Shopper honoured for saving clerk’s life
Hero hit attacker with snow shovel
Stephen Lount doesn’t often strike people over the head with snow shovels. It’s even less often that he gets an award for doing so.
But Dec. 30, 2017, wasn’t an average day.
Lount was a customer at the Stony Plain Road London Drugs that evening when a man in the throes of a drug-induced psychosis grabbed a clerk and used her as a shield between himself and imaginary attackers.
Then, with a cord wrapped around her neck, he began to stab the employee with a pair of scissors.
So Lount hit him with a shovel. Several times.
“It’s all like in slow motion,” Lount said Friday. “If I replay it I’m still counting it. For every step I took toward him (he stabbed again).”
The first few blows from the shovel “didn’t even phase him,” he said. The blade snapped off and went flying.
“I’m thinking to myself I’m in trouble.”
Eventually, other shoppers were able to wrestle the attacker to the ground, and police arrived with weapons drawn.
Lount’s actions, along with the actions of other shoppers in the store, were honoured by the Edmonton Police Commission at a banquet dinner Friday.
Lount, Aaron Breitkreutz, Curtis Pyck and Trevor Nathan were all given police commission Citizen Awards — along with another halfdozen people whose quick thinking and selflessness helped save a life or keep a bad situation from becoming worse.
The clerk survived the harrowing ordeal, likely thanks to the men’s actions, police said.
Lount, Pyck and Nathan said it was nice to be recognized, and they would do the same thing again. While there was blood all over the store, the only person who was seriously hurt was the attacker.
Among the other honourees was Eugene DeRose, who on Feb. 17, 2016, intervened when he saw an officer on the ground beneath an assailant.
DeRose, who was coming home from work, stopped his car and hauled a big man off the Edmonton police constable, who had been dealing with a bylaw offence near Commonwealth Stadium. He had attempted to arrest the man, who charged at him throwing punches and knocked him to the ground.
DeRose didn’t think twice about his decision to help.
He later saw a video taken by bystanders of the incident. Police said other people in the immediate area seemed more concerned with filming the incident than helping.
“They were basically recording on their cellphones and not trying to help the situation, and laughing,” he said. “It just made my heart sink ... it really bothered me.”
They were basically recording on their cellphones and not trying to help the situation ... It just made my heart sink.