The flat tire | The Press

There will be no whining in this column. I don’t have a shirt to tear today. Slice of life chronicle.

It was January 9 and Sylvie Patenaude was going up Saint-Denis towards the Métropolitaine, heading home to Anjou.

But his car made a strange noise: “I tell you, I hit at least four potholes that day…”

M^me Patenaude decided to inspect his car before getting into the fast lane. Turn onto Crémazie, turn onto Berri, she was sure there was a garage nearby, but she didn’t find one. She parks in front of a bus, gets out of her car…

It didn’t take long to find the cause of the noise that was bothering Sylvie Patenaude in the passenger compartment of her old Hyundai Accent inherited from her late mother: one of the tires had been punctured by a pothole…

She called her boyfriend. Honey, come get me, I made a flatyou are the one who has the CAA card…

“Then I went to see the bus driver,” M told me.^me Patenaude, he was on break. I knocked on his window…”

The driver opened.

“Do you know where there is a garage nearby, sir?”

– Sorry no. For what ?

“I flattened a tire…”

The STM driver then got out of his behemoth, went to inspect the damage and asked Sylvie Patenaude to open his trunk. Then, he simply took out the spare wheel and began to install it in place of the flat tire…

The driver seemed to know how to change a tire, reports M^me Patenaude, who couldn’t believe seeing this stranger come to his aid: “It didn’t take ten minutes! »

Once the spare wheel was installed by the Samaritan driver, Sylvie Patenaude wanted to thank him, she offered him money, without success: repeated refusals from the driver.

“He just told me that his name was Carlos, Carlos Diaz… I was in shock, Mr. Lagacé, all day I was grateful, I said to myself: STM drivers do that?! So that evening, I tracked down his boss, I wrote to him to highlight Mr. Diaz’s good gesture, but with a little fear, all the same, I was afraid that he would be punished for having taken the time to help me, you know how bosses can be, sometimes… The boss reassured me: no, no, we’re not going to punish him, we’re going to submit his name for the end-of-year Merits. Then, afterwards, well I wrote to you to tell you my story…”

I loved this story, but being held to the highest standards of professionalism of French-Canadian journalism, I still had to validate whether this story was true, so I used my hidden sources at the STM (well , no, in fact, I contacted the media relations department) requesting to be put in contact with the driver Carlos Diaz…

Boom, shortly after, I had him on the phone, this Mr. Diaz and his sunny accent (forgive the cliché) from Colombia, his native land.

“I saw the tire on the ground and I asked the lady: “Are you equipped?” It was cold, yes, but I did it, it only took me a few minutes. She wanted to give me money, I said: “No, ma’am, I’m happy, have a nice day!” »

It turns out that Mr. Diaz, who arrived in the country in 2008, has been a bus driver for the STM for six years. His background: music. He was a conductor, he also teaches the violin. The mecanic ? He grew up, so to speak, in a garage: “My father was a mechanic…”

Helping is in the fibers of our man. A bit like a superhero who always drags his cape in the basket of his BIXI, Carlos Diaz drags an autonomous car battery in his car, to be able to recharge those of motorists in need.

But still, Mr. Diaz, you didn’t have to go out and help this stranger, Mr.^me Patenaude, while you were waiting to resume service on line 135, but you did so without even hesitation, in the cold, and all…

For what ?

“I’m glad I can help.” It comes to me from my mother, from my father. I’m Latino, we help each other. We do what our parents showed us, you know…”

I was going to say that we need more Carlos Diaz, but I correct myself: Carlos Diaz are everywhere, they are among us, they do good every day. It’s just that we almost never see them in the newspapers, the newspapers lack slices of life.