Homeless man a hero after saving teen from Red River
Updated Wed. May. 6 2009 1:48 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
A homeless Winnipeg man is being hailed as a hero after rescuing a teenage boy from the frigid Red River.
Faron Hall was sitting with a friend on a bench near the Provencher Bridge on Sunday night when a teenager tried to jump from one part of the bridge to another.
The boy fell into the river and immediately began struggling to keep his ahead above water.
"All of a sudden we heard a splash and I just seen this young kid, his head bobbing up and down and he was saying he was cold," Hall said Wednesday morning on CTV's Canada AM, adding that the teen began yelling for help.
"And I just threw off my backpack and dove in the water."
Hall said the teen, whose identity has not been revealed, tried to fight him off and Hall had to hit him a couple of times to stop his struggling.
"I just told him, just trust me. I'll get us to grass, just trust me," Hall said.
The boy went limp and Hall turned him on his back, grabbed him by the arms and swam upstream about 10 to 15 yards to shore.
"It was cold and my friend on the bank, he said, 'Keep going.' He was yelling at me, 'Don't give up,'" Hall said.
When Hall and the teen got to shore, Hall's friend dragged them up onto the bank to safety before paramedics arrived.
The teen is reportedly recovering in hospital.
Marion Willis, who lives nearby and witnessed the rescue, was awestruck by Hall's efforts and said the Red River is especially cold and dangerous at this time of year.
"Anybody who has been to Winnipeg and knows the Red River you know that right now it is the icy red sea," Willis told Canada AM.
After witnessing Hall's heroics, Willis offered Hall an opportunity to live with her family and turn his life around.
Hall has battled alcoholism and has been on the streets for about seven years.
"In my mind Faron is truly a hero," Willis said.
The city of Winnipeg will honour Hall with a medal of honour, as well as season's tickets to Winnipeg Goldeyes baseball games.
He was also presented with a medal of valour by Mayor Sam Katz.
The ceremony took place near the riverbank where Hall often sleeps.
"It's kind of overwhelming," Hall said. "I've never had this kind of attention."
With files from The Canadian Press
That took guts!
Why would a possible concerned man sound off as a homeless man in the roundtable discussions of the press could he be somebody who doesn't have his other faculties and thereby leave the drowning kid to mark off in death? After all, it would sell the news everybody knows had he been an upright citizen who went into the water and made out with the kid it perhaps wouldn't have been mad e a big splash, but they did all celebrate that day for the homeless and the boy and another day in who knows where or anything, but he was a hero and humankind likes to make an effort to look up to a hero and elevate the homeless man to a status so they could feel comfortable doing that.
If the homeless man were to rob a store would it be in the news? Probably, its a story about more than one transference about the law and the poor man who couldn't afford to buy his gift after all who believes what they read in the paper its all controlled by the right to reinforce our mental attitudes of tier level economics, and keep us informed all the while that there are babies on the fringes of ethnic cleansing
Generous of them all for mentioning a homeless man why couldn't they help him when he needed a home to live in, their analysis of the situational remorse is let the tides turn unto those who can aid themselves and the boy were to drown for getting no help accordingly. I would have hated to live in that place and committed a blunder as a homeless person they would probbly have a subterfuge of willing agents ready to give you water torture for being homeless and disobeying the law.
What do people care about the homeless not a single person is going to run after and offer them shelter, but then again the level of caring is so below par in society its not surprising we don't have more wars but we do ourselves injustices by the way we live anyway.