Two Lac La Biche teens were recently honoured with bravery awards for saving their father’s life after he was crushed by a falling tree.
On Nov. 14, Ahmed, 18, and Walied Fayad, 19, both received Canada Bravery Awards at the annual Royal Canadian Humane Society ceremony at Edmonton police headquarters. They were among more than 20 other Albertans who were recognized for acts of bravery.
Their father Tayseer “Tony” Fayad simply said: “if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be talking to you today.”
On Aug. 30, 2009, the boys – who were 16 and 17 at the time – and their father hopped in their vehicle and drove down a cut line near Heart Lake to get some firewood, something they did all the time, Ahmed said. After spending some time chopping down trees and gathering wood, they were ready to leave – but Tony decided to cut down just one more tree.
But something went horribly wrong. The 25-inch-diameter spruce twisted as it fell. The boys saw it before their father did, and yelled at him to watch out. Tony tried to run but it was too late.
“All I heard was a thunk and I was knocked down,” Tony said. “I couldn’t feel anything, my whole body was numb – I thought I was paralyzed.”
Horrified, Walied and Ahmed ran over to where their father was lying. They could see that his leg was badly broken, the foot twisted nearly backwards. When they lifted him to his feet, they realized it was much worse than that: a half-metre gash went down his side, exposing internal organs and gushing blood.
“I just remember thinking: what just happened – is this real?” Ahmed said.
But in the heat of the moment, they did all the right things. They tied off the massive wound on their father’s flank with a shirt, then picked him up – even though he weighed 300 pounds at the time – and carried him 200 yards to their vehicle.
“How they did it is beyond me,” Tony said.
The brothers had to drive out of the bush before there was enough reception to call an ambulance. Tony was in bad shape.
“We figured that if we waited for the ambulance to get to us, he would bleed to death,” Ahmed said.
They sped back towards Lac La Biche, meeting the ambulance halfway back to town. Seeing how severe his injures were, the emergency personnel called for STARS to meet them at the airport. They flew Tony into the University of Alberta Hospital, where he was in a coma for six days.
It took 360 stitches to sew up his side and a titanium rod to fix his broken femur. The doctor told him that the tree missed paralyzing him by a mere third of a millimetre. Three surgeries and 17 days later, Tony was finally released from the hospital.
However, last February the titanium rod in his leg snapped. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as the x-rays revealed an infection on his femur – one so bad he was told another week undetected would’ve meant amputation.
Today, Tony said he is feeling well and credits Wailed and Ahmed for saving his life two summers ago.
“Of course I’m proud of them – their reaction was phenomenal,” Tony said. “I don’t know if they had an adrenaline rush or what, but people get strength from somewhere.”
