ESTERHAZY, Saskatchewan (LifeSiteNews) — A Canadian hockey player has attributed his survival and recovery from a deep cut near his jugular vein to God’s intercession.
In a December 11 interview with The Epoch Times, Cole Cusitar, a Saskatchewan hockey player for the Churchbridge Imperials senior league team, recounted the story of his recent near-fatal injury in which a skate by an opposing player sliced his neck deeply near his jugular vein.
“God was looking out for me that evening,” the 35-year-old senior league player shared, adding that if the cut was an inch lower he “might not have been having this conversation.”
Cusitar, the Churchbridge Imperials team captain, was injured during a December 7 games against the Esterhazy Flyers when he and an opponent fell and got tangled. Cusitar recalled feeling a cold slap across his jaw.
“Just when [the opposing player] fell, one of his back legs just come up and happened to kick me,” Cusitar said, noting that he “didn’t feel much pain at all.”
“When I started to see the blood, I knew I was in rough shape,” he added.
The Esterhazy Flyers player’s state had sliced Cusitar’s jaw near the jugular vein, causing him to bleed badly. The gash was several centimetres wide and 15 centimetres long. Thankfully, it did not cut Cusitar’s jugular vein, but a smaller vein just below his ear. The cut was just half an inch from his jugular vein.
“The Esterhazy player was down on his knees, frantically waving his arms trying to get the attention of the referee to blow the whistle. Once that happened, I could see Cole was down,” Churchbridge head coach Tim Roussin, told local media.
“Once the play stopped, our trainer (Steven Shackleton) ran out onto the ice. Some of the nurses in attendance, they (also) reacted really quickly. They got him right off the ice, through the back doors of the rink and into a truck and to the hospital,” Roussin explained.
Medics rushed Cusitar to the Yorkton Health Centre where they attempted to stop his bleeding. Finally, in the early morning, Cusitar stopped bleeding and was later given 80 stitches through five layers of skin.
Cusitar says he and his wife, Jody, spent the night in the hospital. “I don’t think my wife slept at all,” he said. “We’ve got two young kids at home, too, so it was pretty scary.”
Roussin revealed that the injury was so severe that medics “had thought they were going to have to operate on him and put him under just to clean the wound of any blood and then administer all the stitches.”
“The cut was so deep they had to do it in several layers and then it was decided that he would just be under a local anesthetic and they would do the stitching like that,” he continued.
“Cole is really a heart and soul guy of the team. Most of the people around there know Cole — he works hard, he’s approachable, you can talk to him about anything and he loves to talk hockey,” Roussin said.