INNISFAIL – When local teen Zike Maree was asked to accept the first-ever Bates Wardle Award she had no idea its origin was a miracle almost 70 years earlier in a sunburnt dusty southeastern Alberta village.
Along with two dozen other students, Maree was awestruck about the chain of events that led to a life- saving story of 11 people.
“I think it is an amazing story,” said Maree, a Grade 12 Innisfail High School student who was also given a $750 bursary on June 15. “And how he said he got an anonymous donation of money to take his training and ended up saving 11 lives. They would not have existed without him there.”
The storyteller was Cochrane’s Bob Wardle who came to Innisfail for Maree’s award ceremony. The week before In Cochrane the award was also handed to Grade 12 student Joseph Cline.
With Innisfailian Gavin Bates, the new annual award was established to recognize one youth from Innisfail and another in Cochrane who make extraordinary volunteer contributions to help others. Most importantly, the award recognizes the important community roles lifeguards play, something that irreversibly changed the lives of both Wardle and Bates.
It was under a blazing hot morning sun in 1951 when Wardle saved the life of Bates’ late wife Frankie when she was just 20 months old.
“It’s very difficult to put this into perspective. You hear some people say there is nothing insignificant in life. I guess maybe that is true,” said Bates’ oldest son Stephen who attended the Innisfail award ceremony. “You think about the amazing amount of circumstances that had to occur for this to happen, and in turn, for me and my brothers to exist is pretty amazing.”
CHANCE DAY OFF
Wardle was 15 years old on Aug. 10, 1951 and working six days a week as a lifeguard in Brooks, a job he earned because of an anonymous donation he received to realize his lifeguard dream. It was the teen’s day off. He decided to go to the nearby village of Tilley to visit his parents and work on his motorcycle at a friend’s garage.
At about 10:30 a.m. they heard screaming coming from a block and a half away. They raced to the source of the bone-chilling outburst. Frankie had fallen 13 feet into a cistern, topped with an 18-inch-square opening leading into a three-foot chute and into a 10-foot by five-foot steel tank filled with ice cold water.
“When we got there somebody had tried to put a ladder down the shaft. The ladder was too big and it jammed and you couldn’t get down the shaft. I remember running up and yelling to get the ladder out,” said Wardle, a thin boy suddenly charged to squeeze down the narrow chute to save Frankie.
THE RESCUE
With a rope wrapped around his chest Wardle was lowered into the chute and the cold blackness below.
After four harrowing minutes passed, Wardle found Frankie on his third rescue attempt.
“I planted my feet against the steel top of the tank and pushed real hard. That got me down right to the bottom. When I stuck my arm out there she was,” said Wardle. “I grabbed her hair. I went straight up to the shaft, stuck my head up through and yelled I had her. I then went back underwater and passed her body up through the shaft and felt them lift her away from my hands. Then they grabbed my wrists and lifted me out.”
THE VOICE
Wardle estimated Frankie had been underwater for at least 15 minutes. A large crowd of between 30 and 40 distraught citizens gathered at the cistern. Women were crying. Men were yelling. Chaos was everywhere. An unresponsive child — “as blue as a brand new pair of blue jeans” – lay motionless on the ground. One man uttered, “She’s dead, she’s dead.”
The child’s limp body was then handed to him. He laid Frankie on his shirt that was put on the ground.
And then came a voice.
“I could hear the voice of my lifeguard instructor telling me what to do. The training stepped forward and took over. I did what I was trained to do,” said Wardle, who then applied artificial respiration for an agonizing undetermined amount of time.
But the miracle did come — a rasping, croaking sound from Frankie. Against every conceivable odds imaginable, the child was alive. Within days she made a full recovery.
“It is amazing it all happened. If you really think about it his training was a chance thing. Being there was a chance thing,” said Bates. “When he went into that (rescue) he didn’t know what he was into. He’s just in there looking, dead dark. It’s all just a chance thing.”
HONOURS AND GRATITUDE
Wardle’s heroism was recognized by the Royal Life Saving Society with the first-ever Mountbatten Medal, now awarded annually, and only to a citizen from a Commonwealth nation, for the most gallant rescue or attempt undertaken in the previous calendar year. In July of 1952 at the Calgary Stampede the medal was presented to Wardle by Lord Lovat, a Second World War British hero.
“When you can look back on your life and remember something that was really special, this was it,” said Wardle, adding the rescue was made extra special by the warm friendship he maintained with Frankie for the rest of her life, which included the thrill of attending her marriage to Gavin on May 6, 1972.
“In later years Frankie started coming over, and she seemed to know when we needed a visit, she always came. She was an outstanding woman,” he said.
LOVING LEGACY
Frankie Bates passed away from cancer almost one year ago on June 29. She had 65 years of additional life because of Wardle’s heroism. Frankie’s survival meant meeting and marrying Gavin. They raised three boys — Stephen, 43, MIchael, 40, and Mark, 37. The couple had seven grandchildren. Eleven people saved.
The Innisfail community greatly benefited from Frankie’s survival. She was a beloved award-winning volunteer, always making herself available to help any worthy cause. Frankie was a cherished hockey mom who helped coordinate referees for the Innisfail Minor Hockey Association. She read to schoolchildren and dedicated her time to the Innisfail and District Food Bank.
“My mom never did any of her volunteer work for any recognition. She did it (because) part of her felt it was a duty as a member of the community to help out where she could,” said Stephen. “I think if she was here she would be humbled there was something in her name to recognize her contribution.”
As for Steven’s father, the award is especially fitting because Frankie did earn a life guarding bronze medallion when she was in university. However, most importantly, said Gavin, the award will inspire new heroes for future miracles.
“As much as we will get pleasure out of telling the story to kids every time we award it that’s not really what it’s there for,” said Gavin. “By us giving it this way we are giving it to somebody who could potentially save a life in the future.”
