Erin Wood recalls her husband Brian as a selfless man who was counting the days until the couple welcomed the birth of their first child. And while she is filled with grief, she is equally filled with gratitude to him for sacrificing his life to save two others — hers and that of their unborn baby.

The Vancouver, B.C., couple were traveling through Washington state to visit family Friday when an oncoming Chevy Blazer weaved wildly. As the car hurtled at them head-on, Brian braked hard and swerved to the right, ensuring he would take the brunt of the crash as the Blazer slammed into them.

“He definitely saved us. He made that choice, and I’m thankful for that.”

It was a life cut short for Brian, 33, lead designer for Relic Entertainment, renowned in the computer gaming world for such games as “Company of Heroes.” He would have been celebrating his fifth wedding anniversary with Erin on Friday; instead, she and family are planning his funeral for Sunday.

“It’s pretty obvious if you look at the car that if it would have been a head-on crash, we both would have been killed, right along with our baby,” Erin Wood told Carl Quintanilla on TODAY Monday from Vancouver.

[...]

Read the complete story at MSNBC’s TODAY: Heroes & Angels.

Or at Lifesitenews.com.

References and links:

• http://kotaku.com/#!5636725/company-of-heroes-designers-widow-tells-her-story
• http://kotaku.com/#!5638353/an-open-letter-from-the-company-of-heroes-developers-widow
• http://www.brianwoodmemorialtrust.com/

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Personal notes:

Last month I shared about Aikawa’s heroic tale saving both his wife and mother, then earlier this week I shared about Kanno’s heroic tale that made it to TIME 100, saved dozens of people in his hospital in post-quake and post-tsunami Japan. Had they just waited for help to come… the story might have had a different outcome. Thanks to their quick thinking and judgement, they saved lives.

I remember once (years ago) my Chinese teacher shared a story and she asked the whole class of what would we do if we were faced with a life-changing and life-saving dilemma. The biggest dilemma was that we couldn’t save all and we had to choose and make a decision. A very tough decision that might change everything we have in life.

Just imagine this situation (if you have had trauma caused by accident(s), you probably want to skip this):

“You and your family members just got involved in an accident and somehow the boat, you all were on, capsized by the turbulent water, into the freezing water at night. There were you, your spouse and your mother on the boat. You struggled and managed to get a hold of something. You are now have a clear sight of both your spouse and your mother.

The bad news is… they are both on separate streams going down the fierce river. As experienced as you are, deep down you knew that you could only save one of them, and the probability of that is also slim. Time is running out and you have to make a decision ASAP.

What would you do? You have to choose… whom will you (try to) save?”

Then, she said that this dilemma was asked to couples during some sort of relationship sessions… and you were asked to give your answer in front of your significant other. Each wrote their answer on a piece of paper, once time is up they were to tell his/her spouse the answer. Imagine the impact of your answer would be. And think about all the mind-boggling question popping up in your head: “Does he/she really, truly love me?”, “Did he really meant it when he said he’d die for me?”

So… back to the situation… what’s your split-second life-changing and life-saving decision(s)?