutes later and assisted Mr. MacLeod in giving compressions to the woman, and called for emergency health services."
Smith said MacLeod and the Mountie were able to resuscitate the woman but she quickly stopped breathing again. By this time, paramedics arrived and rushed the woman to hospital.
"It was crazy. You never expect something like this at 8:30 in the morning," Sashi said.
Doctors at the hospital determined the 44-year-old woman had suffered a massive heart attack while driving.
Cpl. Linteau said the RCMP are thankful for the quick-thinking and selfless actions of the four men who stopped to help.
"They not only helped save this woman's life, it's very likely they also prevented other serious injuries or worse, as this all occurred on the busiest highway in the region, during rush hour," she said.
