Feature stories can sometimes be the hardest to report. Unlike a breaking news event, they require a nearly perfect and impossible lineup of agendas. But it's so nice when everything does come together.
Cathy Isphording helped rescue Vivian Holley, 84, and Henry Harris, 73, whose boat capsized in the Patapsco River on Saturday. While pulling Vivian aboard the sailboat, rescuers noticed his ring was about to fall off, and they took it for safe keeping. Holley was rushed to the hospital before Cathy could return it.
She didn't have a name and Maryland Shock Trauma Center wouldn't give her any information. So she brought the ring to the Baltimore Police Department's Central District station, in an envelope with "William" scrawled on the outside (what she thought was Vivian's name). On Sunday, Cathy e-mailed a reporter at the Baltimore Sun wondering if we could track the ring.
I called police on Monday and a spokesman called the Central District and Officer Helen Mateo found it in the desk. We still didn't have a name of the victim though. But Mateo tracked down the police report and found Vivian at Shock Trauma. About the same time, Vivian's daughter in Buffalo called the newsroom looking for a phone number for the fire department so she could thank them.
Thought that, I was able to call Vivian and talk to him at the hospital, and the daughter, Bonnie Hawkins, was able to talk to her father's rescuer, Cathy Isphording. Tears were shed. A fun, bright story was born. A man saved. A ring found. Red tape cut. And a very happy retired longshoreman who lives to fish another day.