Since crashing his car into a ditch during the Boxing Day blizzard, Oleg Tcherkas has been searching for the man who saved his family.
Tcherkas was driving with his wife, and 10-month-old son from Los Angeles to visit family in North Kildonan on Boxing Day. On Highway 75 near Glenlea, Tcherkas lost control of his car and crashed into a ditch.
“I was trying to find where the centre of the road is, I couldn’t see it. Then I feel on the steering wheel that it became light, and whatever I do nothing changes, then I realize, I’m going off,” said Tcherkas.
Stuck in the ditch, the family waited more than two hours with no sign of help, until Tim Klassen showed up.
“He just magically appeared, like knocking on my car. ‘Like are you a cop or a tow truck driver?’”
Klassen is a firefighter, who was on his way to work in Winnipeg. He said he saw the family in trouble, and didn’t think twice to help.
“It’s just what anyone would do here in Manitoba,” said Klassen.
He attached a tow rope to his truck in the blizzard conditions and pulled the family from the snow.
Tcherkas reached to pay Klassen, but before he could even catch his name, he was gone. Now the two are meeting face-to-face for a proper “thank you”.
“I just want to thank you again,” said Tcherkas, handing Klassen a ham and a card.
The two gathered around Klassen’s dinner table in his house near Altona, sharing stories from that crazy night.
“I was freezing,” said Klassen, laughing with the family.
“It was my Christmas miracle,” said Tcherkas.
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