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'Hummer hero' driver won’t see insurance hike

EDMONTON — An Edmonton man who purposely drove his Hummer into another car to save four young pedestrians doesn’t need to worry about his insurance going up.

EDMONTON — An Edmonton man who purposely drove his Hummer into another car to save four young pedestrians doesn’t need to worry about his insurance going up.

Darrell Krushelnicki of Taber, was leaving an Edmonton shopping mall parking lot last week when he noticed a potentially dangerous situation.

A car in the far lane was showing no signs of slowing down even as other cars were stopped to let four children use a crosswalk.

Krushelnicki says the driver was on his cell phone and didn’t appear aware of the situation, so he made the split-second decision to pull out and let his own vehicle get hit instead.

Even though Krushelnicki was the one who instigated the collision, Rosa Nelson of Intact Insurance says he won’t be held liable.

His deductible will be waived and police have said he will face no charges.

“We believe that insurance is about people, not things,” said Nelson. “We appreciate that thanks to Darrell’s quick response, four children were unharmed last week while crossing a pedestrian crosswalk.”

Troy Bourassa, director of claims for the Alberta Motor Association, says his company would have done the same thing.

“It’s an interesting scenario from an insurance perspective,” he admits. “A lot of people might look at it and say ’well, insurance policies don’t cover intentional acts.’ But my read on this would be the intention of the driver was not to cause damage to his vehicle, it was to prevent a worse accident from occurring.”

A Facegroup group has started to commend Krushelnicki, who has been dubbed the “Hummer Hero.”

The driver of the other vehicle has been charged with dangerous driving.