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North Shore News

14-YEAR-OLD BURN VICTIM FOUGHT ODDS AND Wow

inette returns

ALTHOUGH HE'S still a
long way from complete re-
covery, burn victim) Mike
Pinette is already hoping to
play centre on his high
school football team next
year.

His mother Barbara baiks at
first. telling him it's a pasition
Where he'll eet tackled a lot. But
the I4-year-old persists, saying he
wants to eventually play football
for the B.C. Lions. His mother
ends up nodding her head in
agreement.

Pinette, who returned to school
full-time this week, is busy proving
he can obtain his goals despite a
June 16 tragedy, in which he
almost lost his life.

“We're the fortunate ones,”
said Barbara, recalling families of
other burn victims. ‘‘We can pick
up and go on...it doesn’t always
turn out that well.”

PROVED WRONG

Pinette was the only one injured
in a North Vancouver house fire,
that resulted in third-degree burns
to 65 per cent of his body and
second-degree burns to 10 per cent.
Doctors told the boy’s family he
wouldn’t have survived had there
been burns to another five to 10
per cent of his body.

Doctors also said Pinette would
be in hospital six months to one
year. But he proved them wrong.
Exactly eight months after the ac-
cident he ha: picked up where he
left off — cn Menday he started
his first day of class as a Grade 9
student at Siutherland Secondary
School.

“IT was nervous (about school),
but it turned out to be simple,”
said Pinette.

‘*I loved the attention, especially
from the girls.”’

Teacher Faye Miller said when
Mike returned to class a cheer rang
out from the other students.

“He was great. It was obvious
that he had an outstanding rela-
tionship with the other kids prior
to coming in,"’ she said.

POSITIVE FERSON

Sutherland principal Lorne
Schemmer said making the jump
from elementar, school to high
school isn’t easy for any teenager,
but Pinette is making the -adjust-
ment despite his injuries. So well in
fact that Schemmer said in some
ways Pinette reminds him = of
wheelchair athlete Rick Hansen.

“Mike’s view is that he can do
and he will do...1t’s a Rick Hansen
attitude —- where you do the best
you can with what you’re given,”
said Schemmer.

“When oa operon tas bad a
serious accideat seme take a very
sympathetic view of themselves
and they want to be eared for, but

Mike doesn’t take that view. do seg
him as a positive person who really
wants Co getoon with things and
move ahead.’

Pinette sums up his situation by
saying he doesn’t want to be
treated like a baby,

“Pee accepted the accident. he

BURN VICTIM Mike Pinette, seen here with his parents Barbara and Daniel and sister Lexie, went back to
school full-time this week. According to his teachers, the Grade 9 student aj Sutherland Secondary Sctiool has
made a remarkable comeback after a house fire accident last June.

Heritage building should sta

AN

ARCHITECT'S proposal

to move the old ferry

building in West Vancouver has met with opposition from
the North Shore Heritage Committec.

Commnittee president Jack Watts
said the ferry building should be
designated a heritage site, and kept
at its original location.

The proposal, outlined in the
Ambleside-by-the-Sea redevelop-
ment plan, calls for the building to
be moved to a nearby location to
the west.

But Watts said: ‘*‘The impor-
tance of a heritage building is for it

By KIM PEMBERTON

ws Reporter

to remain on its original site. B.C.
Heritage Trust has said it won't
recognize a building if it’s moved
off site.

“That's got to be pointed out to
(West Vancouver) council. I’m
surprised that the architect doesn’t

know that — they’re passing up
available funding if they do move
it,’’ he said.

Municipal manager Terry Lester
said while he appreciates the view
of the local heritage committee it is
important that the vista at the foot
of I4th Street be opened.

“From the photographs | have
seen, that whole site has changed
considerably,”’ said Lester.

“t don’t believe (the ferry
building) has to be preserved on
the site it was originally built —
the proposal is moving it no more
than 60 feet, perhaps 100 feet at

said, But 1 still remember
everything.

“Pfelta ioc of pain, but f didn't
feel anything right away. By the
time 1 got out of there Thad no
nerves left. Ewas in shack.’

Pinette said he was talking on
the telephone at the time of the ac-
cident, when he smelled something
Strange. Then there was an explo-
sion and he was engulfed in
Qames,

His mother and f2-year-old
sister pushed him outside and his
father turned the water hose on
him to keep his body temperature
down.

His last memory of the accident
is telling his father, ‘I love you."*

North Vancouver City Fire
Department has never been able to
determine the cause of the fire.

Two months later Pinette was
brought out of his drug-induced
coma at the burn unit of Van-
couver General Hospital.

FLIPPING OUT

‘*When I first got to look in a
mirror, that’s when I started flipp-
ing out. | didn’t know who I was
looking at...! didn’t have any
hair."*

Barb said she was worried that
when her son regained conscious-
ness he would have to took at his
newly-grafted arm.

‘it’s not a pretty sight. It’s kind
of like being locked inside a body
you don’t want. There were a lot
of tears at first,’’ she said. ‘But
you really have to be hopeful.
We're not going to have him back

: es
the way he was, but he is the.sanie* =~
person — he’s all there.” ose FELD

In any near-fatal accident Buar-
bara said the family changes.

“You tend to think, xe you
speak. You still get mad, bulyou
deal with it differently.’

Her son pipes in that it
brought the family closer.

‘They treat me like I’m me,"’ he
said.

One disagreement the family is
currently trying to overcome is
convincing the determined youth
that he should be wearing: his
special body suit, called a Jobst
Compression garment.

Doctors recommend the suit be
worn 23 hours a day for the next
year to help decrease scarring.

“I'M STUBBORN"

has

But Pinette rarely wears the
tight-fitting suit, ‘‘I'm stubborn.
I’m exactly like my dad,”’ he said.

“Right now he wants to be like
the other kids,’’ Barb explained.

“We'd like nothing more than
for him to wear it, but Michael is
saying ‘I don’t have to wear it
because it’s not that bad,’”’
"Although Pinette has had 20
operations io date, he is optimistic
about his year aheact, which will
include plastic surgery.

y put, citizens say

the most.’’

Lester said it will be council's
decision whether to accept or reject
the architect’s plans, and the pos-
sibility. of funding from B.C.
Heritage Trust will be an issue
council members will likely con-
sider.

He said no information on a
possible restoration grant has been
provided to council to date.

Lester said if council decides to
maintain the ferry building at its
current site, improvements will be
necded to the building's founda-
tion,