Swimming against the current

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/05/2009 (6001 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I wasn’t sure if I’d recognize him, even from seeing his photo in the newspaper. But I went looking for a hero Tuesday.

Not an easy task these days, but an assignment made even more challenging by the fact our hero doesn’t have a home, unless you count the park bench where he sleeps.

Which is beside the river where Faron Hall heard a splash Sunday and, in a flash, was in the treacherous water, risking his life to save a teenage boy who had accidentally fallen from the Provencher Bridge.

Not an easy task, either.

Especially since Faron had been drinking, and may even have been intoxicated according to a witness who approached him as the 44-year-old hero sat alone, exhausted and shivering before a paramedic drove him to hospital because of what he’d been drinking.

No, not the booze.

The river water.

I tell you this not in a judgemental way, but to underscore that Faron was battling more than the river’s current when he swam out to rescue a stranger. But that’s a story for later.

First, we need to celebrate the man.

"ö "ö "ö

I didn’t recognize Faron when I saw him, but he recognized me.

I’d met him one day a few years ago at city hall, of all places, and later visited his riverside camp.

Now Faron was back by the river, at the scene of the rescue, having been delivered there by a TV crew that proudly stated they had found him at a downtown bar called Bleachers.

Which might explain, in part at least, why Faron was intoxicated when he arrived to meet the media and the mayor.

I regret to say I don’t know how almost all the local and national media — and Sam Katz — ended up at riverside with our homeless hero in tow.

I only know how I got there, after searching for most of the morning. At the risk of sounding hypocritical, I must say there was something distasteful about the way the media pack circled our homeless hero.

He’s a man I suspect most people wouldn’t stop to check on if he were asleep on a sidewalk, never mind dive in to save if he were drowning.

I guess we were all just doing our jobs, but that didn’t make me feel any better about being there with the rest of the wolves. And at times Tuesday afternoon, when Faron was weeping, looking so weary and complaining two days later of still feeling cold from the water, I felt he needed someone to rescue him.

From us.

Strangely, I didn’t feel that way about Katz being there. Faron greeted the mayor by name and with a hug, which both surprised and clearly moved the mayor.

In the process, Faron asked to see a Winnipeg Goldeyes game at the ballpark across the river from where he sleeps.

Instead, Katz gave him a season pass.

The mayor also told him he intended on honouring his bravery in a ceremony today.

Then, Grand Chief Morris J. Swan Shannacappo of the Southern Chiefs Organization arrived, appearing to me to be more like a pushy politician than someone who really cared.

Still, the Grand Chief promised to drive Faron to see the father he hasn’t seen in nine years and put him up in a hotel Tuesday night.

As for what else Faron wished for — besides the Goldeyes pass — he said he wanted some new shoes, which the chief also granted him. And a job. There was one more thing: He wants to meet the family of the boy whose life he saved.

Then he said this: "Let me be the way I want to be. I’m not bothering nobody."

"ö "ö "ö

My newsroom phone rang late Tuesday afternoon. Faron’s 27-year-old stepdaughter, Kristy Assin, was on the line asking if I knew where she could find him.

"I’m so proud of him," she said.

I told her and then we spoke for a few minutes. She explained that Faron and her mother had been together — on and off — for most of her life.

But all the drinking had caused them to "drift apart."

I asked Kristy if she thought he would ever stop drinking.

"I don’t think he would quit."

"Slow down" is the best Kristy could hope for.

"It’s so hard when you’re sad and depressed and lonely," she said. "All you want to do is drown your sorrows."

Drown your sorrows.

That’s the chilling irony isn’t it?

That Faron Hall could risk his life to save someone else from drowning. But he can’t seem to save himself.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca

 

Did you witness the rescue, or do you know the boy who was saved? The Free Press would like to know how he’s doing. E-mail us at city.desk@freepress.mb.ca or call 697-7292.