The Atlin, B.C. man who
spent two weeks in hospital after a head-on collision near Marsh Lake wants to
extend his thanks to those who freed him from his pickup truck and kept him
warm. For three hours on Feb. 1, Lance Fuller sat trapped in the front seat of
his white Dodge Ram after a motorist from Alaska lost control of his vehicle and
plowed into Fuller’s truck along the Alaska Highway near the turnoff into the
Marsh Lake dump.Neither Fuller’s son, Shane, nor the southbound man from Alaska was injured. But it took rescuers three hours to free the senior Fuller. Both his feet were pinned in the twisted wreckage, and the emergency brake handle had embedded itself in his thigh.
“I would just like to thank all the people of the rescue team and staff that helped me out,” Fuller said in an interview from Whitehorse General Hospital on Monday, the day before his scheduled release. “And basically, the woman that basically saved my life, as far as I am concerned.” Fuller said from the very beginning to the end of the rescue operation, the woman, whose name he doesn’t know (ambulance attendant Nicki Wynnyk), cuddled with him to keep him protected from the blowing wind and frigid temperatures. “I mean, if it had not been for that woman and the rest of the people, I probably would not have made it.... We are quite fortunate we have people up here that are like that.” Fuller said he suffered shattered heels, one of which required two pins to repair. He should be able to put pressure on the less severely-injured heel in about six weeks, and another six weeks after that, pressure on the other one, said the contractor.
Whitehorse surgeon David Storey performed the surgery, Fuller pointed out.
Storey is no stranger to Fuller’s feet, he added. He recalled an incident when he froze his feet a few years back after falling through the ice on Atlin Lake and having to walk 25 kilometres back to the community.