Otis Grant bears down on Charles Adamu at the Bell Centre in 2005. Grant won a unanimous decision.
Photograph by : JOHN KENNEY, GAZETTE FILE PHOTOS

It was one of those moments that defines a life. Otis Grant, then the former WBO middleweight boxing champion, was driving south on Highway 15 north of Laval on the evening of June 10, 1999. With him in his van were his longtime boxing buddy Herc Kyvelos and his Grant’s daughter, Alexandria, then 4 years old.

For reasons that will never be known, 43-year-old Jasmine Giroux of Terrebonne drove her car up an exit ramp in the wrong direction and directly into Grant’s path.

There was no time to think. No time to work out a response. No time to avoid a certain, high-speed impact and possible multiple fatalities.

With the split-second reflexes of a champion boxer and the courage of a man who had survived ring wars with the likes of James (Hard Rock) Green and Roy Jones Jr., Grant did what his instincts told him to do.

To spare Kyvelos and Alexandria, he turned the steering wheel and swerved hard to the right in order to absorb the impact of the collision on his side of the van.

With that spin of the wheel, Kyvelos and Alexandria emerged unhurt. Grant found himself lying beside his vehicle with four broken ribs, a broken shoulder and badly bruised lungs.

Source: The Gazette