For those of you who want to catch up on this story:
This article appeared in the Toronto Star on March 22nd, 2000:
Internet friend saves man's life
Gordon Lightfoot fans plan to wed, want him there
By Betsy Powell
Toronto Star Entertainment Reporter
[i]"If you could read my e-mail . . ." [i]
Canadian singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot might want to consider changing the lyrics to his '60s hit "If You Could Read My Mind" after one of his fans saved the life of another while chatting on a Lightfoot Web site.
Engineer John Fowles of Sherborne, a village of 9,000 in Dorset, was in a chatroom with fellow Lightfoot devotee Susan Harrigan of New Jersey when his typing became irregular.
"My leg had been funny all day, and my left arm, and that night we had a regular chat session going," Fowles said yesterday from Dorset County Hospital.
Harrigan, a social worker and former stroke rehabilitation worker, knew something was wrong with Fowles. The couple met last November in Toronto while attending one of Lightfoot's semi-regular Massey Hall concerts.
"She said it `sounds like you've had a stroke. You better get to the hospital or phone a doctor,' " Fowles recalled of the Jan. 30 incident.
Fowles called a nearby emergency ward and was admitted that night to hospital, where a scan confirmed Harrigan's diagnosis.
He's been recovering there ever since.
"I'm getting around in an electric wheelchair," he said.
When Harrigan, 44, flew to England to visit her cyberspace patient, Fowles, who turned 59 last week, proposed marriage. Now the couple wants to invite Lightfoot to their nuptials, planned for late June in England.
"It would be fantastic, wouldn't it?" said Fowles, who became a fan of Lightfoot after seeing the singer in a Montreal coffee shop during Expo '67. Fowles lived in Montreal for six years and became a Canadian citizen.
Lightfoot is on tour in the northeastern United States and couldn't be reached for comment.
|