On What Janis Learned From Swimming in Lions Pool Back in Ontario: A story from India

Ed VandenDool (Janis’s Dad) is a musician from Canada

A story in a story about Janis Vandendool, a woman from Hagersville, Ontario. Thanks Praveen in Bangalore, India, for the suggestion. -gw

SAVED MAN

In a river in India, she had an unanticipated opportunity to practice the lifesaving techniques she learned as a girl in the Lions pool back in Hagersville.

One day, she spotted a man drowning in the Cauvery River in south India near the city of Mysore. It was during the monsoons and the current of the frozen river was flowing swiftly.

Nonetheless, she dove in and pulled him out, almost drowning herself in the process.

“It is dangerous rescuing drowning people, because they’re desperate and they fight you,” she explained. “But I used what I learned and it turned out OK.”

Then she laughed, “Don’t ever tell me that nothing good ever came of living in Hagersville.”

The incident was also a real- life parable bearing a spiritual lesson.

“It had a profound effect on him,” he recalled. “He said he was a Muslim from Iran and there were all these people standing there from different backgrounds, but nobody would help to save him except someone from North America — a place people in his country believe are their enemies.

“We are still friends and he still writes to me.”

http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1266527

Photo top: http://bahaievents.wordpress.com/2006/01/02/bahai-concert-in-bangalore/

Photo middle: “Traffic on the way home, going through Hagersville (taken trough my windshield),” uploaded on January 15, 2006 by pilaar39 on flickr, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic

Photo bottom: “Cauvery River,” uploaded on August 28, 2007 by abgpt , licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic