It should have just been another trip to Prince George, but instead, it turned into a trip they will never forget.
Blake Olesiuk and his wife Erica of Fort St. James were driving along Highway 16 on May 5 around 10 a.m. with their two young children in the back seat, when they saw vehicles stopping.
They then saw a car had gone off the road and landed in a small lake near Meier Road in the Cluculz Lake area.
The vehicle was beginning to sink, and no one was exiting the vehicle.
Olesiuk said someone called 911, but the operator told them no one should go in the water and help was on its way.
As Olesiuk ran down the steep bank to the edge of the water from the highway, he said he was already taking his dress shirt off and getting his wallet out of his pocket, preparing to go into the water if necessary.
“I think there’s something just in each of us to help someone in need,” he said.
But he hesitated long enough to discuss things with some of the other bystanders and one person supplied them with a rope, so he tied it around his waist, thinking maybe they could try and pull the car closer to shore if necessary.
At the point when he entered the water and began to swim out to the car, the elderly couple in the car were visible, still sitting in the car with the water up to their knees.
When he reached the car, Olesiuk climbed onto the hood, trying to get out of the water for the time being, but the car had not yet touched bottom, and it began to sink even faster, so he moved back into the water.
Olesiuk then helped the elderly male passenger exit through the passenger window.
But as he was helping the man, the crowd on shore began shouting the woman needed help, and he turned back to the car to see her swimming towards the passenger side window as well.
Olesiuk said he could see they “didn’t have a lot of time left before the whole car was submerged,” with about eight inches between the roof of the car and the rising water inside.
He reached in and pulled the woman through the window, grabbing her under her arms.
As soon as she was out of the car, he felt the rope grab him, and the people on the shore pulled them both, while the man held onto the car, remaining in the water.
As Olesiuk and the woman were pulled to the bank, another man waded out to meet them, helping them the final distance to safety.
When he got the woman to shore, Olesiuk said he looked back and saw the man was now up to his chest in water and he did not look like he was doing well.
So once again, Olesiuk swam out in the icy water to help him to shore, and once again, when he reached the man, the group on shore helped drag them both to safety.
“I didn’t really feel the cold while I was in the water,” he said.
By the time Olesiuk and the man were on land, Olesiuk said he “looked back at the car and it had sunk.”
A resident of the area, Cathy Robinson was on her way to work when she saw a number of vehicles pull over and the people in the vehicles getting out and running across the highway.
“I grabbed my camera, thinking it must have been something big,” said Robinson. “Not thinking accident, I’m thinking wildlife.”
When she got over to the opposite side of the highway where the people had gone, she could then see where a car had gone into the lake and Olesiuk was already in the water, trying to help the people in the vehicle.
“I really wanted to put my camera down and help,” said Robinson. But at that point, there was not much she could do, and so she took photos of the event, not even realizing the full extent of what she was witnessing at the time.
After she took a look at the photos she had in her camera was when she really realized “just how much that young man had helped those people out and how much danger they were truly in if they didn’t have help.”
Robinson said the time for the entire rescue was only a matter of minutes from the time she got there until only the roof of the car was visible in the water.
“It was an amazing thing to witness, absolutely amazing,” she said.
Robinson left the scene and continued on to work, but was in a bit of shock after witnessing the daring rescue.
“I wanted to cry – I felt relief, I felt excited, it was amazing,” she said.
Vanderhoof RCMP who responded to the scene later are commending Olesiuk and the second man who waded into the water as Olesiuk was bringing the victims to land and helped him bring them up onto the shore.
The driver, travelling from Alaska, claimed to have fallen asleep at the wheel after a long night of driving.
When people ask Olesiuk what made him do it, he just said he was only doing what had to be done.
“I could not imagine what it would be like if we were to all stand on the roadside and watch these two people sink in the car waiting for the ambulance and having to live with that for the rest of my life,” he said.
Olesiuk credits all the other people as much as himself for the rescue.
“At times like that I love how people come together, it’s so uplifting,” he said.
He mentions all the the contributors to the daring rescue, the person who gave them the rope, the man who helped them onto shore, the young boy who offered him his coat when he came out of the water, and the women who brought them blankets to warm them up.
“Everybody had a role,” he said. “If I was alone, there’s no way – I wouldn’t have been able to do it.”
