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Teen intervenes after seeing man trying to force woman into van in Parksville

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Sixteen-year-old Sara Picard didn’t think twice about intervening when she saw a man trying to force a woman into a van on a Parksville street.

“She was screaming and looking for help,” Sara said. She had just stepped off a bus on Bay Street when she witnessed the incident. She ran over and pushed the man away.

That’s when he pulled out a knife. Sara took a few steps backward and called the police.

“The man looks at the woman and then looks at me, and takes the knife and puts it to his heart. He ended up stabbing himself in the chest,” Sara said.

Police arrived as the man fell to the ground. He died later in hospital.

Sara now knows the two were a couple with three children.

She said she’s receiving support from RCMP victim services for what was a traumatizing experience, but she wouldn’t do anything differently.

“I think that anybody should have done what I did,” she said.

When Sara saw the woman’s daughter in a police car later, she gave her her phone number and told the teenager to call her if she needed anything.

She contacted Sara, thanking her for saving her mother.

Sara said her priority now is making sure the family is okay. Two fundraisers have been set up for the family to raise money and provide meals while they grieve the loss of a husband and father.

More than $8,000 has been raised for the family.

Sara has been called a hero for her actions on Nov. 14, including by those organizing the fundraisers, but the teenager doesn’t see herself that way.

“I would do it again in a heartbeat if it meant I got to save somebody,” she said.

Cpl. Chris Manseau, an RCMP media relations officer, said officers are thankful Sara stepped in.

“In these types of situations -- they’re ongoing and dynamic -- we’d never want someone to put themselves in harm’s way, but in this incident, it did turn out that the actions were effective,” he said.

Roxanne Egan-Elliott, Times Colonist