Fire ignites familiar feelings for paddler’s sons
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/03/2010 (5915 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
THE 13-hour drive from his home in Davenport, Iowa, to Winnipeg gave Dana Starkell some time to think about his father.
"Very scared, oh man… I can’t even put it into words," the 49-year-old shared from a relative’s home in Thursday morning.
Starkell made the drive north to be with his father, Don, who was badly burned and suffered smoke inhalation in a house fire on Wednesday morning in East Kildonan.
"Until I spoke with the doctor and had a better idea what his condition was, I didn’t even want to think about what happened," Dana said.
"There were so many different things I was thinking about in the car."
Don Starkell, a local author and paddling legend, was rushed to Health Sciences Centre in critical condition following a blaze in his Hazel Dell Avenue home.
He suffered burns to his hands and arms; burns covered 20 per cent of his father’s body, Dana said.
On Thursday afternoon, Starkell was upgraded to stable condition.
"I was in complete shock when I heard about what happened," said Jeff Starkell, who was vacationing in Cuba when the fire happened. "To be able to see him (Thursday) was a relief. He’s still in rough shape though."
The Starkell brothers weren’t sure how long their father would remain in hospital.
It wasn’t the first time the family has gone through something like this with Don.
In 1990, a decade after he and his two sons, Dana and Jeff, embarked on a canoe trip from Winnipeg to the Amazon River, Don made headlines for his attempt to paddle the Northwest Passage in a sea kayak. Stranded in the Arctic Ocean near Tuktoyaktuk, Starkell was unable to complete his journey after the winter season had arrived a little earlier than anticipated. Endless blizzards in the region left him practically stationary and unable to get word of his predicament down south.
"That situation for me was a lot worse because they hadn’t found him," Dana said. "I knew he was in serious trouble that time because the weather conditions had taken a real serious turn. No one knew where he was. I couldn’t reach him and no one knew if he had frozen to death.
"The uncertainty was the worst."
Crews finally located a weary Starkell in the icy slush of McKinley Bay, with severe frostbite to his fingers and toes. The impact of the experience stuck with his son.
"My whole life changed at that point," Dana said. "I wasn’t sure if I was going to see him again.
"This (incident) felt the same as that."
The cause of the fire is still under investigation. Damage has been estimated at $200,000.
adam.wazny@freepress.mb.ca