Injured in a workplace accident, Toby Tutkaluk has been out work and out of luck for seven years. Today, he says he is gaining strength and optimism about his own life - because he saved the life of someone else.

Tutkaluk was one of the quick-thinking rescuers who happened on the scene of a horrific car crash on Feb. 5, when Lisa Klassen's Jeep flew off a bridge and crashed into the frozen Red River.

Lisa Klassen is now recovering from her injuries, and on Thursday held a news conference to say thank-you to her rescuers, and to say she "has experienced the hand of God."

She's not the only one.

"There's always this question in my head of why something like that would happen to me," Tutkaluk told CTV's Caroline Barghout about his past. "I thought I was pretty fortunate in what I had for a job. I was making my way up. I had no problems - and then I got injured."

Tutkaluck suffered a brain injury that forced him to leave his job, and left him depressed.

But in one day all of that changed. In what he calls a series of unlikely events, he was at the right place at the right time, and with the right tools to save the life of a woman he'd never met.

It started that fateful morning, when Tutkaluk's often unreliable truck actually started. He said normally he would have taken a cab to his regular physiotherapy appointments. He also decided to take a different route that day - one that would put him on the North Perimeter Bridge when Lisa Klassen's Jeep Liberty went into the Red River. He didn't know why - but the night before he had also thrown a knife and an old jacket into his truck.

That morning he found out why. He used the knife to cut Klassen free from her seatbelt, and later wrapped Klassen in the jacket after he pulled her out of the water.

Tukaluk believes it all happened for a reason. A reason, or perhaps a miracle, that saved one life... and changed the outlook for another.

"Now I wake-up in the morning and go looking for something good to happen," he said.

Toby Tutkaluck and fellow rescuer Dale Kasper were reunited with Lisa Klassen last week.