CAMPBELLTON, N.B. — The Campbellton RCMP are looking forward to presenting truck driver Donald Cote with a certificate of appreciation for a truly heroic act – saving another man’s life.

On Sept. 28, Cote’s Freightliner tractor-trailer collided with a Dodge Neon on Rte. 17 in Robinsonville, near Campbellton. Cote saw the car had caught on fire and its driver was still inside the vehicle.

“The door of the car was twisted and bent,” says Jeff Foster, the investigating officer of the crash. “The other driver had broken bones and wasn’t able to get out on his own. He (Cote) got the door open – he actually bent it. And he’s not an extraordinarily large man.”

Foster says it’s not often that both drivers in a crash of that magnitude manage to escape alive. The driver of the car suffered broken legs, arms and ribs in the crash and had to undergo surgery to repair them. Foster says it’s likely he’s alive today because of Cote.

“As far as we’re concerned, if (Cote) hadn’t been there that day, that gentleman would have died.”

Foster says certificates of appreciation aren’t doled out every day.

“We do it in the context of a passerby who enters a burning building.”

The presentation will be made Friday at 2 p.m. at the District 9 office in Campbellton.