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Off-duty medic highway hero
Apr 07, 2008 04:30 AM
Sarah Boesveld
Josh Wingrove
Staff Reporters
An off-duty Canadian Forces medic saved the lives of several young men after their speeding van lost control, flipped over and caught fire on Highway 401 early yesterday.
Four of the seven occupants – all in their teens and early 20s – were thrown from the van and are in serious condition in hospital. Police said none of the four ejected men was wearing a seatbelt; the three who were belted in received only minor injuries.
Investigators agree the crash could have been worse – much worse – had Patrick Chatelain not been driving by.
The 27-year-old medic, still in uniform, was heading home from a national paramedic competition in Durham Region around midnight when he saw the crash in an eastbound 401 lane near the Avenue Rd. overpass.
Chatelain saw flames erupting from the bottom of the overturned van as he pulled over, and quickly grabbed a fire extinguisher from his trunk. As flames rippled toward the gas tank, Chatelain hopped the median and extinguished the fire.
Then he checked for victims.
"I broke the windows, crawled inside to make sure no one was left inside the vehicle. Then I scanned the area just to see who was injured and where they were.
"That's when I came across four patients strewn all over the highway," he said in an interview yesterday.
One was in the middle of the express lanes, another thrown against the guardrail and two were in the grassy ditch.
Three other off-duty paramedics and an off-duty police officer also happened upon the scene and spent the five minutes before emergency crews arrived helping Chatelain deal with the seriously injured victims.
Chatelain, who was reluctant to take credit for the rescue, knew two of the paramedics, one from York Region and another from Peel, where Chatelain works full-time as an advanced paramedic.
With only plastic gloves and one stethoscope between them, the five professionals managed to keep all four of the badly injured young men alive.
One of the men in the ditch suffered severe head injuries and his airway was blocked with blood and vomit, Chatelain said.
"He was moaning, but he wasn't answering our questions," he said.
That patient and one other went to Sunnybrook hospital and underwent emergency surgery.
There was nothing unusual about the help he gave, Chatelain said.
"Helping people out, whether we're on the job, driving on the road, on vacation, it's what we do. It's who we are."
The seven men were heading home in a Pontiac Montana van belonging to one of their fathers after dinner.
OPP Const. Dave Woodford said the van was going faster than the speed limit, although alcohol was not a factor.
The van driver, who faces charges, lost control at high speed in the left express lane of Highway 401, tilted onto two wheels and veered to the right, across four express lanes of traffic. It then hit the guardrail separating express and collector lanes, throwing the four unbelted occupants out of the vehicle.
The van then flipped on its roof, slid back across the four lanes of traffic, hitting another car before coming to a stop against the far left guardrail.
On the other side of the highway a 27-year-old passerby was the first to stop when she saw a man writhing in pain, lying in the same lane as the car she was riding in.
"I saw a guy rolling around in pain on the ground," said the woman, who asked to be identified only as Asma. "There was a lot of skin and blood from his head on the road."
The 19-year-old was conscious, and Asma held him down, talking to him and keeping him alert until paramedics arrived. He told her his name was Rasheed, and that he and his friends had been out for a steak dinner in Vaughan Mills and were heading to their Thorncliffe Park area homes. He told her they hadn't been drinking, and said he was, in fact, wearing his seatbelt.
"He knew what day of the week it was, he knew where he went, he knew his name," said Asma, who has no medical training.
"We held his head down and his knees together just to make sure he wouldn't move. I was just trying to keep him awake."
The four thrown from the car were taken to hospital, two of them in critical condition.
"He is in serious condition," said a distraught Ahmed Jeebhai, father of Farhad, 16, one of the four boys thrown from the car. "No eyes open, no nothing."
Jeebhai said his son had gone out with his friends for the night, and was heading home. Farhad has a G2 licence, but wasn't driving because of restrictions on such drivers.
One of three who wore seatbelts had minor injuries, while the other two, including the driver, weren't injured. OPP withheld the names of the seven men.
Police closed the 401 lanes until 6 a.m. as they investigated and cleaned up debris.
"The van was ripped apart," Woodford said. "You could see the tire marks going right across the road."
Woodford pointed to the role seatbelts played in keeping the three young men, who wore their belts, from serious harm.
No one was injured in the car that struck the sliding, upside-down van. Police ask that any witnesses call the OPP at 416-235-4981.
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Apr 07, 2008 04:30 AM
Sarah Boesveld
Josh Wingrove
Staff Reporters
An off-duty Canadian Forces medic saved the lives of several young men after their speeding van lost control, flipped over and caught fire on Highway 401 early yesterday.
Four of the seven occupants – all in their teens and early 20s – were thrown from the van and are in serious condition in hospital. Police said none of the four ejected men was wearing a seatbelt; the three who were belted in received only minor injuries.
Investigators agree the crash could have been worse – much worse – had Patrick Chatelain not been driving by.
The 27-year-old medic, still in uniform, was heading home from a national paramedic competition in Durham Region around midnight when he saw the crash in an eastbound 401 lane near the Avenue Rd. overpass.
Chatelain saw flames erupting from the bottom of the overturned van as he pulled over, and quickly grabbed a fire extinguisher from his trunk. As flames rippled toward the gas tank, Chatelain hopped the median and extinguished the fire.
Then he checked for victims.
"I broke the windows, crawled inside to make sure no one was left inside the vehicle. Then I scanned the area just to see who was injured and where they were.
"That's when I came across four patients strewn all over the highway," he said in an interview yesterday.
One was in the middle of the express lanes, another thrown against the guardrail and two were in the grassy ditch.
Three other off-duty paramedics and an off-duty police officer also happened upon the scene and spent the five minutes before emergency crews arrived helping Chatelain deal with the seriously injured victims.
Chatelain, who was reluctant to take credit for the rescue, knew two of the paramedics, one from York Region and another from Peel, where Chatelain works full-time as an advanced paramedic.
With only plastic gloves and one stethoscope between them, the five professionals managed to keep all four of the badly injured young men alive.
One of the men in the ditch suffered severe head injuries and his airway was blocked with blood and vomit, Chatelain said.
"He was moaning, but he wasn't answering our questions," he said.
That patient and one other went to Sunnybrook hospital and underwent emergency surgery.
There was nothing unusual about the help he gave, Chatelain said.
"Helping people out, whether we're on the job, driving on the road, on vacation, it's what we do. It's who we are."
The seven men were heading home in a Pontiac Montana van belonging to one of their fathers after dinner.
OPP Const. Dave Woodford said the van was going faster than the speed limit, although alcohol was not a factor.
The van driver, who faces charges, lost control at high speed in the left express lane of Highway 401, tilted onto two wheels and veered to the right, across four express lanes of traffic. It then hit the guardrail separating express and collector lanes, throwing the four unbelted occupants out of the vehicle.
The van then flipped on its roof, slid back across the four lanes of traffic, hitting another car before coming to a stop against the far left guardrail.
On the other side of the highway a 27-year-old passerby was the first to stop when she saw a man writhing in pain, lying in the same lane as the car she was riding in.
"I saw a guy rolling around in pain on the ground," said the woman, who asked to be identified only as Asma. "There was a lot of skin and blood from his head on the road."
The 19-year-old was conscious, and Asma held him down, talking to him and keeping him alert until paramedics arrived. He told her his name was Rasheed, and that he and his friends had been out for a steak dinner in Vaughan Mills and were heading to their Thorncliffe Park area homes. He told her they hadn't been drinking, and said he was, in fact, wearing his seatbelt.
"He knew what day of the week it was, he knew where he went, he knew his name," said Asma, who has no medical training.
"We held his head down and his knees together just to make sure he wouldn't move. I was just trying to keep him awake."
The four thrown from the car were taken to hospital, two of them in critical condition.
"He is in serious condition," said a distraught Ahmed Jeebhai, father of Farhad, 16, one of the four boys thrown from the car. "No eyes open, no nothing."
Jeebhai said his son had gone out with his friends for the night, and was heading home. Farhad has a G2 licence, but wasn't driving because of restrictions on such drivers.
One of three who wore seatbelts had minor injuries, while the other two, including the driver, weren't injured. OPP withheld the names of the seven men.
Police closed the 401 lanes until 6 a.m. as they investigated and cleaned up debris.
"The van was ripped apart," Woodford said. "You could see the tire marks going right across the road."
Woodford pointed to the role seatbelts played in keeping the three young men, who wore their belts, from serious harm.
No one was injured in the car that struck the sliding, upside-down van. Police ask that any witnesses call the OPP at 416-235-4981.
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