I wish there were more stories like this in the media (not necessarily of people dying, but positive stories)...

Long-awaited inquest into tragic death of heroic Costa Rican man could bring much needed changes to Ontario's demolition laws

By MICHELE MANDEL

The Uptown Theatre is long gone. So, too, is the Yorkville English Academy.

The young boy is 14 now and back home in South Korea, while the man who saved him with his own life is but a memory.

Almost four long years have passed since Augusto Cesar Mejia Solis was killed in a demolition accident that never should have happened.

The long-awaited inquest finally begins tomorrow into the death of Solis, a 27-year-old Costa Rican who was killed Dec. 8, 2003, when a wall of the historic movie house suddenly collapsed during demolition and slammed into the Balmuto St. school next door where he was learning English.

Solis was hailed as a hero when rescuers found that his lifeless body had been shielding 10-year-old Seung Woo (Tommy) Cho.

"Frankly, we're lucky that there was only one fatality," says Lorna Spencer, counsel for the coroner. "There could have been so many more people killed in this accident."

Priestly Demolition Inc. of Aurora pleaded guilty to a violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act and was fined $200,000 last October.

A ministry of labour probe found a worker using high reach mechanical shears cut the main roof truss, a key structural component of the theatre, leading to its collapse.

Solis' family has informed Spencer that they will not be attending the inquest. "They want to be apprised of the recommendations but as far as being actively involved, it's not something they want to do."

DEEPLY RELIGIOUS

He was their eldest son, a deeply religious man who reminded his new Canadian friends of a young John Travolta. Solis was a business graduate who hoped that coming to Toronto to improve his English would win him a job as an auditor for an international company back home in Costa Rica. During his six months here, he constantly e-mailed his family and his beloved fiancee.

And so it was that he was on one of the school's computers during a mid-morning break when tonnes of bricks and masonry came crashing down.

Seated beside him was a little boy playing computer games while his mother learned English. Solis' quick action in protecting Tommy is credited with saving his life.

The boy's grateful mother was shaking with tears when she arrived at the funeral home with a heartbreaking letter her son had written in Korean to his saviour.

'I WANT TO BE LIKE YOU'

"Dear Augusto; Thank you. Because of your actions I am alive. At the time I was so scared. Because you protected me, I was saved and only one of my legs was broken. Even that hurts so much. I cannot imagine how much pain you endured.

"What is heaven like? Is it a nice place? I pray that you are being taken care of by God in heaven.

"I was helped by so many people while I was buried under all that rubble. That is why I want to be like you, Augusto, when I grow up and help people like you."

Solis inspired a little boy and impressed an entire city. And now his death will hopefully bring about important safety changes.

Four years later, with most legal issues now settled, an inquest will finally look into what went so terribly wrong.

And Cheryl Hennessey will be there. The owner of the Yorkville English Academy was never able to re-open her school after the accident.

"It's been devastating, losing your business and watching a student die," said Hennessey, whose company is still pursuing legal action. "From this inquest I want to see the City of Toronto put in better rules and regulations. There don't seem to be any in place."

Spencer said she expects the inquest, scheduled to last a few weeks, will show that demolition is an "orphan" when it comes to standards. "Who's regulating the demolition industry? I think that's where the work of the inquest is going to be.

"There's a building code in place in Ontario that is huge having to do with construction and then demolition is a little tack on to the building code."

So while there was a regulation that an engineer is required for demolitions, there were no guidelines as to whether they were required to make on site inspections or just be on call in case of a problem.

"When you think about the skyline in Toronto and all these big buildings, some of them are going to come down and there are going to be changes on the skyline in the next 50 years and now's the time to start thinking about the direction the industry should be taking," Spencer says.

"We should learn from this so that we don't have another demolition catastrophe in downtown Toronto."

And so that no other hero must die.