An 82-year-old was face down, unconscious, on a Kitchener road. Now, he wants to meet the person who saved his life

KITCHENER - You could say Norman (Eric) Peasley is a storyteller.

Lying face down in the middle of a Kitchener road on a cold February afternoon, it seemed all but certain Peasley's last great story was going to end in mystery.

The 82-year-old hadn't told anyone where he was going that day. And, if he had, he would never have told them about the intersection of Ottawa Street South and Fischer-Hallman Road North.

But there he was: face down in the middle of the road, unconscious, neck fractured, nose broken, mouth cut, face bruised, and tooth chipped.

He was one bystander" away from it all ending.

On Feb. 9, someone saved Peasley's life. And now, he wants to thank them.

I'm still shaking my head, because I just can't believe that I wasn't run over," he said. There's no question in my mind, that's what should have happened that day."

The details - initially murky - have come back to him in the months after the incident.

Peasley lives by himself in a third-floor apartment in Kitchener. The COVID-19 pandemic was long, and much of his day-to-day interactions come in the form of personal support workers.

It's not all it's cracked up to be, this getting old thing," he said. When you spend a life living like every day can be a new adventure, I don't think you ever quite adjust to the limitations of age."

He uses a cane now but is still mobile and independent. On Feb. 9, he decided he was going to do some errands.

He set off for downtown, and by the time he was ready for a meal, he reckons he had walked about five kilometres - a fine day's walk for a young Peasley, but an unfortunate overestimation of what he's capable of now.

He found his way to a bus stop and headed in the direction of the Halibut House on Highland Road West.

It was cold, it was raining, Peasley was exhausted, and he mistakenly got off the bus early somewhere on Fischer-Hallman Road North.

With the wind blowing and the rain pouring down, he started walking. The last thing he remembers is an embankment, two sets of lights that were in sync, and thinking he could make it across the road.

Then it goes black.

The next thing he knew he was waking up in Grand River Hospital with a face he hardly recognized from the cuts and bruises.

Peasley's medical records, released through Grand River, indicate the fall could have been onset by a stroke. It's not conclusive.

Already living with a number of medical conditions, a five-kilometre walk in the cold rain could have just as easily led to him collapsing from fatigue, with the trauma to his face knocking him unconscious.

His ambulance call report indicates that a bystander called emergency services. It says Peasley was walking on the sidewalk before he fell onto the road and struck his face.

Due to the busy intersection, Peasley thinks the bystander likely had to stop traffic, divert it around his unconscious body, and wait for the ambulance to arrive.

I've had a lot of close calls in my life and more than a handful of moments where I probably shouldn't have made it," said Peasley. But how someone didn't hit me is beyond me. I would say it was a 10-to-1 shot that someone would have hit me and that would have been it."

His bystander" had other plans.

Someone saved me. I have no idea who it was, and I would very much like to track them down and thank them," he said.

Peasley is a man whose currency is stories.

His hospital report, which includes notes from medical specialists, specifically refers to him as a pleasant man" in three different sections, from three different specialists.

An afternoon with him is a whirlwind into a life of chance interactions with musicians, mafia bosses and members of academic and business high society.

He claims to have driven and flown more than 12 million kilometres during his time as a businessperson, salesperson and Kitchener limousine driver. That's on top of roughly 8,000 nights he says he spent in hotels, the equivalent of roughly 20 years of his life.

Give him an afternoon, and he'll tell you a story or two about driving around Research In Motion co-CEO Jim Balsillie, and even more about a slew of University of Waterloo professors who became dear friends over his years behind the wheel.

That's after decades of sales work, with his great claim to fame coming from introducing WD-40 lubricants to the Canadian market in 1971, when he said he helped open the company's first international office in Toronto.

I've had a life that amazes me, and it's all just luck," he said. You stumble into things, and it doesn't surprise me anymore."

With age, stumbling sometimes turns into falling, and Peasley knows he might not have too many falls left in him.

It's been a few years since many of his life's great adventures. A growing number of medical conditions, and a life of caution during the COVID-19 pandemic, has limited his travel into the world.

Much of his focus now is on his four children, and his stories often lead to new tales about his kids and their own children.

You can't get into too much trouble these days sitting still," he said.

Peasley didn't sit still on Feb. 9.

On the one day he decided it was time to stretch his legs and hit the city, adventure came calling again, and he stumbled and fell into another great story.

Now, he's looking to solve the mystery, and get to the closing page where he shakes his saviour's hand.

He has one question: Are you the bystander?

Robert Williams is a Waterloo Region-based reporter for The Record. Reach him via email: robertwilliams@torstar.ca