SahasiTruck driver Vijaydeep Sahasi has been named the latest Truckload Carriers Association Highway Angel after he performed CPR on a woman on the side of the road who had gone into cardiac arrest.
Sahasi, a driver for the Canadian-based Bison Transport, was driving down Highway 5 in Merritt, British Columbia, on Aug. 22 when an older man near a car parked on the side of the road tried to flag him down.
Sahasi stopped, and the man told him he thought his wife was having a heart attack. Sahasi called 911 and ran to the car, where the woman was still strapped in her seatbelt in the front seat of the car, seemingly unresponsive.
The 911 operator talked Sahasi through removing the woman from the car, laying her down and then performing CPR.
It took first responders 30 minutes to arrive, but Sahsi never stopped making compressions, even though the woman repeatedly started and stopped breathing.
Once responders arrived, they took over and loaded her into an ambulance.
The next day, the husband called Sahasi to say the woman had survived and was doing well. He said a doctor had told him she was lucky to be alive, as it happened in the middle of nowhere.
“It made me feel so good that the doctor said I did [the CPR] perfectly,” Sahasi said. “If done too lightly, the heart wouldn’t have started functioning. If done too hard, her ribs might have been fractured. Neither happened, and it is really, really rewarding to know she survived. I never expected this [truck-driving job] would take me somewhere like this.”
TCA has presented Sahasi with a certificate, patch, lapel pin and truck decal.
