YOU SAID IT
Eunice Steele saved a then three-year-old Jocelyn Desroches in 1971
“I could see her little tassel. So, I got down into it. It came up to the middle of my thigh. I reached in and grabbed the tassel and pulled her out and I just put her over my arm and tapped her on the back and she coughed and coughed.” Eunice Steele recalling the day she saved a then three-year-old Jocelyn Desroches from drowning in 1971
SUMMERSIDE — Forty-one years ago, a Miscouche woman pulled a three-year-old from a waterfilled ditch, saving her life.
On Saturday, July 14, the pair reunited for the first time in 37 years at a family celebration.
On April 21, 1971 Eunice Steele saved three-year-old Jocelyn Desroches from drowning in an open ditch on Wilfred Street in Miscouche.
Desroches and her sister, Mona, were on their way to their grandmother’s house, who lived close by.
A neighbour, Doug Steele who was sitting at his picture window, yelled to his wife that Jocelyn had fallen into the deep ditch that had been filled to the top from heavy rains.
Steele quickly ran out in her nightdress and bare feet, grabbed the tassel of the little girl’s hat. At that point Jocelyn’s face was underwater, pulled her up over her arm.
A couple years later the Desroches and family moved to Alberta.
“I remember my husband yelling at me the little girl ran into the ditch and she’s going to drown,” Steele recalled.
“So, I didn’t bother seeing if I had anything on. I just took out the door.
“All I could see was her little tassel in the water because the ditch was deep at that time. They had dredged it out for building up the road.”
Steele said when she arrived at the ditch the child was nearly totally underwater.
“I could see her little tassel,” she said.
“So, I got down into it. It came up to the middle of my thigh. I reached in and grabbed the tassel and pulled her out and I just put her over my arm and tapped her on the back and she coughed and coughed.
“I said well, she’s coughing now. She’ll be all right. I took her in and put her on a chair and stood her up on the chair by the stove and got a towel and dried her off.
“She was shivering and her little lips were all white. She was in shock.”
Desroches has since grown and married and owes it all to Steele. She doesn’t recall the event but knows the important role Steele has played in her life.
“I don’t remember a thing,” she said.
“I owe the Steele family a lot. They’re son also saved me too when I was even younger. I put my arm in a wringer washing machine and he came in and shut it off.”
Last year for Eunice Steele’s 75th birthday, she was awarded the Lifesaving Award from Councillor Peter Holman and Mayor Basil Stewart.