Back after brush with death

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The agent Guillaume Bernier is back on the job, at the police station of the Sûreté du Québec to Maniwaki, in April 2017, less than two years after a brush with death on route 117. Suffering from a sprained neck and a severe nervous shock, his partner has also missed several months of work.

Claudia Berthiaume

Sunday, December 24, 2017 01:00

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Sunday, December 24, 2017 01:00

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A police officer has returned to patrol less than two years after having been close to death and suffered a thirty fracture during a violent collision with a semi-trailer caused by a suspect who has jumped on the steering wheel.

“I wanted to go back on patrol to prove that this guy has not had control over my life. I wasn’t going to let me remove my dream to be a police officer like that, ” proudly supports the agent Guillaume Bernier, who has gone to great lengths in order to return to work, the position of the Sûreté du Québec to Maniwaki.

After five months of hospitalization and a year of physiotherapy intensive, patrolman with eight years of experience is back on the road this year.

However, the police officer survivor of 32 years has believed that his hour had arrived, August 18, 2015, in Ottawa.

His partner Kevin Laplante and went near the camp River Hi, in the la Vérendrye wildlife reserve, to find a fugitive hiding in the woods.

This fugitive is Robert The Star, a sexagenarian accused of trying to kill his ex-spouse in the Montérégie, a year earlier.

On the eve of the crash, the man threatened a truck driver with a handgun in order that it brings in the Abitibi region.

The officers Bernier and Laplante have found Mr. The Star hid out in a log cabin, hunting, and had to take it back to the post office of Mont-Laurier, about a three hour drive, in order for there to be interrogated.

It is the agent Bernier, who took the wheel.

Hands and feet Shackled

The police handcuffed Robert of The Star in the hands, in front of him.

“If he was cuffed behind, we would have been able to break the hands with the big bumps that he had in the way “, explains the officer Bernier.

They also tied her feet with plastic fasteners of type Ty-Rap.

At the height of Grand-Remous, on route 117, the agent Bernier has exceeded a truck pulling a boat in a lane. A semi-trailer travelling in the opposite direction. It was about 21: 30.

“When I felt a presence on my right shoulder, I knew exactly what was happening,” recalls the police officer.

No partition is not separated from the suspect by police officers. Sitting on the back bench, Robert The Star has managed to unhook her seat belt. He jumped up on the steering wheel and turned to the extreme left to cause a face-to-face with the heavy weight.

Officer Bernier was pressed on the brakes while turning the steering wheel in the other direction with the energy of despair. He was able to avoid the head-on collision narrowly, but still hit the front wheel of the semi-trailer with full force. Her right heel broke under the force of the impact.

“The last thing that I’ve seen, these are the lights of the truck. And then, there was the noise of scrap metal indescribable, and it was total darkness, ” says the policeman.

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This is what remained of the Dodge Ram, the SQ after the impact with the semi-trailer at mile 242 of the route 117. The suspect, who was detached, was ejected. Sitting on the passenger side, the officer Kevin Laplante was injured less seriously. The belt of the officer Guillaume Bernier has burned his vest to be bullet-resistant, but it has without doubt saved his life. It is almost a miracle that there had been no death.

Arm in accordion

The agent has been partially ejected, but his feet remained stuck under the pedals of a police vehicle.

“My left arm was accordion-folded, the fingers of my right hand were in places where they were not supposed to be, and I felt that my feet were burning like fire “, details there.

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Plastered in the hands and legs, the agent Guillaume Bernier was always the way to smile. “When you’re in a bed with all four limbs broken, you’re very vulnerable. You do wash, it gives you to eat. Dignity takes the edge, but there was always a good in this test,” he says. He holds a sheet of paper on which he wrote: “It is not a 53 feet which will stop me”.

During this time, her partner called the emergency while keeping control of Robert The Star, who tried to flee by crawling.

“This was a total misunderstanding, I did not understand why he had done it [cause the collision],” recalls the officer Bernier.

The jaws of life were used to get it out of the carcass.

“I was so certain to die that everything that came after was good news. I said to the guy : “Don’t be surprised, it may be that I call in sick tomorrow” “, he says laughing.

The doctors have “patched up” at the hospital of Mont-Laurier, before being transferred to Saint-Jérôme to treat his multiple injuries.

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Seen in a lift that the hospital staff used for the transport of his bed to a wheelchair.

Chicané by the physio

Guillaume Bernier has taken over the steering wheel as soon as he left the hospital in January 2016 ” breaking the fear “. He then chained the stretches and workouts in the gym to regain the flexibility in his hands and his feet.

“I did start a fight by my physio because I was doing too much,” he recalls.

Last April, Robert The Star has been found guilty of having attempted to kill two police officers.

“By his gesture, he wanted to kill himself, and bring the police with him,” said judge Gaston Paul Langevin, at the end of the trial.

“It is, of course, I glue a little over the white line before, but I continue to do good helping people, and that is rewarding “, concludes the officer Bernier.

Serious injury

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• The agent Guillaume Bernier suffered a thirty fractures, arms, hands, and feet. Its members have been rebuilt with nails and pins.
• Her right heel broke.
• His face was cut by glass and metal of the carcass.
• He spent a little over 30 hours on the operating table.
• He was hospitalized for five months and has been a year of physiotherapy.

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