 |
|
Gage Gabriel
|
| |
|
|
As Gage Gabriel spent Christmas Eve shivering on a beach near his dead mother’s body, two angels floating above the waters of the Bay of Fundy smiled at him and kept him company, the toddler says.
“One of our officers was talking to him and he mentioned that he saw a couple of angels with wings on the water,” said Amherst RCMP Sgt. Dave Bogle.
“Anything’s possible, let’s face it, when you look at someone surviving a crash like that.”
Gabriel’s mother, Tobi Gabriel, was killed when her car flew off a cliff and landed on the rocky shore off Lower Cove Road near Joggins, Cumberland Co., between 10 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. Christmas Eve. But the three-year-old survived the crash, and a cold night alone on the beach.
He had frostbitten toes and a bump on his head, but was otherwise unharmed when a neighbour found him at 9 a.m. Christmas day.
Gage said the two “angels” appeared on the water where his mother’s lifeless body floated near her overturned car.
Tobi’s grandfather, Roy Gabriel, believes the angels saved his great-grandson’s life.
“He said he saw two women in white dresses standing in the water smiling at him all night,” Roy Gabriel said yesterday.
“That’s what kept him alive. If it wasn’t for that, the boy would have died there in the rain.”
Sgt. Bogle believes Gage’s story about the angels because he hadn’t talked to any adults when he told the tale.
“It sets you back on your heels in a way. He’s three-years-old — how could he come up with this? There’s a higher body than me or you.”
Anglican minister Mel Langille wasn’t surprised to hear Gage was comforted by angels that cold, dark night.
“Angels touch people’s lives quite often at times when we are most in need,” said the minister at Holy Trinity Church in Yarmouth.
“They were comforting him and keeping him from despair, and letting him feel the warmth of God’s love.”
