An RCMP officer is being hailed as a hero after he stopped an out-of-control car in the parking lot of an emergency room in Lower Sackville, N.S.
Four people were hurt - two of them seriously - but police say it could have been much worse.
Officers were called to the parking lot of the Cobequid Community Health Centre shortly after 8 a.m. Friday.
“Usually when you get a call you have a little more time to prepare for what you might see,” says RCMP Const. Jason Gabriel.
“As soon as I got out of my vehicle I looked back and I could see the young girl pinned between two vehicles.”
A car had careened out of control, struck several vehicles and then hit an 11-year-old girl as she was getting out of a vehicle, pinning her between the two cars.
Police say a 55-year-old man was having a medical emergency when he struck several parked cars and was heading for the glass windows of the waiting room in the emergency department.
“I don’t know how fast he was moving, but yeah. He was still moving at the time.”
Gabriel, who was on scene but responding to another call at the time, took matters into his own hands and jumped in front of the man’s car.
“Luckily he had his driver-side window open. I was able to grab the steering wheel at that point and I steered him into a barricade pole.”
ER physician Dr. Wendy Drake says she saw Gabriel running on the security camera.
“Immediately followed by one of my nurses, claiming we had casualties in our parking lot and we needed help,” says Drake.
Drake and her team treated the driver while Gabriel, another Mountie and some firefighters attended to the little girl, lifting away a Honda Civic to free her.
She was rushed inside the hospital where she was treated for a broken femur.
The girl and driver are expected to recover. Two other people in the same car sustained minor injuries.
Gabriel has been a Mountie for four years and is the father of two children. Medical staff and Gabriel’s fellow officers are calling his actions heroic, but he doesn’t see it that way.
“No, I just happened to be here at the time. That’s all,” he says. “You never like anyone to get hurt, especially a child.”
But Drake says the incident could have turned tragic if Gabriel hadn’t jumped into action.
“Had he not taken action to avert further damage, it could have been much, much worse,” she says. “This could have ended horribly tragic.”
Drake also has high praise for the nurses and medical staff who responded.
“Everybody remained totally cool under pressure and they did a great job.”
With files from CTV Atlantic's Jayson Baxter
