SASKATOON — Brad Pilon considers seeing a young boy in danger as one of the longest 15 seconds of his life. Thanks to quick thinking and maybe the adrenaline kicking in, he jumped into the cold South Saskatchewan River, swam towards the boy and safely brought him to shore.
For that heroic feat, Pilon was presented with the Bronze Medal on Thursday by Saskatchewan Lt.-Gov. Russell Mirasty during the Royal Canadian Humane Association Bravery Awards at TCU Place.
On April 10 of last year, Pilon and his wife Ashley were competing in a running event along the Meewasin Trail near the South Saskatchewan River when he saw a boy running and screaming for help after another child was struggling to stay afloat in the water.
He ran towards the shore and yelled to the boy in the water to kick and swim towards him but the kid, who was about 25 feet away from the shore, told him he can’t swim. That’s when he entered the cold and deep water to guide the boy to the shore.
“You don’t hear those kinds of screams every day. There was panic in his voice and so I went back to help the first boy and that’s when I heard another scream for help that was coming from the river. I ran down to the shore knowing that he was in trouble,” Pilon told SASKTODAY.
“I tried to encourage him to kick and swim towards me but he yelled out that he did not know how to swim. It felt like a millisecond that I was in the water going in. There was no panic in me, I just went in to get him. He hung on my left arm. [I]told him to hold on and swam back to shore.”
Pilon’s friend and other concerned citizens, one of whom already called 911, were waiting by the shore to help keep them warm and dry them. The boy later received medical attention once the paramedics arrived.
Pilon added that was the first and last time he saw the boy, whose family says they are thankful that a person like him saved a child who could have fallen in the water while playing by the river.
“I didn’t stick around and get any information. I haven’t talked to him. I’d just brought him to the shore and that was the last time I saw him. I did not investigate. Kids are kids,” he said.
Pilon, after drying himself and resting briefly, continued the race with his teammates, finishing the course. The team was already in the eighth of 11 legs when he stopped to help save the boy.
The race was called the four-by-four challenge where participants run four miles every four hours for 48 hours. Pilon said they were almost done with the eighth leg when he encountered the boys who were screaming for help.
“We had already run over six kilometres at that point before I went into the water so my body temperature was up and the adrenaline was flowing. When I got back to the hotel and warmed up, we rested for another four hours before we ran again and completed the race,” said Pilon.
