Game Designer Sacrifices Himself For Wife and Unborn Child

Written by Connor Beaton, published 7th September 2010

Brian Wood, perhaps best known for his work on the Company of Heroes series of first-person shooters and his role as the lead designer of Company of Heroes Online, was killed in a car accident on Friday when his Subaru wagon was hit by a reckless driver in a Chevy Blazer. Wood was driving the car with his pregnant wife of five years in the passenger seat and braked and swerved when the out-of-control vehicle made its way towards them, taking the full impact of the collision and saving his wife’s life.

The Blazer’s wheels crushed the roof of the substantially smaller Subaru and killed Wood and also giving his wife a non-life-threatening head injury. Two of the passengers inside the Blazer were killed, and the driver and passenger have been charged with three counts of vehicular homicide and one count of vehicular assault. There was evidence of drug use within the car, although no official statement regarding the nature of these drugs, rumoured to be either cocaine or marijuana, has been made.

His wife Erin has praised his dying actions. “All the policeman say that if we had hit the car head-on all of us would be dead. At the very last second he braked really hard and turned right so that he would be put in the path of the SUV and not me and the baby, and that is the only thing that saved us both. I am not going to waste the gift he gave us.” She also described her husband as “the most amazing warm-hearted man you would ever meet who loved his job, loved his family and was just my rock.”

Wood was also lead designer of Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor, supervisor for Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts and Level/Script Designer for the original Company of Heroes. All three games can be purchased together from Steam for a reduced price of £6.72 here.

Source: http://www.theprovince.com/news/final+only+thing+that+would+save/3487150/story.html