Canada

Parents grieve for little 'hero'

By IAN ROBERTSON, TORONTO SUN

Wracked by sobs, comforting his wife and being comforted by friends, Muralidaran Nadarajah called his eldest son a hero after drowning in a valiant bid to save a pal when they fell into an icy pond.

Birunthan Nadarajah, 11, died Sunday after Toronto Police found him in a water retention pond where he broke through a thin shell of ice trying to reach Koshoban Alakeswaran, 15.

Alakeswaran, the first to be pulled out after a 45-minute search, remains in Sick Kids hospital in critical condition.

Four cops were treated for hypothermia after breaking through the surface about 10 metres from shore below Morningside and Finch Aves.

"He was not ready to give up his friend," the dad said yesterday in the livingroom of his Salamander St. home, his keening wife Sathiyasri Ratnasingham beside him, near a burning candle in front of photos of their third-born.

"My son was the youngest in the crowd and he wanted to do something," Nadarajah said. "It explains everything " UNKNOWN_ENTITY_¦ he is a hero.

"I am proud of him, he didn't want to run away," his father said. "He has given his life for him.

"I am so sad, it hurts," said Nadarajah, who sent his family from war-torn Sri Lanka in 1998, then joined them a year later for a better life in Canada. "Oh, my heart!"

Between sobs, the grieving dad said, "I want to meet the person who tried to protect my son," a passing motorist who heeded the boys' cries and crawled onto the ice before also breaking through.

Rescued by police, Phil Hall "put himself at risk trying to save the kids," Staff-Sgt. Scott Weidmark said.

There have been conflicting reports about whether the boys went onto the ice together, "but it was a huge and confusing scene," he said.

The boys also told police they were looking for a place to play a game of pickup soccer, but Nadarajah insisted "they went for sightseeing. It was a beautiful day."

His son, a Grade 6 student at Thomas L. Wells Public School on Nightstar Rd., loved theatre, singing, volleyball, basketball, soccer, "and was very smart," he said.

Nadarajah said the friend known as "Kisho" was a regular visitor at their home, being tutored in English and math by his daughter Thuvaraga, 17. Taller and heavier, "he is a silent kid ... I don't know why he tried to walk on the ice."

Through staff at Sick Kids, Koshoban's family asked for the condition of the Grade 10 student at Woburn Collegiate to be withheld.

At the partially ice-covered pond, where hundreds of Canada Geese were the only occupants, Wini Ramprasad said her daughter, who goes to Thomas Wells, "told me children were crying and they are doing some counselling."

Staff referred reporters to school board officials.

Across from the silent, dark Alakeswaran home on Bobolink Ave., neighbour German Flaminiano, 58, said he often saw Koshoban and his brother "playing basketball outside, in the summer.

"I've seen the boy who drowned, too," the grandfather-of-three added. "They used to play in the street here, before the park was done.

"This is a real tragedy, really sad," he said.

"They're just regular kids," said Ross Rosales, 40, who lives next door.

Cnews