Derek Neary
Northern News Services
Monday, May 21, 2007

IQALUIT - Mick Mallon is a little less of a physical presence these days, but his effervescent personality is as large as ever.

Two-thirds of his right pinky finger had to be amputated, or "snipped" as he prefers to call it, as a result of frostbite.

"I was a little bit sad when it disappeared but it's gone and I'll get over it," Mallon said last week.

He remains in rehabilitation at the Ottawa Hospital since falling during an outdoor walk in Iqaluit on Feb. 19.

The 74-year-old retired teacher and Inuktitut linguist wound up with severe frostbite to his right hand, a punctured lung and broken ribs, shoulder, collarbone and wrist from the painful ordeal.

It took nine hours before rescuers discovered him in the snow on the side of a steep hill between Iqaluit and Apex.

These days, as he tries to regain full motion, his daily routine consists of sessions with a physiotherapist named Yvon, whom Mallon has playfully nicknamed Yvon the Terrible.

"He puts me down and pulls my arm this way and he pulls my arm the other way," Mallon said in a good-natured fashion. "We've got a good little line of banter going back and forth, referring to my cowardice on the one hand and his cruelty on the other."

Admitting to a low tolerance for pain, he said he would rate his maximum discomfort level at a seven out of 10 - "I haven't been screaming," he said - during his daily rehab schedule, which also entails several hours of exercising various muscle groups with other specialists.

His right hand remains of foremost concern. He is unable to use it much.

He can't button a shirt or grasp utensils with it. Whether the nerve damage is irreversible remains to be seen, he said.

Being able to go rowing again someday is one of his greatest desires, he said.

Despite the uncertainty, he remains far from solemn. He said he can see improvement in his condition overall.

"I'm really feeling up about this," he said, adding that he's aiming to be back in Iqaluit by late June. "If I ever get the slightest twinge of worry or self-pity, I think, well, it's quite simple, three months ago on that hillside I was ready to die, and now I'm not...I certainly hope I don't get a bus running over me at this stage."

When he's not receiving a steady flow of visitors, Mallon has his nose buried in historian Patrick O'Brian's books.

He has resolved to read 20 of them. As of last week he was on the eighth, he said.

His daughter Amanda, a Yellowknife resident, has been able to see him in the hospital a few times, and she said the progress she has noticed has only reinforced her opinion that he's a plucky fighter.

"He looks great," she said, and then acknowledged his irrepressible sense of humour. "He says, 'All this work I've done all my life and I have to fall off a cliff to feel appreciated.'"