Miranda BrumwellThe weather was beautiful, so Joanne Beckett and her family travelled to Elora Gorge located near Guelph, Ontario to enjoy the weather. As Beckett helped her daughter down the steep concrete staircase, she heard her son Zac cry out.
“I heard him scream ‘Mom, my head!’ I will never forget that scream as long as I live. He was only a couple of feet ahead of me,” Beckett wrote in a Facebook post. “It only took a second. I turned to see him crawling towards me, his scalp split down the center.”
Without hesitation, Beckett picked her son up and carried him back up the concrete staircase. As they made their way up the stairs, a gentleman called 911 while Beckett’s boyfriend cared for her daughter who was visibly scared. At the top of the stairs, a Canadian Armed Forces medic was ready with his First Aid Kit in hand.
“Oh, my goodness, the relief! I had brought Zac up the stairs…getting him up the stairs was quite the feat. (The medic) was just there. He looked at (Zac’s) head, pulling out the compression bandage right away. It was just amazing. Relief just swept right over me,” said Beckett.
Usually, Beckett said she’s pretty good at handling situations, even when it comes to blood, but when Zac was hurt, fear set in.
“I just thought what am I going to do? How am I going to stop this bleeding?” she added. “(The medic) took complete control of the situation and he just remained so calm, and because he was so calm, we were so calm. There was nobody hysterical.”
After he finished wrapping Zac’s head, the medic stayed with Beckett and her family until the ambulance arrived, talking to and reassuring the family.
“When the ambulance arrived, the paramedic marvelled over the amazing job the medic had done. We were on our way in the ambulance before I even got a chance to ask the medic his name. The paramedic and doctors at the hospital said he quite possibly saved Zak’s life,” Beckett continued in her Facebook post.
In an effort to find the selfless medic who saved her son’s life, Beckett took to social media and wrote about his random act of kindness. Through the sharing powers of Facebook, the medic reached out to Beckett, and she was able to thank him for his selfless deed. The medic wishes to remain anonymous.
“I just wanted to find him to let him know how much our family is so thankful to him and that Zac’s okay and for him to know that,” said Beckett. “I’m just so thankful he was there at that time. Someone put him there at that time. It’s hard to describe. You know? What were the chances of him being there at that time? Being a medic and having that kit. It was just amazing.”
Zac was rushed to Groves Memorial Hospital in Fergus, ON, and required 25 staples to close the 24 cm wound. Beckett said Zac has been doing well and doesn’t seem to be in too much pain since the incident.
“He’s a little shy right now and doesn’t like to talk about it, but I’m sure one day he’ll like to read about it,” she added.
