ST. PAUL PARK, Minn. – Two families are now leaning on each other after a father died in a tragic houseboat fire last month.
“I open the curtains and I look, and his boat is completely engulfed,” Torian Topel said.
Topel was Nick Walsh’s girlfriend.
She escaped the devastating fire that destroyed her and Walsh’s houseboats in St. Paul Park with her pets and two children.
Topel says she saw Walsh near the flames, and he told her to go back and get his dog, which she did. But when Topel made it to safety minutes later, she discovered that Walsh had never actually gotten off his boat.
‘It must have been his ghost [I saw]she said. ‘Don’t know. No one could have logically stood in the spot where I saw Nick crouched. There is no logical way anyone could have been standing there with how intense the flames were.”
Walsh is survived by three children by his ex-wife Katelyn.
She and Topel have leaned on each other through this tragedy and find comfort in remembering Walsh together.
“We had ups and downs after the divorce, but I knew how to call him if I needed anything, if I was in trouble, and he would be there in a minute,” Katelyn Walsh said.
Both women described Walsh as a devoted father who loved deeply and loved to have fun.
“Took me out of my comfort zone, loved to sing and dance and play his banjo,” Topel said.
The cause of the fire is under investigation, but more important for Topel is what comes next.
She says an insurance problem left her with tens of thousands of dollars in bills.
“If anyone knows anyone who can help dispose of some houseboats [Topel] can stand up, that would be a godsend,” said Katelyn Walsh. ‘She lost everything. No one prepares for something like this.”
Topel says she and her children lost everything in a house fire five years ago. As they got off the boat, her son said, “Not again.”
David Schuman
