Ruth Diamond lives a life of gratitude
Ruth and Sam Diamond on their wedding day in 1963: “HSC saved Sam’s life for me and for our family.”
“I saw what happened, but I didn’t see it,” reflects Ruth Diamond. “God gives us the gift to forget.”
While she forgets the precise terrifying moment a damaged tree fell on her beloved husband Sam, she vividly remembers everything else about the aftermath of a violent windstorm that struck her Whytewold home over 45 years ago.
“Three trees were leaning on each other, so Sam and the neighbours tried to take care of it,” says Diamond, 85. “The men were pushing boards against the trees to stabilize them and one of the trees snapped. Sam stumbled and it fell on him. It was huge.”
Sam lay on the ground in stunned silence, waiting for an ambulance; his body severely damaged by the impact.
“It’s hard to describe how he looked,” says Diamond. “His pelvis was broken, and his leg was flailing out. His hip, his knee, his joints were spread out like a frog’s.”
After being stabilized at a nearby community hospital, Sam was transported to HSC where he underwent complex orthopedic surgery. His case was a complicated one that included two stays in intensive care. The tree fell in such a way that it was inches away from damaging his heart, which would have been problematic given that he had undergone heart surgery in the past.
“They put a rod down his leg that went from his hip right down to his knee, and put wires in to hold everything in place,” recalls Diamond. “And there was a stabilizer bar that went across his front to hold his hips together so the pelvic bone could heal. It worked! They took such good care of him. HSC saved Sam’s life for me and for our family.”
After a two-week hospital stay and another week at home, Sam began rehabilitation, and stubbornly went back to work (before he was supposed to), running the family’s new business, Diamond Athletic Medical Supplies. “That’s who he was,” says Diamond of her husband. “He was a worker!”
Sam passed away in 2001, but Ruth Diamond remains grateful to HSC for the many extra good years Sam had, thanks to the skill and devotion of Sam’s surgeons and the other health care professionals who cared for him. She is also grateful for the care received by others in her family for a wide range of medical challenges over the years. She has been singing the praises of HSC for decades, and supporting the HSC Foundation for many years, including a major gift in 2025.
Her support comes from a place of gratitude and from her own family roots growing up on a farm near Dauphin.
“I learned from my mom that you have to help others; you have to give,” says Diamond. “I remember her sending two dollars at a time overseas to help hungry kids even when we sometimes didn’t have enough money to buy new pencils for school. It didn’t make sense to me when I was little, but it does now. It is so important to help others.”
Through her upbringing, Ruth Diamond learned that communities can thrive only when people volunteer and contribute financially, especially to causes that support people’s well-being, like the HSC Foundation.
“At my age, the best way I can help is by making donations, and it is a privilege to do so,” she says. “Where would we be without health care? It is our responsibility to give back when we can.”
