Cinnamon Boulanger presented with North Dundas Mayor’s Award
Cinnamon Boulanger was presented with the North Dundas Mayor’s Award at the regular council meeting on April 18, for saving the life of a hockey teammate. Pictured here, left to right are: Vicki Van Hoof, Heather Cooke Erwin, Cinnamon Boulanger and Mayor Tony Fraser. Morin Photo

WINCHESTER – Life is scattered with unexpected events.

If you are lucky the right people will be in the right place at the right time when you need them the most.

Heather Cooke Erwin loves her hockey and on Sun., March 13 she along with her KC’s Lawn Maintenance hockey team of the Winchester and District Ladies Hockey League was playing a game at the Sam Ault Arena in Winchester.

Erwin was battling for the puck and slipped and fell. There was 14 minutes and 55 seconds left in the second period.

Her teammate, Cinnamon Boulanger was quick to come to her aid.

The team’s coach, Vicki Van Hoof described the moment, she said, “Cinnamon was on the ice and went straight to her aid. Once we were able to get her up, we took her to the change room and because of her history of seizures we informed her she would not be driving home and asked someone to sit with her to keep an eye on her.”

Having looked after Erwin, the players returned to their game.

While Boulanger, a nurse, was getting ready to leave the arena after the game, Erwin was still in the change room and had collapsed and began to have a seizure. The players in the room were quick to respond.

Van Hoof said, “Michaela Morrow caught her and helped her down to the ground. The team shouted out to me to go and get Cinnamon while someone else was dialing 911. When Cinnamon, arrived she instructed us to get Heather onto her side and she slowly stopped seizing.”

But then the unexpected happened.

Erwin does not remember much about what happened. She only remembers falling on the ice and hitting her tailbone and the back of her head. “I had no idea about what was going on,” she said.

Irwin had stopped breathing.

Boulanger remembers that normally after a game she is quick to go home but that day she stayed around the change room for an extra minute or two. She was in the change room opposite the one Erwin was in. “Vicki came and grabbed me. That’s when I went into the room and realized that things were not right,” said Boulanger.

“When she stopped seizing, I realized that she did not have a pulse and her lips were blue.”

Being a nurse, Boulanger was trained to react quickly to a situation like this.

She immediately began doing CPR on Erwin.

Boulanger and Erwin have known each other their entire lives. Boulanger said doing CPR on someone she has been so close with was stressful.

“It was a lot of pressure.”

“I did CPR for around a minute and she slowly began to come back after that and then the paramedics arrived, so I stopped.”

The Mayor’s Award was presented to Boulanger at the North Dundas council regular meeting on April 18 By North Dundas Mayor Tony Fraser.

The first ever Mayor’s Award was presented to Paul Simms and his daughter Shannon Horsburgh in 2019, for saving the life of a neighbour after a tractor rollover.