'I just want to say thanks again': Tourist family meets helper who pulled car out of snowdrift

A family from Los Angeles, Calif., is celebrating a classic Manitoba act of kindness after a Winnipeg firefighter helped them out of a snowdrift near the cityin the wee hours of Boxing Day.

Oleg and Elena Tcherkasarranged a meeting on Wednesdayto say a proper thank you in the form of a Christmas card and holiday ham to Tim Klassen, a firefighter who works in Winnipeg and lives outside the city near Altona, Man.

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"I just want to say thanks again, see the guy's face again, because it was kind of hard to see him in the blizzard, right?" Oleg Tcherkas said.

"For me, it will at least I will remember the guy better, because he just disappeared. He was just like a dream, came in and disappeared."

The couple, along with their 10-month-old son Max, were on their way to Winnipeg to visit a friend for the holidays. They had just passed into Manitoba around 3 a.m. when Tcherkas said he swerved into a snowdrift while rounding a bend and got stucknear Glenlea, Man.

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'Just a normal, kind of everyday event'

He couldn't dig the carout he didn't have a shovel, but tried anyway using his son's car seat.Two police cruisers and a tow truck were sent to help them, but couldn't make it through the snow, he said.

Tcherkas was fighting off sleep as his family napped when there was a knock on his window around 4 a.m.

"I didn't see him coming," Tcherkas said. "He just knocks on the window,I open the window, he smiles at me and tells me, 'Do you need a tow here?'"

Klassen always keeps a tow rope in his truck, he said, because he often finds himself in similar situations.

After towing them out, he told the family to follow him as he droveto Winnipeg so they would make it there safely and that was that, Tcherkas said.

Klassen said he just did what anyone would have done.

"You don't pass someone without helping them," he said. "It's just a normal, kind of everyday event for us in our family."

Klassen said Tcherkas's efforts to thank him were overwhelming.

"It was very much appreciated not necessary," he said.

"Hopefully, you know, when down the road, if somebody needs helphe'll help someone, and it just keeps going around in a big circle."