Watch above: It was a harrowing experience for Joanne Brochu last Friday as she SUV sank while crossing the South Saskatchewan River. She speaks with Lisa Dutton about what was going through her mind and the rescue by Warman firefighters.
SASKATOON – A woman who narrowly escaped a sinking vehicle in the river last week says she wants to make sure no one else has to go through what she did.
“I want to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” said Joanne Brochu. The Colonsay woman was on an ice crossing on the South Saskatchewan River last Friday night when her SUV broke through the ice.
“I really thought the river was safe,” she told Global News, “because there were no clues to tell me it wasn’t safe to cross, that I looked for on my way to the river.”
There are warning signs up now at the Clarkboro ferry crossing near Warman, but that wasn’t the case last week. Unluckily for Brochu, a combination of warm temperatures and high water levels turned the ice crossing into a dangerous place.
“I don’t know whose responsibility it was, I think there was a miscommunication going on, one department not knowing what the other department was doing,” she said. “I do want to find out whose responsibility it was.”
It began when she was headed home to Colonsay Friday evening. She decided to take the river crossing – something people in the region do frequently. She said everything seemed fine. Then it happened – she felt the vehicle start to sink.
“My SUV immediately turned from the current,” she said. “My first thought was I’m going to head down the river, nobody will ever find me and then it stopped, because of the ice. I do remember thinking is this really happening?
“I grabbed my phone, called 911, and no service. Rolled down my window, thank goodness, my window still worked, stuck my phone out the window, still no service, at that point I knew I had to get onto the roof … plus I wanted to get to a higher point to try and get service with my cell phone.
“I stood on the window sill because the roof was icy, and I needed to hang on with one hand and talk on my phone with the other.”
That worked, and she was able to reach a dispatcher on 911. As she stood on her SUV, it didn’t seem long before she heard the sirens of the Warman Fire Department on their way.
“To hear the sound of those sirens, that was a beautiful sound,” she said. She managed to stay relatively calm.
“I was very lucky, I had a bystander on the Aberdeen side, I was able to converse with her,” said Brochu.
“I was too far away to converse with the emergency (responders) on the Warman side, so she kept me calm until the firefighters got close enough that they could converse with me. It was at that moment that my vehicle started to sink, and it was then that they told me to jump, to jump to the ice … I don’t remember the jump, I remember landing on the ice, and that was a huge feeling of relief.”
The firefighters helped her back to shore, and she was checked by paramedics, but she was fine. Her husband and daughter picked her up later that evening, and they went home to Colonsay.
“I’m doing more than fine, I’m doing great,” she said. And she has nothing but praise for the Warman Fire Department.
“They are heroes … and for them to have had the training they needed to save my life,” she said. And she’s happy to see that there are now warning signs up at the crossing.
READ MORE: Sask. Water Security Agency issues thin ice warning
“I’m very glad to see the signs, I’m very glad I walked out of this,” said Brochu.
Comments