Norm and Diane Melanson know they've lived to see a miracle — or perhaps a series of miracles — and it happened last Easter Sunday.
The Chilliwack couple was coming back from church. It had been a beautiful service, and they were on their way to meet family for dinner. Norm was at the wheel as they drove over the Yale Road overpass, when he suffered a major medical emergency.
His heart rate sped up incredibly high, so his pacemaker stopped and he seemed to pass out.
Diane was texting their daughter about Easter dinner and realized that Norm, a very cautious driver, was accelerating over the overpass.
"I said 'Norm, slow down,' and I looked at him and he wasn't with me," Diane says, sitting with Norm one year later at the kitchen table in their Sardis condo. "He went to 55 to 125 in seconds. We hit the curb and then I saw where we were going."
She "turtled" to protect herself, and the vehicle hit the curb, then a pole. That sent their car about 25 feet into the air, and when they landed, they rolled three times before stopping upside down.
READ MORE: Driver still in hospital days after rollover crash in Chilliwack
It was a terrible, violent crash, but didn't involve any other vehicles. And that was perhaps the first miracle of this story.
The second miracle was that one of the men travelling behind them happened to be an off-duty firefighter.
"He said to dispatch: 'Send everybody. Now.'"
This meant the Melansons were afforded as quick a medical response as one could hope for, with five ambulances, three fire trucks and 22 paramedics.
It had been a shift change at the nearby firehall, and everyone showed up. Another miracle.
Norm's life was truly on the line, and they later learned he had died at the wheel. The firefighter could not find a pulse through the window of the crashed car, and declared him dead on the scene. But there was a valiant life-saving effort by everyone involved, with paramedics taking turns at chest compressions, several Epi-pens and three uses of an AED machine. Twenty minutes later, Norm was finally showing signs of life.
"The doctor told our daughter that if I survived, I would never walk again and to be prepared for the worst," he says. "Well, the worst didn't happen. God made sure that everyone knew He was in charge."
The Melansons were already a devout couple, and one year later it's still not lost on them that the crash happened right in front of the Chilliwack Salvation Army. Upon hearing the crash, the people inside ran out, and many of them prayed for the couple while they watched the first responders work. One of them called the couple's daughter, Robyn Marshall, who by chance had just finished training to be an EMT.
That was March 31, 2024.
This Easter, they wanted to tell their story and use it as a way to thank everyone who was there for them on the scene, and in the days and months that would follow. It's a long list, and they know they can't thank everyone. There are anonymous donors from the GoFundMe, and those would never want to be publicly acknowledged. There were former customers from when they owned Jim's Pizza, who reached out and donated to them, and their adult children's friends, and so many more.
The Melansons want to say thank you to them all. From the passerby who pulled Diane from the car and the firefighter who reacted so quickly, to those who fed and comforted them even in the last while as they continue to recover. There are the first responders out there that came to the call, and the staff and doctors at Royal Columbian, and physical therapists and counsellors who have turned the entire ordeal from a potential tragedy into a blessing of sorts. Even the ICBC adjuster they were assigned was a kindred spirit, and they're thankful for her.
They also want everyone to know what life is like today for them.
Norm came home in June 2024. He now walks so much, every day, that Diane can't even keep up. He uses a cane, and has a care aide who walks two to three kilometres a day with him, close to the Melanson's home. He is regaining skills as time goes by, including playing pool in their building's recreation area. But he cannot be left alone, even for five minutes, due to the effects of having a traumatic brain injury.
In bad weather, he walks the hallways. He will never get back the time from the crash until he woke up again at the end of May. Everything he knows about that time is what's been told to him by others.
"I having trouble right now with the idea that I'll never be able to drive a car again," he says, along with coping with the vulnerability that comes along with needing people to look after him, all the time.
He has also come to terms with the fact that he died that day, and was saved. He has one single memory from the event, and that is meeting his mother-in-law again.
"Clear as a bell," he says to Diane. "Just as clear as you sitting there."
Diane was more injured than first believed, and still is in regular physiotherapy care. With the medical shock she suffered in the crash, that day was long and arduous. So stressful, she says, that nobody realized as they watched and waited for Norm's prognosis, that she had multiple injuries. They didn't even think to go across Royal Columbian to the ER for her care, until prompted by someone else.
The day he woke up, the two prayed together. Someone snapped a photo of them, cheek to forehead, and it's a treasured moment in a sea of traumatic ones. The fact he woke up, and was still himself, was the biggest miracle of them all.
They have told their story to the congregation at their church, highlighting even more of the ways they feel God has stepped in along the way.
But more than anything, together, they care for each other as much as possible.
