The kindness of strangers: A mysterious doctor revives man's wife on Paris street and vanishes

CBC Radio One's The Early Edition is asking listeners to share their stories of kindness from strangers for a series that runs on Thursday mornings. John Klassen was in Paris with his wife when they were helped by a mysterious doctor. 

Dear stranger,

We met briefly in 2012 in Paris, in a life-changing, life-saving encounter.

My wife and I were on holiday in the French capital and had just finished up our lunch at a little sidewalk café. She got up to tip the waiter.

As she stood, her foot caught. She fell hard and hit her head on the curb. I ran over and found she was unconscious and not breathing.

I was, of course, traumatized. I had no idea what to do. I tried to do artificial respiration, but I didn't know very much about it.

"Is there a doctor here?" I frantically asked, with the little bit of French that I speak. 

Suddenly, a person knelt down beside me and started chest compressions. He brought my wife back to life and then disappeared, just completely vanished as the ambulance showed up.

I think of him as Jesus — there are other characters in history and culture that do that sort of thing, show up and then vanish, but he was the first one that came to me.

I remember as we were getting into the ambulance, two women noticed that I'd left my wife's purse at the table and came running over with it. That was just one more small act of kindness during such a stressful time that stuck out to me.

After a three hour wait in the hospital lobby, I learned that my wife was out of danger. Later, back in Canada after more medical tests, we learned she had not suffered any long-term effects.

I later tried to track our rescuer down to thank him. I thought maybe the paramedics might have some information on him so I sent them a letter, thanking them for their help as well.

They responded and wrote:

My superiors have passed on to me your letter of gratitude. It affected me greatly, as it did my team.  It is rare for people to thank us for our work, and that such a letter should come from Canada is even more rare!  Unfortunately, I did not note the name of the physician who helped your wife before our arrival.

We never did find out who the man was but we're incredibly grateful for his act of kindness in a foreign country. The kindness shown by the French doctor and paramedics are still as real to me as ever. There are times now when I stop what I am doing and tell my wife, thank-you for coming back to me.

Yours, 

John Klassen

If you have a story about the kindness of strangers, email The Early Edition at [email protected].