15 years ago, Tim Jones saved my life: A father's story
'When somebody saves your son, it doesn't get any more important than that,' Kathleen Walker says
On Jan. 22, 1999, North Shore Rescue found a group of young snowboarders stuck on a steep slope out-of-bounds of Cypress Bowl ski hill in blizzard-like conditions with temperatures reaching down to -11 C.
Kathleen Walker's son, Eirean, was one of them. If it weren't for Tim Jones's leadership that night, she says she might not be a grandmother today.
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"By going out that night, when other people wouldn't go out, he affected so many lives," she said.
"I've never been more grateful to anybody in my life," she said. "When somebody saves your son, it doesn't get any more important than that."
Eirean Walker, now a father of two, only met Jones that one, extremely critical time.
"It is a Jimmy Stewart story for sure. If he wasn't around, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have made it," he said.
"I just remember the sense of relief, of overwhelming relief when I saw that helicopter.
"To find us alive and well — I think he was as happy as I was," he said.
Click the video player above to hear more about Eirean Walker's rescue — another legacy of Tim Jones's search and rescue efforts in B.C.
With files from the CBC's Deborah Goble