It could be the most Islander cleanup ever.
Two men, one equipped with a chainsaw, weren’t stumped on what to do when a tree fell onto the Malahat Highway Saturday and blocked the only lane into Greater Victoria.
Langford’s Tammie Blair captured video of her husband Shawn and another man to the rescue, cutting the tree into pieces and tossing it aside to clear the way for drivers caught in a fast-growing traffic jam.
“We were on our way home from Duncan and my husband Shawn saw a rock slide on the side of the highway, and a tree broke free and was blocking the road,” Blair told CHEK News.
“He pulled over on the side of the road and said he was surprised nobody got hurt. He said he had the chainsaw and had to cut it out of the way.”
That’s when the man in the car behind the couple pulled up beside them, saw the tree blocking the highway and started helping, according to Blair.
“As soon as the people in the other car saw that Shawn had a chainsaw, the man got out and helped Shawn by removing the branches that were cut off the highway,” she said.
The highway was closed and reopened again, all in under two minutes, thanks to the quick actions of Shawn and the other man, so it’s only fitting that the song playing in the background of Blair’s video was Good Times Roll by Jimmie Allen.
Her video, which was posted to the Victoria Rant & Raves Facebook group, received a flood of positive reactions online, including from one commenter who joked, “My husband just bought me that chainsaw for Christmas! Glad it works,” and another who said, “You might be Canadian if… you always carry a chainsaw in your vehicle.”
Blair finds the feedback “awesome,” adding: “We were so happy nobody got hurt and could help our community on the island.”
Ethan Morneau
