Buried alive

Chance decision leads to remarkable rescue

Mark Andrewski hadn’t seen a customer all day long. Yet another blizzard was blowing off Lake Ontario filling in north/south roads creating whiteout conditions across the County. Just another Saturday in the County in January in 2014.

It was becoming apparent to Mark, who runs the retail store at Hinterland Winery that his trek from Wellington to the Closson Road winery had been for naught.

Snow had been blowing horizontally since he arrived at the winery. The drive from Wellington, earlier in the day, had been an adventure unto its own, particularly on Benway— a north-south connecting road between Closson and Danforth roads. Metre-high drifts had threatened to block his passage or yank him irretrievably into cardeep banks.

And while he had made it to the store, the blizzard was showing no sign of letting up. Mark decided to close the store, go home and hunker down like everyone else, and wait out the blizzard engulfing the County yet again.

He had already made up his mind he would take the safer route, out Closson Road to the Loyalist Parkway, where he expected plows were most likely to have passed. But as he left the yard at Hinterland, he made the fateful decision to turn left. He would take his chances on Benway.

He had no way of knowing the significance of this choice.

But just then, it seemed a foolish decision. His car bogged down almost immediately. Snow had filled in the roadway—drifts threatened to swallow his car. The monochrome landscape robbed him of his bearings. He could no longer see where he was going, or even if he was still on the roadway.

He put his car in reverse to extricate himself from this error. It was then he spotted something a few hundred metres further down the road. In the brief breaks between snow-laden wind gusts, he could just make out a dark shape in the distance. He stared and squinted at the object. An animal, a bag of fallen garbage or a fence post? From that distance and the sheer uniform whiteness of the landscape, he couldn’t be certain if the object was even on the roadway—but he feared it might be.

He couldn’t ignore it. Leaving his car, Mark approached the dark shape. Wading through knee- and at times waist-high snow, he asked himself several times what he thought he was doing. Moving closer gave him only marginally improved clarity. It was definitely something. Whatever it was, it was, indeed, in the middle of the road.

Just steps away, Mark recognized the dark colour as the fabric of a winter coat. It occurred to him that it might have been left there or dropped from a passing vehicle. Only when he bent down to pick up the jacket did he realize that someone was wearing it. A man was almost entirely buried in the snowdrift.

Mark jumped back, unsure if the man was alive or dead. His mind racing, he realized he had to act fast. Using his hands he cleared away the snow around the man. He was still alive, but in rough shape—barely conscious and unable to move.

Mac Mackenzie lives a quiet life in an old converted schoolhouse halfway up Benway where Trumpour Road forms a t-junction. At some point earlier on this Saturday, Mackenzie was returning home. He turned up Benway from Danforth Road. There was way too much snow. His car soon become stuck in the drifts blowing across the crossroad.

Mackenzie decided, despite a problem hip, to walk the remaining distance home. This proved to be a mistake. He’d travelled through the blowing snow and cold just a few dozen metres when he fell. He couldn’t get back to his feet.

Very soon the snowdrifts gathered around him.

When Mark came upon him, Mac was dazed and couldn’t move on his own. Mark ran back to his car, gathered a blanket and an extra coat. He wrapped the snow-encased man tightly then went off in search of help. He found Judy Benway at home—just beyond the winery. She called 911 and other neighbours. Mark returned to Mackenzie, still on the roadway. By this time, Benway’s neighbours were on the scene, arriving by ATV

Together they worked to keep Mackenzie warm and conscious

Soon, County firefighters were on site. Then the snowplow. Andrewkski figures no one was more relieved than the plow operator to learn that Mark had come across Mackenzie first.

An ambulance soon had Mackenzie aboard and headed toward hospital.

Mackenzie was held overnight and released the next day.

“I’ve got some great neighbours,” said Mackenzie a few days after his adventure. “I would like to say thank you to them.”

Days later, Andrewski was still haunted by questions rolling restlessly through his consciousness—each beginning with: what if. After all, it was an improbable set of circumstances that led him to his stranded neighbour on that blustery Saturday afternoon.

What if he hadn’t attempted to navigate Benway? He had already decided to take the highway. What if he had made it farther along? What if he hadn’t been able to stop in time? And, with all the blowing snow—what if he hadn’t spotted the patch of coat a hundred metres down the road? What if the plow had come along before he had?

Andrewski is coming to terms with the possibility he many never know the answers to these questions. And that’s okay.

Mark Andrewski on Benway Road.