His clothing still on fire and suffering from burns to his face and hands, Penticton’s John Michael Cerne put his own life on the line to return to a flaming drill shack to save a co-worker.
“I was just trying to put out the fire on myself and I looked back at my partner who was in there stuck inside on the floor and was pretty much covered in a pool of burning oil,” said Cerne, recalling the terrifying early-morning hours of March 23, 2012 at a diamond mine at Thor Lake, Northwest Territories.
“Even from where I was I could see the terror in his eyes, he didn’t know what was going on or where he was and I just couldn’t let a man go … I couldn’t let a man go down, so I just pretty much went back inside and hauled him out of there.”
Once outside, Cerne, who was 29 at the time, wrestled Andrew Cormier to the ground, smothering the flames on the still-burning man with his own body on the snowy ground.
Cormier also remembers, all too clearly, the accident and trying to escape the building.
“Where I thought the door was, was the back of the shack. There was no door there, that’s how much flames there were so I just put my hands over my face and I went to the ground swirling around trying to get away from the fire,” said Cormier who lives in Owen Sound, Ont. “He (Cerne) just ran in and grabbed me and threw me out the door, I was completely on fire.”
After putting the fire out, Cerne knew they had to get to the main camp nearly two-kilometres away so he put his friend on a snowmobile with little clothing that was left and in the darkness and the frigid -35 C temperature, began the trip back. There, the pair had to wait another nearly four hours without any significant treatment before a plane could land to medevac them to hospital in Yellowknife a couple of hours later.
Cormier was taken immediately to the intensive care ward before being transferred to Toronto to undergo further treatment.
Not surprisingly, he calls Cerne his hero and still finds it difficult to express his appreciation.
“Honestly there really wasn’t any hesitation (of Cerne going back inside) he just kind of assessed and acted,” said Cormier, who is now 27. “If I had been there any longer then maybe I would not even be here or in a lot worse shape. I did suffer some injuries but I’m overcoming them and I’m retraining and moving on and it’s all because of him.”
Cerne, who was born and raised in Penticton and now lives in Naramata, was not as seriously hurt and was recovering at home in a couple of days.
In addition to his burns, he also suffered frostbite to eight fingers suffered on the sled ride to the camp.
For his courageous actions, Cerne was honoured March 6 at a special ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, Ont., receiving the Medal of Bravery from Gov. Gen. David Johnston.
Cerne, who still works as a driller in the NWT, and Cormier were part of a crew that were working in the shack when the accident took place.
“What happened was one of the hydraulic lines burst and caught on fire and it was pretty much spraying vaporized hydraulic oil all over the place and once it ignited it was like a flame thrower,” said Cerne. “I got lit from head to toe.”
The third man escaped unharmed.
About deciding to go back inside, he said: “That was just something that had to be done, a split-second decision. You can’t really tell if you’re going to, it’s not something you can tell until you’re put in that position. The important thing is at the end of the day Andrew got to go home.”
Afterwards, Cerne experienced some sleepless nights and some terrifyingly vivid dreams about explosions but now, for the most part, he is back to his old self.
Cerne decided to return to the job he enjoys but almost cost him his life.
“I pondered it for awhile about what I was going to do and I didn’t actually know if would be able to get back into a shack and see all that but I guess I’m the type of person, you fall off a horse and you get back on.”
And in hindsight, would he do it again?
“Definitely. I would definitely do it again,” Cerne said.