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 quite the opposite when a hockey team descended upon her overturned car one cold January night, reports CTV News.
June Johnson was driving home to Quebec City from Maine when she suddenly lost control and found herself 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 Les Bataillon Saint-Hyacinthe, a team in the North American Hockey League, just 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,” recalls Samuel Loiselle, a newly-traded defenceman with the team. “I opened the door. It was kind of heavy because the car was upside down, so gravity was against me.”
He says as he pried the door open, he could hear the woman screaming.
“I told her, ‘Are you OK? Do you have any injuries, you think?'” he said. “She told me, ‘No, I just want to get out as fast as I can.’ I was like, ‘Alright, your head doesn’t hurt? Your neck?’ She says, ‘No, please get me out.'”
The players say they helped the woman out of her car and waited with her until paramedics arrived.
A positive experience
Johnson was not injured in the crash. In a later interview with CTV News, she revealed that she suffers from complex PTSD as a result of “considerable, long-term trauma.” Car crashes can cause their own kind of mental trauma, but Johnson credits the hockey players’ actions with not only avoiding further trauma, but also with making this a positive experience.
“I’ve been working on the healing process and getting better, and the irony of this experience is that they pulled me out so quickly, and then they stood by me,” she said.
In the chaos, Johnson says she didn’t get a chance to thank the men who saved her — or get their names.
“They could not have been kinder and did everything they could to help me,” she said, tearing up. “It did restore my faith in humanity. We are here to help each other and be there when someone’s 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, particularly of Les Bataillon Saint-Hyacinthe. Normally, I’d end this with some witty comment about Canada, but I can’t think of anything more witty or Canadian than what actually happened.
