北阿尔伯塔卡车司机为避免撞车，将车扭进了地沟，被赞为英雄
原始发布日期： 2016-12-15 发布者：虫子字变大 字变小
Ice road trucker praised as hero for saving family from crash on Alberta highway'At any moment in our lives, we may be given a front row seat to a miracle ... this was one of those moments'
John Cleary swerved his now-totalled semi-trailer into a guardrail in northern Alberta Friday afternoon to avoid crashing with a car carrying five people. 'I (courtesy John Cleary) When Marion Timmons looks at the twisted wreckage of her grandson's transport tuck, she sees evidence of the divine. Her grandson, John Cleary, a Yellowknife ice road trucker, risked his own life Friday, when he swerved his semi-trailer into a guardrail near Red Earth Creek, in northern Alberta to avoid a head-on collision with a family of strangers. If he hadn't swerved into the ditch, his rig — more than 32,000 pounds of steel and rubber — would have obliterated the oncoming vehicle, which was carrying a family of five. 
Cleary with his daughter Harlow. (courtesy John Cleary) "I was just thinking, at any moment in our lives, we may be given a front row seat to a miracle," Timmons said Thursday. "This was one of those moments." Cleary, 26, has been travelling the ice roads which lead to the N.W.T.'s diamond mines for two years. When the crash happened he was transporting a load from the Ekati diamond mine to Edmonton. Four hours short of his destination, the roads were coated in a sheet of black ice. As he approached a bridge, he spotted an approaching pickup truck fishtailing dangerously across the narrow crossing. It then lost control. Cleary has said he knew instantly that they were on a collision course, and that seconds later his massive tractor trailer would crush the pickup truck. And so he took his chances with the guardrail "He just made a split-second decision that if it was a head-on crash it was certainly going to be very traumatic," Timmons said during an interview with CBC Radio's Edmonton AM. "He made the decision to ditch his own vehicle to try and save the people in the other vehicles. He just thought if there was a head-on impact it was going to be disastrous." Members of the family of five — three adults and two infants — were unharmed. Cleary suffered fractures to his face and bones around the eye after a piece of the pickup's trailer smashed through his windshield. He underwent reconstructive surgery at the University of Alberta hospital Monday. He's since been released from care and is now travelling back to Yellowknife with his father. After the crash, Cleary said he was acting on instinct. A glimpse of the photographs of his young daughter, Harlow, carefully pinned to his cab's ceiling, made him fear for the family he might leave behind. 2 months before return to workIt will be at least two months before he is well enough to return to work, Timmons said.Since CBC first reported the story, Timmons said prayers and offers of support have flooded in from across the country. An Edmonton company even offered to fly Timmons and Cleary's mother to Edmonton to be at his bedside. For Timmons, it's reaffirmation of the overwhelming altruism that can exist, even between strangers. "There are so many people to thank, All the people that brought this to a happy conclusion," she said. "This truly was a Christmas miracle. Five lives were saved through the heroic efforts of my grandson, who put his own life at risk to save the lives of others. "He certainly is my hero." With files from Guy Quenneville |