The Night I Met My Guardian Angel

Last night my lady & I watched the movie “Heaven Is For Real” and aside from it being an amazing movie with a great story it brought back some memories for me from my accident in 1994 in Ottawa. In 1994 I was walking outside Bayshore Shopping Centre in Ottawa, Ontario and noticed three guys approaching me yelling threats at me from the other side of the parking lot.

The next them I knew three of them were chasing me up the side walk and suddenly they had me cornered. They came at me and I remember trying to defend myself & a big blur. The next thing they were gone and I put my hand down on the side of my leg. When I looked at my hand it was completely covered in blood as were my jeans.

I had been stabbed twice in the leg, nine times on my back & once on the side of my chest puncturing a lung. One of the knife wounds missed my heart by half of an inch.

I don’t remember much about that night but I do remember being in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and there was a guy driving, a guy working away on me and a lady that was holding my hand in the ambulance that said nothing. She just held my hand, stroking it and smiling at me.

I apparently also came very close to not making it that day and I remember feeling very comfortable despite all the pain that I was in. One thing I have never told anyone not even my parents was I remember seeing a slide show playing of every birthday I had up to that point. Three seconds of each birthday with me blowing out the candles being surround by family right up until the age of 17 which I was at the time of this incident.

I then remember seeing my two grandfathers looking at me & smiling. They both then shook their heads and I woke up in the operating room recovery.

I remember asking the nurses if the three EMS were still in the hospital so that I could say thank you but I was told there were only two people in there with me. The male EMS driver & the attendant who was keeping my vitals stable there was no lady.

Being raised by two parents who were Salvation Army officers and going to church pretty much every Sunday until I turned sixteen I have always been a very faithful person. Even though I no longer go to church every Sunday I still hold on to the beliefs I was raised with and believe that night in 1994 I had a guardian angel in the ambulance with me and there was a reason I was kept alive.

For the next 13 years I would always randomly bring Tim Hortons coffee to Firehalls and would always buy a coffee for first responders when I’d see one behind me in any line ups. Then in 2007 I had heard that they opened a Tim Hortons in Afghanistan & my “Thank A Soldier – Coffee for Our Troops” mission started.

Was this the reason I was kept alive that night in 1994? Maybe however always in the back of my mind since then I wondered if that was the reason and thinking maybe they had to be more.

This past Canada Day the reason I was kept alive became very clear to me. With the birth of my first child Chloe I have been given the greatest gift I have ever received. This to me is the reason my life was spared that night and for that I’ll be forever thankful.