Leader-Post: SaskPower employee receives safety-conscious award

SaskPower worker Wade Gillespie was presented with

the national Lifesaving Award in Ottawa for saving a

teammate’s life in March 2010.

Photograph by: courtesy of SaskPower, handout

By Lisa Goudy 

Wade Gillespie said he acted on instinct when he saved a teammate's life in March 2010 - an action that earned him a national award this week.

The SaskPower employee was presented with one of six national Lifesaving Awards in Ottawa by the federal Minister of Labour Lisa Raitt on Tuesday. The awards, hosted by the Canadian Electricity Association, recognize safety-conscious electricity sector workers who take immediate action to save a life.

"It's a very prestigious award," said Gillespie. "I'm still kind of in awe about it, actually."

Gillespie was in Biggar for a recreational hockey tournament on March 13, 2010, when a teammate suffered a heart attack while playing hockey.

Gillespie was sitting on the bench when the teammate fell down on the ice with a member of the opposing team standing over him.

At first, Gillespie thought his teammate had been hit in the game.

"My first instinct was go help my teammate, but not life-saving - by using fists," he said.

When the opposing team member asked if anyone knew first aid, Gillespie rushed over. SaskPower offers mandatory First Aid training every three years and Gillespie has taken it six times.



After discovering his teammate had no pulse, Gillespie sent someone to call 9-1-1 and began doing CPR.

He sent someone else to grab a defibrillator from the rink lobby. Another person, worried that the CPR was hurting the teammate, took Gillespie by the shoulder and urged him to stop until the ambulance arrived.



"I just replied back that he needs to leave the ice because this guy's got no pulse and is not breathing," he said.

A defibrillator showed up within minutes, so Gillespie hooked it up and used it.

It "lifted the patient right off the ice," he said, noting it was enough to restore a pulse. The victim was put into the proper recovery position just as the ambulance arrived.

Gillespie said nothing would stop him from saving other people if they needed it.

"If anybody's in need, I'll help all I can," he said. "The real award was the next hockey season - being in the same dressing room with the victim and seeing his eyes look at me with colour, not with the death look that I saw on the ice."

Information on Wade Gillespie from the Sustainable Electricity Annual Report 2010



Photograph by: courtesy of SaskPower handout