A West Vancouver firefighter who was the first person on the scene of a horrific crash on the Coquihalla Highway earlier this month says he doesn’t often get to connect with the families of people he has helped save.
“In my profession, we don’t always get to hear the outcomes of certain accidents or incidents. It was really nice to hear from his family and how thankful they are,” said Bryden Luscombe.
“It’s definitely good for my mental health as well to hear the positive impact it had on everyone.”
Luscombe sent an email after Castanet about how Kyle Gagne and his loved ones were looking for those who jumped in to help save his life on July 10. Gagne and his partner Anna, were involved in a multi-vehicle collision that left Kyle pinned under the front end of a semi.
The West Vancouver firefighter was driving home from his parent’s cabin on Kalamalka Lake when they came across traffic congestion in the construction zone near the Great Bear Snowshed.
“We all kind of had to slow down pretty abruptly and I saw this semi truck struck Kyle and Anna’s car. It looked pretty severe enough for me to pull over,” said Luscombe.
He ran to assist and helped Anna out of the car. Then, using a hammer given to him by a dump truck driver, he was able to remove the windshield and start talking to Kyle, who was in shock and severe pain, with his legs crushed by the weight of the semi’s tire.
That’s when two other people, who Kyle’s father lists among his son’s “angels of mercy," stepped in. One was a trauma nurse and the other was a man named ‘Terry.’ He had considerable emergency life support training and was carrying medical supplies in his vehicle.
Terry and the nurse hooked the injured man up to an IV to give him pain medication, while Bryden and another firefighter from the Kelowna area gathered fire extinguishers and did their best to clean up fuel that had spilled from the truck.
That second firefighter said it was one of the worst collision scenes he’d ever come across. He was quite anxious to find out what happened to Kyle.
“I basically spent the next day and a half trying to figure it out. There was lots of rumours, but then it was really good to see he actually survived," the other firefighter told Castanet.
In fact, Gagne is expected to make a full recovery, although he has a long road ahead. “While Kyle is still on rotating dialysis and understandably still feeling pretty low, he is making good progress and is out of the ICU,” said Lyle Gagne.
He managed to find the man named ‘Terry’ who took charge at the scene. Kyle and the family hope to meet up with the Kamloops resident sometime in August.
