A Langley woman who suffered a massive heart attack while driving last month has been reunited with the two men who saved her life.
Forty-four-year-old Jana Mitchell was traveling down Highway 1 in Coquitlam July 21 when her heart stopped.
Seeing her slumped at the wheel, two other drivers intervened.
Courtney Smith used his own vehicle to bring her car to a halt and Ron MacLeod performed CPR to restart her heart.
Mitchell, a single mother of three, met the two men for the first time just over a month later.
As a CTV News camera recorded the moment, she threw her arms around both men when they arrived at her front door.
“You guys are unbelievable,” an emotional Mitchell said.
“I’m speechless.”
Smith was driving down Highway 1 when he saw Mitchell’s car swerve at 80 km/h as she sat unconscious behind the wheel.
He used his van to box her in and bring her car to a halt before she crashed into a concrete barrier.
MacLeod helped Smith pull the unconscious woman from her car and gave her CPR until paramedics arrived.
Mitchell still can’t remember anything about the heart attack.
A few weeks after her first cardiac arrest, she suffered a second one, and learned she suffers from a rare heart condition.
Titanium stents are now keeping her alive.
“It’s a really unbelievable feeling knowing there is someone connected to me like that in my life,” Mitchell said.
“I think I’ll always be connected with those two gentlemen.”
MacLeod, an Agricultural Land Commission investigator, and Smith. a salesman, don’t see themselves as heroes.
“Just being a good person, that’s how I want to be known,” Smith said. “Being a hero is not part of that.”
“I think I did something that I hope most people would do, which is help somebody else,” MacLeod said.
The three said they plan to stay in touch, while Mitchell’s doctors work to prevent another heart attack.
Video of the reunion can be viewed at http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/
– with files from CTV News
