The intersection of 12th Street South and Grange Ave. is usually a quiet, everyday commute for a lot of folks living in Sioux Falls, S.D.
For a short, nearly-cataclysmic moment in time last September 3, though, it was anything but.
A pair of Sioux Falls Storm Indoor Football League players, Brandon Peguese and Jermaine Robinson, were driving to a job they had helping young men transition through life at a boy’s academy when suddenly, out of nowhere, nothing, one vehicle, directly ahead of them, turned onto 12th Street, and … impact.
Car on car. A pole rising up to meet one of the vehicles. And then fire. A wall of flames.
“In one car you could see people moving around,” recalls Peguese, nine months later, standing outside the Stampeders locker-room at McMahon Stadium, “but in this (other) car, the one on fire, nobody moving.
“It was like: ‘Man, we gotta help this lady.’”
The lady, 52-year-old Tami Crate, was unconscious in the driver’s seat. Instinctively, Peguese and Robinson leapt into action.
“I popped the door and there was flames … everywhere,’’ recalls Peguese. “Flames coming out of the dashboard, the radio. Seemed like flames coming out of the steering wheel.
“Man, it was hot. Yeah, it was scary. I’m thinking like: ‘This car could blow up right now.’
“And this lady, slumped over. I didn’t know if she was dead, asleep or what.
“I just remember feeling that heat and trying to move quick, kind of manoeuvre the seatbelt out the way cause it was stuck.”
There wasn’t, he says, time to consider any personal dangers involved.
“Complete reaction. It wasn’t like I was thinking about it. You see somebody in danger, you just start moving. We just got out of the car and life took over.”
The two men managed to free Crate from her vehicle, where she was carried a safe distance from the burning wreck.
“I could have swore I saw the arrow be green,” Crate told local media outlets when the two men were honoured with the Citizen Hero Award from the Sioux Falls Fire Rescue departments a month after the fiery crash (which Peguese had to miss, unfortunately, being back home in Virginia), “and so I started turning and then it turned yellow and seen this car, I knew, I knew they were going to hit me and I knew it wasn’t going to be good.
“I’ll never be able to thank them enough. How do you thank somebody or what do you say to somebody that literally saved your life?”
In short: You can’t.
Defensive lineman Peguese is returning to the CFL after a five-year absence, having had brief stints in both B.C. and Hamilton, as well as with the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles and Indianapolis Colts and as part of both the Arena and Indoor loops.
“He’s been out of the league a while so he’s got to get re-acclimated,’’ says Stamps defensive co-ordinator DeVone Claybrooks. “We don’t bring anybody here just to bring ’em. We think he can fit into our system and excel.
“He’s been playing Arena and that sort of thing but he gives you versatility because he can play inside or outside and he’s always been hell on wheels on special teams.
“It’ll be great to see him out there and see what he can do.”
Peguese feels the same.
“Happy to be back,’’ he says. “Get to play some football. I’ve been fighting to get back here, man. That’s all I’ve been trying to do the last few years, trying to get back here, redeem myself.
“Just the space, being able to play outside again. I like the bigger field. And, to be honest, I don’t think I left on my terms so I wanted to get back and prove to myself (I can do it).
“While I’ve been gone I’ve been working with different programs, trying to teach kids that if you work hard and trust in the Lord, anything can happen.
“This is a testament of what I’ve been trying to teach these kids: bust your butt, work hard, stay positive, do what you want to do. This is me trying to follow that same recipe.”
In an effort to resurface in the Canadian game, Peguese shipped highlight tapes to different teams, reached out to coaches and teammates still in the league and worked for various organizations.
He attended a tryout held by the Stamps, “on faith”, in Charlotte, N.C., and this time finally received a call-back.
If nothing else, wherever the game or life might take Brandon Peguese and Jermaine Robinson – currently in Montreal Alouettes’ camp – from here, what they did that Sept. 3 day at the intersection 12th Street and Grand Ave., in Sioux Falls, S.D., gets them a spot on the good-samaritan All-Pro Team.
Not that he considers himself a hero of any sort, worthy of a starring role in a Stan Lee comic and its subsequent movie franchise.
“That lady,’’ he says now, “probably had a family. Somebody’s wife. Somebody’s daughter.
“I just wanted to help her.”
Once the fire department arrived and put out the blaze in the car, the two men set off for work as if nothing untoward had just happened.
“I think I worked a double that day,’’ laughs Pegeuse. “Just clocked in. Didn’t even think about it. Later, somebody was like: ‘Wow! I heard you guys were on the news for saving somebody.’ I didn’t expect all that. Just so happened somebody asked our names.
“We weren’t trying to talk to people cause we were trying not to be late for work.”
No big deal. In his mind, anyway.
“It’s like one act of kindness might lead to another act of kindness,’’ says Peguese. “That lady might now help somebody else. Someone might read the story and say: ‘Them guys didn’t know that lady and look what they did.’
“It’s nice to see something inspiring, something positive.
“You never know why the Lord puts you places. Never know. You might be put there to save somebody’s life.
“Or you might put there to get a shot and come back to the CFL.”