A former North Vancouver resident and constable with the Langley RCMP received a Medal of Bravery in Ottawa earlier this month, after a heroic move that likely saved the life of a teenage girl four years ago.
Const. Jim Moir, who was working with the Fraser Valley Traffic Services at the time, was responding to a vehicle run off the road due to winter conditions near Yale, when the incident occurred in February 2011.
While speaking with the 15-year-old girl, whose family’s vehicle had skidded off the road, Moir noticed a truck had suddenly lost control and was skidding towards where he and the teenager stood.
Acting quickly, the constable pushed the girl out of the path of the vehicle before being struck by the truck himself and pinned between the two vehicles. It’s an event Moir has difficulty remembering.
“I don’t physically remember pushing her,” Moir told the North Shore News last week.
Bystanders at the scene freed Moir, whose lower knee was extensively injured in the accident.
The constable had a plate and 12 screws put into his injured knee and spent the next 18 months off work undergoing physiotherapy.
Moir said he was humbled to be part of the ceremony held in the nation’s capital this year. “I was very honoured to be invited to come to Ottawa. I enjoyed that experience.”
Moir was among 36 other Canadians chosen to receive a Medal of Bravery at the event held in the capital on May 1.
“Having not been to an event like that in the past, I was certainly very honoured to be there, listening to others receiving their medals . . . I’m very pleased to be alive, as it were.”
Moir grew up in Upper Lonsdale before leaving to train at the RCMP Academy in 1992. He returned to live on the North Shore from 1999 to 2004, and now lives in Langley.
