Teen uses social media to find 'angel' who saved her from fatal Sask. car crash

Mackenzie Berry was sleeping when the car her father was driving collided with another vehicle. 

She was seven years old. 

Memories from the life-changing event that occurred more than a decade ago are muted for Berry. What she does recall is a woman pulling her from the wreckage and bringing her to safety.

"She saved my life," Berry said.

Her father died that day in the horrific crash near Maidstone, Sask., and Berry believes she would have, too, had it not been for her "angel."

Recently, the young woman resolved to find the woman who saved her. Berry said she called RCMP, but police records turned up no names of first-responders. She also contacted the hospital where she was taken, but its records were also void of any clues.

"Today I am reaching out to you in hopes that you can help me find a missing angel," Berry wrote in a Facebook post last week. 

"As many of you already know, over 10 years ago I lost my dad to a tragic car accident ... there was a beautifully kind hearted woman who saved me," Berry wrote.

She explained to CBC Saskatchewan that the appeal on social media was a last-ditch effort to find her rescuers.

Berry's post was shared widely and three hours after she wrote it, she found what she was looking for.

Reunited within days

"It was really cold that day, probably minus 25, the wind was blowing like crazy," recalled Jeana Kelly. Kelly and her teen daughter and a friend were travelling to Table Mountain for a day of snowboarding when they happened upon the crash.

They were the first on the scene.

"She was cut up pretty bad. She had lots of glass cuts on her from all the shattered glass," recalled Kelly. "She kept telling me, 'I think my daddy's dead. I think my daddy's dead.'"

The mother said she knew she couldn't leave the small girl where she was.

"I didn't want to leave her in the vehicle. I just, kind of, took my hand under her legs and my hand behind her back and lifted her up in the sitting position and put her in the back of my vehicle so she would stay warm."

Kelly tended to other injured people involved in the crash and waited until emergency crews came. Later, she returned to the hospital to make sure the girl's family was notified before she was airlifted to a hospital out of province.

Kelly said she never knew the girl's name and police did not take her name.

"It was just one of those things, you know, you don't ever know how things turn out," she said. "It was in the back of my mind for a long time."

Kelly's daughter, Chelsea, remembers the day well.

"The reality of the accident didn't really kick in until half an hour after we left the accident," she said. "I cried."

Chelsea said she instantly recognized the story when Berry's post floated into her social media world.

"I was scrolling through my news feed one night before bed," Chelsea explained, noting she instantly knew Mackenzie Berry was the little girl she had comforted a decade before on a cold highway. 

"My heart started racing, I knew right away who she was. I was speechless. I was panicking. I knew right away it was us she was looking for," she said.

Now, the women plan to meet and Berry said she is looking forward to building a friendship with the angels who saved her life.

"Nothing but joyous, happiness," said Kelly of the unexpected reunion.

Has social media helped you with a special reunion? Let us know.