Mountie saves girl from overturned car in B.C.

An off-duty RCMP officer was in the right place at the right time Wednesday to save a two-year-old girl trapped in an overturned car in a Tsawwassen, B.C., ditch.

A Whalley woman identified as Alyse was driving on Highway 17 about 7 a.m. Wednesday when she swerved to avoid some ducks crossing the road and lost control of her vehicle, said RCMP spokesman Sgt. Peter Thiessen. The car ended upside down in the ditch.

The 25-year-old woman was able to get out of the vehicle along with her eight-year-old son, Jordan, but she couldn’t pull out her two-yearold daughter, Haylee.

“The car was filling with water,” Thiessen said. The woman’s son got out of the ditch and went to the shoulder of the road.

“A passing-by, off-duty officer with his wife sees the eight-yearold and wonders what’s going on,” said Thiessen.

Const. Aaron Jabs turned his vehicle around and Jordan directed the officer to the overturned vehicle in the ditch, Thiessen explained. Jabs went into the ditch and, using his cellphone as a flashlight, spotted the little girl hanging upside down in her car seat.

He got the child out of the car, called 911 and, eventually, the family was taken to hospital.

“She finds out after she gets out of hospital that it was an off-duty officer and she wants to thank him,” Thiessen said.

Jabs said he was just doing his job. “I did what any off-duty RCMP officer would do in the same situation,” he said.