What started as a quick trip to the grocery store turned into a heroic moment for a Simcoe County paramedic when he was off-duty earlier this year.
Geoff D’Eon says he was heading to the grocery store on January 13, hoping to get some much-needed food supplies during a snowstorm.
He says he and his wife were waiting for a break in the weather before leaving, but says that quickly changed.
“While on our way home we came across an accident on Horseshoe Valley Road, right on the side of the hill just off Country Lane. I saw there was a pickup truck with a trailer on the other side of the road,” D’Eon recalled.
The 14-year-old paramedic began approaching the scene to provide assistance and saw a police car with its lights on, but the officer was nowhere to be seen.
“As I passed the stopped vehicles, I saw the OPP officer lying in the middle of the road. So when I approached him, I identified myself as a paramedic, and he looked up at me and said, ‘buddy, I hurt myself really bad,'” D’Eon recalls.
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He says the officer told him he slipped on the ice while responding to the crash.
But D’Eon didn’t have much time to assess the situation before he saw another car sliding down the hill, hitting cars along the way.
“While assessing him, I started hearing cracking and cracking noises. He looked up and saw another vehicle sliding uncontrollably down the hill,” he recalled.
“I looked at the officer and said, you know, this is really going to hurt, but we have to get you out of the way.”
With the help of another bystander, D’Eon grabbed the officer by the shoulder and pulled him to the side of the road, out of the way of the incoming vehicle.
“I didn’t think about myself at all. “I was more concerned about the officer because I knew he was incapacitated at the time and unable to continue on his own,” he recalls.
After the rescue, D’Eon received an Ontario Medal for Paramedic Bravery from the Hon. Edith Dumont, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, and Sylvia Jones, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Health, during a ceremony earlier this week at the Royal Ontario Museum.
“The medal is awarded to paramedics who have shown great courage without concern for their personal safety, risking their lives to save others. Nominations must be made through the nominee’s paramedic service and must be approved by their chief paramedic,” said a news release from the Ontario government.
While D’Eon says he is honored to be recognized, he is confident that if it weren’t for him, another Good Samaritan would have stepped up.
“I’m trying to stay pretty humble about the whole situation. I’d like to think that even if I hadn’t been there, someone else would have done the exact same thing,” D’Eon says. “To my friends and colleagues, I really hope that this is an opportunity for paramedicine as a whole and for paramedics in general to finally get recognition for the work we do on a regular basis.”
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