The two ambulance attendants transporting a newborn baby through the season’s worst snowstorm had no idea how their lives were about to connect with a City of Edmonton Fleet Services foreman who was running his ‘daily after-work mile’ at the gym.
The snow was falling so fast that ice built up at the bottom of the windshield, preventing the ambulance’s wiper blade from traveling all the way to the bottom.
Suddenly, the driver’s side wiper blade broke against the ice, and the passenger-side blade was close to useless. The paramedics called their Alberta Health Services dispatcher for help.
Their AHS supervisor immediately called the City’s Fleet Services’ ambulance repair facility foreman Terry Wowk, who always keeps his mobile phone on after work.
“I’ve been repairing or supervising the repair of ambulances for 25 years,” Terry says, “so I consider it my duty to be on duty even if I’m off duty,” he laughs.
The supervisor told Terry that the ambulance was taking the baby from the Royal Alexandra Hospital to the Misericordia Hospital’s neo-natal intensive care unit, but that the unit was stranded at the Kingsway Mall because the driver couldn’t see. The whole city roadway system was clogged by the storm, and other ambulances in the area were committed.
Terry told the supervisor the repair shop was closed. The supervisor said he’d drive to the north-of-downtown shop from the south side, and asked if Terry could be there to open it and give him wiper blades to take to the ambulance.
Terry realized it would be much faster to do it himself.
“I was at Commonwealth Rec Centre. Traffic on 107 Avenue was all eastbound, so it would be a quick trip to the shop. I know every inch of the way from the shop to Kingsway Mall, so once I got the wipers, I used alleys and back street to dodge the traffic jams,” he says.
Total elapsed time from running track to the ambulance, wipers in hand, was about 20 minutes.
Needless to say, the paramedics were pleased to see him.
Terry says the Fleet Services ambulance repair mechanics think of paramedics as their friends.
“We’re like family. It’s like the relationship between a racehorse trainer and the jockey – they depend on us to keep them mobile and reliable, and we do our very best to keep them that way,” he says.
