The only thing Linda Petrovic remembers from the morning she nearly died is the spinning trees, the roar of the ’57 Ford hardtop convertible’s engine and the song on the radio. Not the name of the song, or even the words, but the feeling it gave her.
“It was a song that made you want to drive fast,” said Petrovic, who now lives in Mill Bay. “Like A Bat Out of Hell type of song.”
It was the early-morning hours of April 1, 1967, and 18-year-old Petrovic — then Linda Matson — was squeezed in the front seat between her boyfriend and a friend when the driver lost control near Mount Douglas Park and drove off Churchill Drive near Shelbourne Street.
The car struck a tree, crumpling like an accordion and knocking out — or at least dazing — the three passengers inside.
The next day, the Victoria Daily Times — a previous iteration of the Times Colonist — would say the car was “split open” and “shattered” after skidding 160 feet and plunging off the road and into a tree. The steering wheel was touching the car’s roof and the dashboard was flattened across the front window, the report said.
Petrovic said speed and alcohol were likely factors, but attitudes towards drinking and driving were, unfortunately, still relaxed at the time. She later learned they were driving at about 130 km/h.
“You think of hitting a tree head-on at that speed. I’m surprised we lived,” she said. “There were no cellphones, seatbelts or airbags.”
Flames were licking at the floor of the car when Terry Orr and Wayne Strandlund, both 19, happened to drive by, heading down the mountain. They stepped out of the car and into the darkness, peering into the blistering wreckage, and found, with alarm, that there were three people “crunched against the right-hand side.”
“[The car] was pretty mangled but what caught our attention was the light from the flames. Otherwise we probably never would have seen it,” Orr said.
The door was stuck, and Orr, who was an apprentice electrician at the time, had to leverage all his weight to get it open.
“We were sort of in a bit of panic, because the flames were there and we didn’t know if the gas was involved,” he said. “That could go up pretty quick. That’s why we were so panicky in getting them out.”
Orr and Strandlund grabbed a bottle of Lucky beer from their car and poured it on the flames before pulling the passengers from the crash, carefully lifting Petrovic, whose leg was trapped in the wreckage, and getting them into Strandlund’s car.
As they sped in the direction of the Royal Jubilee Hospital, Orr turned to the backseat and noticed that Petrovic had a bleeding head injury. He took off his shirt, tore a strip off it and wrapped it around the wound.
As Standlund sped the car toward the hospital, reaching a speed of at least 130 km/h, police lights pierced the dark morning. Strandlund remembers officers using a loudspeaker to order the men out of the car.
They promptly told the Saanich police officers why they were speeding and were given a police escort the rest of the way.
Petrovic has no memories of the drive. “I don’t remember anything until I heard a doctor say: ‘She’s lucky she’s on a stretcher and not in a pine box,’ ” she said.
All had survived the crash, though they suffered various head and facial wounds. Petrovic’s left foot was so badly crushed that doctors discussed the possibility of amputation.
Her leg was saved but she was in recovery for about five weeks.
Orr remembers that he and Strandlund stopped by the hospital the next day to see the trio they had saved.
Petrovic was too dazed to remember much of the visit. “I remember going in to see her but not much was said because she was still in bad shape,” Orr said.
Petrovic would go on to marry her boyfriend, Mike, and have two daughters. The marriage didn’t last, but their friendship did, and the pair share eight grandchildren and one great grandson.
Petrovic wanted her grandchildren to know the stories of her life before she was a grandmother, and started writing them down, but when she went to write about the crash, she realized there was a hole in the story.
“I started thinking about writing about the accident and I thought: ‘But who pulled me out of that accident?’ And realizing, ‘Gosh I’m going to be 74, and if it hadn’t been for that guy who found us and took us to the hospital, I might have died at 18.’
“If it wasn’t for him, I might not have had my children and my grandchildren and my great grandchildren.”
On Sept. 25, 2022 — Petrovic’s 74th birthday — she made a post on the Facebook page Old Victoria, a public group that shares pictures and stories from the city’s past. She posted a picture from the 1967 news article about the wreck and made a plea to the group: Help me find the man who pulled us from the car.
On Oct. 3, up popped a comment from Orr: “That sounds so familiar,” he wrote. “My buddy and I helped some people around the same time, same place.”
Petrovic and Orr, who now lives in Central Saanich, messaged each other and confirmed that it was the same crash.
“He messaged me, then I messaged him and then he phoned me that night,” Petrovic said. “I thanked him and he told me things about the car accident that I didn’t know.
“We talked about our life, we talked about our children.”
Petrovic learned that two men had been there that night, and Strandlund had helped to pull the trio from the car and drive them to the hospital.
“I always believe that everybody is right where they’re supposed to be at the time they are,” Petrovic said. “I’m just glad that now, when I write the story, I know there’s two people to thank.
“They did such a selfless act. Such a kindness. They acted [and] they didn’t even think twice. They knew they had to save us,” she added. “And if it takes 55 years to say thank you, it’s never too late.”
The trio plan to meet this week and Petrovic joked that she plans to bring Orr a new T-shirt to replace the one he used to stop the bleeding on her head more than five decades ago.
While he was happy to connect with the woman he helped, Orr says he doesn’t necessarily see himself as a hero.
“It’s quite exciting to hear. We didn’t think, oh it’s a life saving, we just wanted to get them out before the fire got going,” he said. “Probably anybody would have done the same.”
