Oosterzele The 28-year-old David Verhelst from Balegem came in april last year to life in a kajakongeval in Dinant, while a mother and her child in the water for help, heard the call. The Royal Society for recipients of Decorations and Medals of Belgium decided him posthumously a medal to be awarded. “This was a real act of courage and self-sacrifice.”
The facts occurred on april 7, 2018, around noon, in Dinant. David and his dog, Vito traveled when the river Lesse with a kayak. During the trip, he helped a mother and her daughter who had come on the river. Not much later, at the final hurdle, it was again wrong for the same duo: the kayak of mother and daughter was turned upside down. David heard the hulpkreten and decided immediately upstream to sail to help them. By the roaring water and the passage of the mother and daughter is his kayak when tilted and he then drowned. All the help could not avail. His dog Vito was itself a rescue, just like the two women that he was trying to save.
A heart of gold
The family of David was after the accident in sackcloth and ashes. His partner Leonie was at the time of the facts pregnant with their second child. David himself was the only child of mother Annie and father Patrick. They had a close bond with their son, who near lived. “David had a heart of gold,” said Leonie in a conversation with our newspaper. “Everyone saw hém like. He was a good man.”