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Hero teaches good lesson

Posted: 05/6/2009 9:37 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Faron Hall, speaking Tuesday from the bench he sleeps on, near the spot where the 44-year-old saved a teenage boy from downing Sunday with the help of his friend Wayne Spence. (MIKE.APORIUS@FREEPRESS.MB.CA)

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Journalists get to meet heroes all the time: People who race into burning buildings, drag injured people from car wrecks, dive into icy water.

Sometimes that’s their job, making them no less brave; sometimes they just happened to be in the right place at the right time to save a life.

When I was a reporter, I was always fascinated by the answers I would get to questions of why the heroes did what they had done. Why do some people rush forward to help in a crisis while some rush back to save themselves?

Generally, humility ruled the day, mainly along the lines of, "I just did what anyone would have done," which wasn’t always true but inspirational nonetheless.

Winnipeggers were inspired this week by a hero who risked his life to pull a drowning boy from the frigid waters of the Red.

Faron Hall was sitting on a bench near the Provencher Bridge when he heard the cries of a boy who’d fallen from the bridge. Hall jumped into the river and swam out to save the boy, who’d been injured in his fall and apparently couldn’t swim. Hall could easily have died in the attempt.

He is one of those who rush forward, and we are quite rightly inspired by him.

But it’s not the awe with which people told and retold the story of Hall’s courage that struck me. It was their fascination with where he lived -- under the bridge the boy fell from.

Hall has been homeless and living under the bridge for about seven years now.

We need to ask ourselves why we would be shocked that a homeless person is brave. Why would we assume he is less likely to value life than those of us lucky enough to have homes?

Perhaps it’s our desire to simplify the world by making it one-dimensional. We reduce people to one characteristic to better categorize them.

Here’s a frumpy middle aged singer with bad eyebrows; she can’t sing like an angel.

Here’s a fat person on a reality show; he can’t have feelings.

Here is a homeless person; he can’t be courageous or compassionate. Or a hero.

Faron Hall taught us all a good lesson this week. Bravery and caring comes in all kinds of packages. I hope the lesson sticks.

Julie Carl, Winnipeg Free Press

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