Man gets stuck 3 hours in oncoming traffic when electric wheelchair stalls in Canada

A man traveling in an electric wheelchair faced a worst-case scenario when it ran out of battery power after dark — as he rolled through oncoming traffic.

It happened Jan. 31 in the Canadian city of Kelowna, and the man had been stuck for hours when a member of the British Columbia Royal Canadian Mounted Police drove by.

“A Kelowna RCMP constable was patrolling ... when he observed a man in a powered wheelchair sitting in oncoming traffic,” RCMP officials wrote on Facebook.

“The constable looped around and spoke with the man who reported the battery on his wheelchair had died and he had been stranded on the side of the road in cold for nearly three hours.”

What happened next is winning praise for the officer.

First, Constable Taylor Backman tried to arrange a ride home for the man, along with someone to pick up the wheelchair.

When that failed, Backman called another officer — and the two men literally pushed the man home as he sat in his chair.

“Their corporal (Kent Hall) patrolled ahead keeping the road clear and safe along the way,” officials wrote.

The man’s family visited the detachment office a week later “to express their gratitude and thank these members from Watch 3 for going ‘above and beyond’ the call of duty,” officials said.

Details of the act of kindness were shared Feb. 7 on Facebook, prompting 4,000 reactions and hundreds of comments as of the morning of Feb. 8.

Some commenters were shocked the man had to wait so long for help, while others lauded the officers for refusing to give up when all else failed.

“There is hope!” Angela T Dalton-Nash wrote.

“Finally see there is good out there,” Cyndi Tremblay posted.

“Poor guy must have been terrified,” Peggy Lee Swartz said.

“God Bless these good constables for not leaving this poor man out in the cold. He was at the mercy of the weather. They did what any man would do if that was a family member,” Wendy Wall wrote.

This story was originally published February 8, 2022 at 6:41 AM with the headline "Man gets stuck 3 hours in oncoming traffic when electric wheelchair stalls in Canada."