TTC worker hailed as 'guardian angel' for saving woman's life

When Michele-Marie Beer was trembling, dizzy on a Toronto streetcar, she never imagined the driver might save her life.

But Beer says that's exactly what Monique Blake did when she insisted Beer stay on her streetcar until help arrived.

It turns out Beer, the passenger, needed brain surgery to remove a life-threatening tumour that had been growing behind her right eye for years.

"I'm alive because of this amazing woman that wouldn't let me off a streetcar because she saw me," Beer told CBC Toronto this week.

In a June 9 Facebook post, Beer said of Blake: "She is forever my guardian angel."

According to Beer, it all began when she was on a 510 Spadina streetcar after a Blue Jays game on May 31.

The streetcar pulled into Spadina station after midnight. 

Beer said she was feeling dizzy with what she thought was post-concussion syndrome following a fall in January, when she hit her head on a streetcar on the same route.

A passenger helped her to get to the front of the streetcar. She was planning to get off, when Blake, returning from warming her dinner, spotted her.

The pair made eye contact and Blake noticed Beer was flushed and distressed.

"I mouthed to her and I said: 'Are you okay?' And she said no," Blake said.

Blake said Beer said she didn't want to disrupt anything, but Blake told her she would call for help.

"I noticed she got up. She was shaking. She had tremours in her left hand. And I was like, 'OK, that's not good,'" Blake said. "She made it to the front and then I called."

Blake said Beer protested, not wanting to hold up service. But Blake persisted because she knew it was something more severe.