Joey Payeur
For several years, Kristina Bombay has lived with the agonizing memory of two similar tragedies just three days apart.
One took away someone close to her; the other claimed the man who was trying to make sense of the first situation that took away someone he had guided through many hockey exploits.
But a chance reading of a newspaper article has led the 27-year-old Emo resident to redirect her trauma into a life-saving gesture towards her fellow First Nation members.
Bombay was in Pikangikum First Nation, about 100 km north of Red Lake, on Aug. 5 to help with the distribution of 80 lifejackets to community members there as part of the “Remember Your Lifejacket” campaign initiated last fall by Dryden OPP Sgt. Marty Singleton.
“Five years ago, my boyfriend, Clayton ‘Beef’ Windigo and I jumped off the Bear Pass Bridge,” recounted Bombay about the 2010 incident that resulted in the drowning death of Windigo.
“It was a tragic accident.”
The investigation into Windigo’s death was led by OPP Cst. Bob Mainville, a Couchiching First Nation resident who had coached Windigo when the defenceman was a member of the Borderland Thunder from 2002-05.
Just over 72 hours after Windigo lost his life, Mainville drowned while boating on Rainy Lake.
In both cases, neither victim was wearing a lifejacket at the time.
Fast forward to this past May, when Bombay saw an article in the Fort Frances Times regarding Sgt. Singleton’s creation of “Remember Your Lifejacket” as a tribute to both his former law enforcement colleague and to the young skater in which Mainville instilled his wisdom.
“I called every OPP member I could Google to find out how to get a hold of him [Singleton] so I could help,” Bombay said.
“It’s an amazing campaign and I was thinking about doing something like that, as well,” she added.
Sgt. Singleton’s aim was to provide lifejackets to people in First Nation communities, especially those where economic hardship leads to having to make do with only the most basic needs for day-to-day life.
“The first thing these people are going to buy with what little money they have is not going to be a $45 lifejacket,” noted Bombay, who works as an educational assistant at Donald Young School in Emo.
“It’s going to be food and clothing.”
Sgt. Singleton wasted little time in inviting Bombay to get on board with a mission that was very close to both of their hearts.
“He called me back within days and we talked for a while,” she said.
“I started writing up all these donation [request] letters and handing them out to major businesses in the district.”
Bombay was overwhelmed by the immediate show of support given to the cause.
“We had $3,000 raised in just a couple of days,” she marvelled in appreciation of those businesses that stepped up to the plate.
The decision was made last month to select Pikangikum as the place to bring the first collection of lifejackets.
“Pikangikum was chosen for us to visit because it’s a remote reserve where the unemployment rate is huge,” Bombay said about the community of about 3,000.
Bombay and Sgt. Singleton navigated around Pikangikum Lake by boat, stopping unsuspecting and somewhat wary travellers to hand out the lifejackets.
“We’d ask them to pull over and they got scared because we were on an OPP boat,” she chuckled.
“People were shaking our hands and were so appreciative,” she added. “You could see it in their faces.”
Those lifejackets that weren’t handed out on the lake were snapped up by those on shore.
“They were gone within 10 minutes,” recalled Bombay, who noted donations of 50 lifejackets each already have been made to Red Gut and Couchiching.
“We could only fit so many into the boat and the vehicle we came up in,” she explained.
“Their reaction to getting them made me feel so good inside, but then I felt awful when more came in to get one and we had no more left.”
Bombay made it clear the range of water activities which necessitate the use of a lifejacket don’t stop at boating.
“It’s important to have it for all kinds of water sports and activities, like tubing and wakeboarding,” she stressed.
Sgt. Singleton’s original goal for “Remember Your Lifejacket” was to collect enough money to purchase 100 lifejackets.
An error in a Toronto Star article this past April, though, gave the campaign a whole new magnitude.
“In the article, they put that we were trying to get 1,000 lifejackets,” Bombay grinned.
That far-reaching goal is about 80 percent of the way completed, though, with nearly 800 lifejackets purchased so far.
“We’ll keep working towards our goal and when we reach it, we’ll just keep on going from there,” vowed Bombay, who said it’s well past time to eliminate what she considers the ridiculous notion of those who use lifejackets being somehow weak in character.
“Not so long ago, I was on the lake when someone who was with me said, ‘Look at the loser over there wearing the lifejacket,’ in referring to someone on another boat,” Bombay said.
“[But] I’d rather look like a dork wearing a lifejacket than be in a casket because of something that could have been prevented so easily.”
Bombay said the older you get, the more common sense you should have.
“Anything is possible and it can happen within seconds,” she stressed.
“When you see what happened to ‘Beef’ and Bobby, it really hits home.”
Anyone wanting to contribute to the lifejacket campaign can call Bombay at 271-0163.
