Elgin firefighter's son goes back to site of dad's heroism

Thirty-five years is a long time.

So is 20.

Chris Whalen finally got a chance Friday to visit a memorial recognizing his father's heroism and to share memories with those who worked along side his dad and watched in horror as he drowned 35 years ago while trying to save someone who went over Elgin's Kimball Street dam on a $5 bet.

Firefighter Michael Whalen and fire Capt. Stanley Balsis died on June 2, 1974. Chris Whalen, now 40 and living in Connecticut, had been away from Elgin for 20 years. He'd never seen the memorial that was put up in their honor five years ago.

He was joined by retired firefighters who tried to save his dad on that day, along with other Elgin firefighters who wanted to show their support, such as Fire Chief John Henrici, Lt. Richard Dunne and Whalen's cousin, Mitch Whalen, who is an Elgin firefighter himself.

Whalen said he was touched by the support.

"This was really powerful, getting to meet the people who worked with my father," Chris Whalen said. "I was so young (in 1974). Now I've got the tools, the adult maturity to deal with it. I was actually looking very much forward to it."

Whalen reunited with an old Larkin High School friend, Kim Gilmore, through Facebook earlier this year and asked about the memorial to his father. That's was the start of Friday's reunion and ceremony.

Curtis Balsis, the son of Stanley Balsis, was 12 when his father died. The younger Balsis couldn't make Friday afternoon's ceremony, but planned to meet up with Whalen while he was in town.

Curtis said June 2, 1974, was a Sunday and the fire chief and another man pulled up to his Elgin home to tell him what happened. "It was a sad day," he said.

On that day, a 25-year-old went over the dam in a raft on a $5 dare. Firefighters rushed to the scene, but the churning waters capsized the V-bottomed aluminum boat that Whalen and Balsis were in.

The boil eventually ejected the boat, which the rafter grabbed onto and survived.

But the river pulled Whalen under relatively quickly and he was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Balsis grabbed onto the raft itself and he struggled with the water for 45 minutes before drowning.

The reunion brought back painful memories for retired firefighter Larry Judkins and former Batallion Chief Craig Eadler - both of whom responded that day.

Eadler performed CPR on Whalen on the ambulance ride.

"All the gear the guys had on, the life jackets, were totally stripped off them. It's that powerful," said Eadler, who noted he almost quit the department after the tragedy. "To actually see somebody drown in front of your eyes, I wouldn't wish that on anybody. You're helpless. One minute you're laughing and joking, drinking coffee and then they're gone."

Judkins worked with other firefighters from the riverbank trying to rescue Balsis.

"We got a rope to him a couple of times. He couldn't hang onto it. We later found out that his collarbone and shoulder were broken and he was hanging onto the raft with his good arm," Judkins recalled.

Judkins said the tragedy was a wake-up call to him that firefighters were not invincible. The image of Balsis' body being tossed in the water will live with him forever.

"It was like looking at a front-loading washing machine. he just tumbled and tumbled and he was gone," Judkins said. "Firemen sometimes think we're like Superman. People call us, we solve your problem and then we go. That day, we saved the person, but we couldn't save our own guys."