Hockey players have a reputation for being mean and aggressive, ready to start a fight at the slightest provocation. But one woman’s experience was the exact opposite when a hockey team crashed into her overturned car on a cold January evening, reports CTV News.
June Johnson was driving home from Maine to Quebec City when she suddenly lost control and ended up upside down in a ditch. Imagine her surprise when, less than a minute later, four hockey players were at her side, pulling her out of the car and making sure she was okay. It may sound like the beginning of a joke about Canadian stereotypes, but The Saint-Hyacinthe Battaliona team in the North American Hockey League, happened to be driving by at the moment Johnson lost control of her car, and saw the whole thing. As told to CTV News:
“As soon as I could, I ran to the car,” recalled Samuel Loiselle, a newly traded defenseman to the team. “I opened the door. It was quite heavy because the car was upside down, so gravity was against me.”
He says when he pried the door open, he heard the woman screaming.
“I said to her, ‘Are you okay? Do you think you have any injuries?'” he said. “She said to me, ‘No, I just want to get out as quickly as possible.’ I was like, ‘Okay, your head doesn’t hurt? Your neck?’ She says, ‘No, please take me out.'”
The players say they helped the woman out of her car and waited with her until the ambulance arrived.
A positive experience
“I’ve been working on healing and getting better, and the irony of this experience is that they got me out so quickly, and then they had my back,” she said.
In the chaos, Johnson says she didn’t get a chance to thank the men who saved her — or find out their names.
“They couldn’t have been nicer and did everything they could to help me,” she said through tears. “It has restored my faith in humanity. We are here to help each other and be there when someone is in need.”
Johnson was born in California but now lives in Quebec City, and wore a maple leaf sweater for her CTV News interview. Needless to say, she is now a hockey fan, especially of Les Bataillon Saint-Hyacinthe. Normally I would end this with a witty comment about Canada, but I can’t think of anything more witty or Canadian than what actually happened.
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