Hero risks life after cliff plunge
Published: August 23, 2006
A passerby turned “hero” braved thick smoke, intense flames and a steep, wooded cliff to help a driver whose van plunged over the Scarborough Bluffs yesterday in what appears to have been a suicide attempt.
Lionel Juan, 39, spotted dense, black smoke as he rode his bike on a pathway beside the bluffs off Sunnypoint Cres. just after 11 a.m.
After calling 911 on his cellphone — and telling a neighbour to do the same — Juan climbed 30 to 45 metres down the bluff.
“I started calling out for someone. He said, ‘I’m here … I’m by the tree,’” said Juan, who found the injured man about three metres from the van. “He tried to move, he tried to help himself.”
STAYED WITH HIM
Juan couldn’t pull the man up the steep cliffs and stayed by his side until rescue officials arrived, although he was worried the fire would spark gas tanks in the van, a welder’s vehicle.
“I wouldn’t be riding my bike at this time of day. I just decided to take a break from my work. It just seemed like fate I was there,” said Juan, who had a smear of blood on his shirt as he talked to reporters. “I think anyone would have done it.”
Toronto firefighters pulled the man to safety and he was taken to St. Michael’s hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
“This guy here is a hero,” neighbour Ross Aylward, 72, said pointing to Juan. “When he was going down there, it was flames and smoke.”
Aylward, who called 911 from his home, was outside on his deck when he saw the black smoke. He heard two small explosions and one larger blast, but didn’t hear the impact of the van as it crashed through the fence.
NOT A SOUND
“There wasn’t a sound,” Aylward said, pointing to the tire tracks in the grass. “I didn’t hear anything.”
District Fire Chief Reid Page said he would recommend Juan for a citation for bravery.
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