By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
An OPP ceremony last month in Orillia celebrated the valour of two responders at the scene of a 2020 accident that devastated the community.
And in spite the loss of a beloved 12-year-old boy, their work saved his 10-year-old sister and helped the family begin to heal.
The incident happened Dec. 2, 2020, a day of snow-covered roads with patchy ice. Cormac Kerin and his sister Shea were outside their rural Port Hope home waiting for their school bus. It pulled up to collect them, and they crossed the street to board.
At that moment, a car driven by a 17-year-old who had only held a G2 license for a few weeks came over the hill at a high rate of speed. The driver spotted the bus and, in trying to react, lost control. His vehicle slid sideways and he hit both children.
Cormac died instantly, but Shea was airlifted to the Hospital for Sick Children. She would recover after more than seven months of work, including surgery to reattach her spine.
On March 28, 2024, Brandon Bliss (then a part-time firefighter with Port Hope Fire and Emergency Services) and Keith Lindley (then a member of the Northumberland OPP) each received the St. John Life Saving Medal and the OPP Commissioner’s Citation for Life Saving at a ceremony attended by grateful members of the Kerin family.
Bliss was a volunteer firefighter at the Garden Hill station at the time, as well as a neighbour to the Kerin family. He was taking his daughter to day care that morning when he saw something terrible was going on. He activated the pager app on his phone to summon help (which did quickly in part because there were four firefighters at the Welcome Firehall who had just returned from another call).
Until assistance came, he was limited in what he could do with no trained help and no equipment. He checked on Shea first.
“She was breathing – that’s it. She wasn’t breathing well, but she was breathing,” Bliss said in a recent interview with Today’s Northumberland.
He turned to Kerin and warned him not to touch her, then proceeded to start CPR on Cormac – checking over his shoulder occasionally to be sure his order was obeyed.
The first vehicle to respond had “tons of experience,” including a captain with more than 25 years of experience and two full-time employees. The second had an advanced-care paramedic with more than 25 years of experience.
“The amount of experience that rolled up in the first two trucks – there was more experience than you would have on half the trucks that would show up in Toronto,” Bliss said.
Lindley was one of the first to arrive. He worked CPR on Cormac and then on Shea, then got her to Northumberland Hills Hospital and stayed in the trauma room with her until both parents arrived.
Bliss drove Shea’s father and aunt straight to NHH. He also fetched Shea’s mother from work, and her sister and her cousin from St. Mary Secondary School, then another cousin from St. Anthony Elementary School. The family members stayed at their aunt’s house, while Keith drove Shea and her parents to the Hospital for Sick Children, where Shea was airlifted to.
Lindley will never forget this experience – taking a high-speed police-escort drive to Toronto, accompanying two parents who have lost a child and are at risk of losing another.
“The raw emotions of both parents who have lost one child and have one fighting for her life – suddenly it’s me and them driving to Toronto at high speed. It’s something a lot of people will never know,” he recalled.
“I don’t know what we’d do without them. Those two people in particular were extraordinary,” Shea’s father Brendan Kerin said.
He describes his neighbour spotting the accident and being “thrown into the cauldron with no help, no support. For 10 minutes he dealt with it as best he could. I think Brandon, in some ways, saved Shea initially.”
He remembers feeling catatonic during the high-stress situation, watching his friend’s efforts until help arrived, including Lindley stepping in to do CPR.
There was so little hope for Shea that the family was told to say their goodbyes at NHH. But Bliss and Lindley stayed by their side.
“They were extraordinary, along with their colleagues,” Kerin said.
“I was very proud of them, incredibly grateful and thankful.”
Because of her months of surgery and treatment, Shea became a Sick Kids ambassador and appeared in their billboards and commercials last year. Seeing her again meant a lot to Bliss, and even more to Lindley who would not see her as often – though he would hear about how she was doing from time to time because it is a small community.
But Lindley had stayed in touch anyway and knows the family pretty well by now – though he was delighted to catch up with them again at the OPP event.
“You don’t often get to see the results of your work,” he commented.
“Shea was thankful for us being there, and all the first responders that played a part in saving her life.”
In a way, the recognition was not something he required. He was just doing his job. But on this day, that job made a lasting impression and he is grateful for how it turned out.
For the Kerin family – parents Brendan and Jennifer, daughters Shea and Aishling – it was a very powerful and very moving day to see not only these two heroes honoured, but a number of others who had made a difference in other tragedies.
“It was quite something to be a part of it, to hear the stories of what those many people do. It was bone-chilling, some of the stuff we heard,” Kerin recalled.
“At the end, they finally had the award for Brandon and Keith. Those two were so instrumental, along with the many they represent – everybody on that day. I don’t know to this day how they did it.
“It was incredible to see the admiration they received from their peers. It was very emotional for both of them, and for us too. It was kind of a silver lining in a very sad and tragic day.
“We look at our miracle in Shea, and we think of Keith and Brandon all the time. Without them, I think we would have been dealing with another tragedy. It’s great they were honoured, because they deserved it. They were so modest and humble.”
The family members were surprised that, although they came from a rural Port Hope community, many people there had heard about their tragedy and remembered that day.
“After the event, they were taking pictures and a number of police officers came up, including dispatchers that were covering the call on that day. To see the tears in their eyes and hear them say,
‘I’ll never forget that day.’ It was difficult for them, but nice to meet them, and I was quite taken back by that.
“Everybody had a story to tell about that day. It was cathartic in a way, really touching. Our family is just so grateful for those two and their colleagues. It’s a great, great first-responder win.
“They are that type of person – very humble, but you want them in your worst crisis in your worst moment.”
Kerin pointed out that both Lindley and Bliss have gone on to greater things.
“Keith left Northumberland OPP and I know he is doing some pretty big stuff in Toronto with the premier’s security detail – a real top gun in so many ways,” he said.
Bliss agreed that this incident is part of the reason for his making the move from volunteer firefighter to full-time firefighter in Toronto. He was self-employed at the time of the incident and had enjoyed his firefighter work. He began to take it a little more seriously, and set a goal for himself to get called to an interview.
“I said, ‘I am going to try pursuing this,’ and it worked out,” he said.
It means a lot to Bliss to be next door to the Kerins and see first-hand how they are doing. Occasionally, another member of the team that helped them out might stop by as well. Given the kind of work cops and firefighters do, he said, it’s nice to revisit the times when it all worked out.
“You don’t always get those kinds of wins, so really you want to celebrate them,” he said.
