Kungfoolss
07-10-2003, 11:02 PM
Woman gets kudos for laying life on the line for neighbour
Awarded $3,500 from Carnegie fund
Jodie Sinnema
The Edmonton Journal
Thursday, July 10, 2003
http://media.canada.com/scripts/locate.asp?id=7a82c26a-d53b-4bbd-ac6a-8412eacc6e8b
John Lucas, The Journal / Bernadette Vermaas shows her Carnegie medal to her daughter Natasha, 18.
EDMONTON - When she walked into Liliana's Boutique and Decor two years ago, Bernadette Vermaas saw the shop owner shielding her bloodied face with her hands, a tall woman looming over her with a butcher's knife in one hand, two bloody syringes in the other. On Wednesday, Vermaas received a $3,500 grant and a bronze medal from the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission for her quick and fearless actions in January 2001. The commission honours people from the United States and Canada who risk their lives to an extraordinary degree trying to save others.
Vermaas was working at a Jasper Avenue hair salon that day. At about 2 p.m., she heard a strange noise next door, where Liliana Samuels ran a quiet, classy clothing store at 117th Street. "I heard some weird noises coming through the wall," said Vermaas, who has since moved into a new salon. "It sounded like a stressed animal. It was whiny, high-pitched. I thought they maybe had a puppy over there. But it didn't sound right." Busy trimming hair, Vermaas asked her partner, Delia Popowich, to check out the noise. Popowich went over and came back, white-faced, saying Samuels was being robbed. Vermaas, five-foot-one, grabbed her broom and rushed next door. There she found a 47-year-old drug-crazed woman wearing a bulky sweater and spandex pants, a wild look on her face. The woman was five-foot-eight and weighed 200 pounds. She had already broken Samuels' nose, spattering blood everywhere, cornering the shop owner behind the glass jewelry counter.
"What's the worst that could happen?" Vermaas remembers thinking. "She turns on me and I die? I'm not scared of death." Seeing blood dripping from one syringe -- she later learned Samuels had been stabbed in the arm -- Vermaas realized her broom would be little help. She stayed calm. "You know what, lady?" she said. "This is not happening today."
Vermaas tossed aside the broom; her partner handed her a rusty snow shovel from the hair salon. Vermaas smiled at the knife-wielding woman. "Let me tell you about my life," she said, walking toward the woman. Vermaas left home at 15, fleeing an aggressive father. She lived in Glengarry Park in northeast Edmonton for two weeks, taking showers at school, storing her clothes in her locker and working at McDonald's. Often teased at school for being short and chubby, she once enrolled in judo classes.
"I've been alone a long time and I've seen uglier and scarier than you," Vermaas told the woman. "I'm going to cross this counter, hit you upside that part of your head, put your brains on the wall behind you. Are you ready for that?"
At that point, the woman backed away, and eventually headed for the back door. "I kept nattering at her and talking to her," Vermaas recalls. "As long as I kept eye contact and I kept talking to her, I became the victim and I got her away from Liliana." Vermaas dumped the shovel at the back entrance of the store and followed the assailant at a safe distance for about 20 minutes, through back alleys and apartment parking lots, until the police caught up with them. "The minute I looked at the woman, and the minute I looked at Liliana, I thought not in my lifetime am I going to allow this to happen," said Vermaas, one of only 17 women to be given a Carnegie award, the first from Edmonton. "I hoped that one day, if my child should be standing there, there would be somebody standing there like me."
In all, 686 Canadians, 53 from Alberta, have been awarded Carnegie medals since 1904. Vermaas, 41, said thinking of her two daughters gave her the courage she needed that day. "All my positive awareness," she said, "my spirituality, my soul searching, all of that hard work to become a better person was absolutely what made that day go smoothly. "That (incident) really smartened me up. You just keep plugging along, you keep struggling. It's worth it. I've been able to leave a legacy for my kids."
jsinnema@thejournal.canwest.com
http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjournal/story.asp?id=1B75712A-39FA-4353-855B-5C72422DDED7
Awarded $3,500 from Carnegie fund
Jodie Sinnema
The Edmonton Journal
Thursday, July 10, 2003
http://media.canada.com/scripts/locate.asp?id=7a82c26a-d53b-4bbd-ac6a-8412eacc6e8b
John Lucas, The Journal / Bernadette Vermaas shows her Carnegie medal to her daughter Natasha, 18.
EDMONTON - When she walked into Liliana's Boutique and Decor two years ago, Bernadette Vermaas saw the shop owner shielding her bloodied face with her hands, a tall woman looming over her with a butcher's knife in one hand, two bloody syringes in the other. On Wednesday, Vermaas received a $3,500 grant and a bronze medal from the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission for her quick and fearless actions in January 2001. The commission honours people from the United States and Canada who risk their lives to an extraordinary degree trying to save others.
Vermaas was working at a Jasper Avenue hair salon that day. At about 2 p.m., she heard a strange noise next door, where Liliana Samuels ran a quiet, classy clothing store at 117th Street. "I heard some weird noises coming through the wall," said Vermaas, who has since moved into a new salon. "It sounded like a stressed animal. It was whiny, high-pitched. I thought they maybe had a puppy over there. But it didn't sound right." Busy trimming hair, Vermaas asked her partner, Delia Popowich, to check out the noise. Popowich went over and came back, white-faced, saying Samuels was being robbed. Vermaas, five-foot-one, grabbed her broom and rushed next door. There she found a 47-year-old drug-crazed woman wearing a bulky sweater and spandex pants, a wild look on her face. The woman was five-foot-eight and weighed 200 pounds. She had already broken Samuels' nose, spattering blood everywhere, cornering the shop owner behind the glass jewelry counter.
"What's the worst that could happen?" Vermaas remembers thinking. "She turns on me and I die? I'm not scared of death." Seeing blood dripping from one syringe -- she later learned Samuels had been stabbed in the arm -- Vermaas realized her broom would be little help. She stayed calm. "You know what, lady?" she said. "This is not happening today."
Vermaas tossed aside the broom; her partner handed her a rusty snow shovel from the hair salon. Vermaas smiled at the knife-wielding woman. "Let me tell you about my life," she said, walking toward the woman. Vermaas left home at 15, fleeing an aggressive father. She lived in Glengarry Park in northeast Edmonton for two weeks, taking showers at school, storing her clothes in her locker and working at McDonald's. Often teased at school for being short and chubby, she once enrolled in judo classes.
"I've been alone a long time and I've seen uglier and scarier than you," Vermaas told the woman. "I'm going to cross this counter, hit you upside that part of your head, put your brains on the wall behind you. Are you ready for that?"
At that point, the woman backed away, and eventually headed for the back door. "I kept nattering at her and talking to her," Vermaas recalls. "As long as I kept eye contact and I kept talking to her, I became the victim and I got her away from Liliana." Vermaas dumped the shovel at the back entrance of the store and followed the assailant at a safe distance for about 20 minutes, through back alleys and apartment parking lots, until the police caught up with them. "The minute I looked at the woman, and the minute I looked at Liliana, I thought not in my lifetime am I going to allow this to happen," said Vermaas, one of only 17 women to be given a Carnegie award, the first from Edmonton. "I hoped that one day, if my child should be standing there, there would be somebody standing there like me."
In all, 686 Canadians, 53 from Alberta, have been awarded Carnegie medals since 1904. Vermaas, 41, said thinking of her two daughters gave her the courage she needed that day. "All my positive awareness," she said, "my spirituality, my soul searching, all of that hard work to become a better person was absolutely what made that day go smoothly. "That (incident) really smartened me up. You just keep plugging along, you keep struggling. It's worth it. I've been able to leave a legacy for my kids."
jsinnema@thejournal.canwest.com
http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjournal/story.asp?id=1B75712A-39FA-4353-855B-5C72422DDED7
