Who Didn't
Goulds Pumps Canada employee rolls up his pants to help save crash victim.
Good Samaritans who think they could have done better are the best kind. Three months ago Tony Lileikis helped rescue a young mother trapped in an overturned car in an icy creek. Yet the manufacturing engineer for Goulds Pumps Canada is still beating himself up over not having his pocketknife on him that day.
"I could have used the knife to cut her seat belt so we could get her out of the car more easily," says Lileikis.
Lileikis was on his way to work at the Goulds Pumps sales office in Cambridge, Ontario. He was driving behind Sarah Meiszinger when her SUV hit a patch of black ice, flipped over a guardrail and rolled down a steep hill, landing upside down in ice-cold water.
Rushing down the hill, Lileikis feared the worst. "When I saw the car in the creek I was worried she might have died or be unconscious with her head under water."
Wading into the knee-deep water, Lileikis called to Meiszinger and was relieved when she answered in a faint voice that she was all right. She was hanging upside down in her seatbelt with her body turned and head above water.
He and two female college students who also stopped to help worked as a team. They called police and emergency workers, cleared branches blocking the SUV and encouraged Meiszinger to wriggle out of her seatbelt so they could guide her out the window.
After helping her up the hill, they removed some of her wet clothing and wrapped her in a coat and blankets while waiting for the rescue crew to arrive.
Thanks to their efforts, Meiszinger escaped from the crash with only minor injuries to the neck and ribs and some cuts and bruises.
Lileikis doesn't think what he did was "any big deal."
But Meiszinger does. "I'm so grateful to them (the rescuers)," she told the local newspaper. "I couldn't have gotten out without them there to help and reassure me. Having someone there saying it will be okay, help is on the way, made it so much better."
The Ontario Provincial Police think it's a big deal, too. They've put Lileikis and the two students in for a lifesaving award from the Governor General's office.
And it was back-pats all around from his colleagues when Lileikis arrived at work following the incident - after some good-natured razzing when he walked in with no socks and his wet pants rolled up to his knees.
The next day, just in case lighting strikes twice, co-workers presented the 15-year Goulds veteran and self-effacing hero with the perfect gift - a Goulds pocketknife.
A young mother commuting to work was fortunate Tony Lileikis was behind her to aid in her rescue after a serious accident.