Woman seeks mystery hero who saved her from drowning in Toronto

A woman from Barrie, Ont., is hoping the power of social media will help find the man who saved her from drowning nearly four decades ago.

Edith Beliwicz, née Langille, was three years old in 1977 when her mother took her to a picnic party at Toronto’s Cherry Beach. During the festivities, young Beliwicz waddled away from the group and was swept into the water.

“A lot of the adults thought I was a doll floating in the water,” Beliwicz tells Yahoo Canada News. “The only memory I have of it is looking at the sky.”

Luckily, a 14-year-old boy named Terrence Perry happened to see the child and jumped in with his dog Whiskey to save her.

A newspaper article was written about the young hero, which Beliwicz rediscovered about a month ago.

The news report inspired her to go searching for him, so she could get a chance to personally thank the man who saved her life.

Little is known about the mystery hero, aside from the fact that he’s from Bermuda and lived at the time on Raja Avenue in North York. The article mentioned police would recommend a civilian citation for bravery for the then Grade 7 student from Ledbury Park Elementary and Middle School.

While Beliwicz, who works in customer service, has called several people in the phonebook with the same name, she’s had no luck. She tried similar efforts to find her birth father in 2007 but learned that he passed away a year earlier. Beliwicz hopes she still has a chance to find the man who saved her life.

That’s why she’s taken to Facebook in an effort to find him, posting a clipping of the newspaper article from 1977 and asking anyone with information to get in touch with her.

“I just want to say thank you and see if he’s OK,” she says. “That’s all. I got a good life out of it. I’m 41 now, two kids, married and happy. It’s really thanks to him.”