A 41-year-old Lower Mainland man is in hospital with serious back and spinal injuries after an industrial accident Monday morning.
Shortly before 11:30 a.m., B.C. Ambulance paramedics, Sunshine Coast RCMP and the Sechelt Fire Department responded to the accident on the Construction Aggregates bulk loading facility in Sechelt Inlet.
Const. Marty LaLande said a day tug was working close to the facility when the accident occurred.
"Two people were working on the tug at the time of the accident," said LaLande. "There is a long ladder on the bow of the barge and the deckhand started climbing up the ladder to get onto the loading facility. From what we understand, the worker experienced some sort of pain in his arm and started to climb down the ladder. He then lost his grip and fell backwards onto the tug deck. He landed feet first, but the force of the fall caused him to fall backwards and he hit his head pretty hard. A second tug that was towing a log in the area came over to assist."
LaLande said the injured man was transferred closer to the loading facility, where other workers, paramedics and firefighters assisted him. He was then transferred by stretcher across the loading facility to a waiting ambulance, taken to St. Mary's Hospital and then medivaced to Vancouver General Hospital (VGH).
As of press time Thursday afternoon, an update on the man's condition was unknown.
LaLande said Worksafe BC and Transport Canada would be jointly investigating the accident.
"They'll be looking into things of course, but we're pretty sure what happened," he added.
The injured man was working for Pacific Towing Services Ltd, which is based in North Vancouver.
According to their website, the company are specialists in marine transportation - log and barge towing. The family owned and operated marine transportation company has worked for 40 years serving the B.C. Coast.
Calls to Pacific Towing for further comment were not returned by deadline.
The accident gave a chance for paramedics to test the new Autolaunch system and by all accounts, the system passed with flying colours.
Autolaunch started June 1 and is a joint program between the B.C. Ambulance Service and the Province of B.C.According to Jim Gibson, media liaison with B.C. Ambulance on the Coast, B.C. is the only place in Canada that is operating the service.
"Any first aid course describes the 'Golden Hour' -that time when an accident occurs and the time when paramedics arrive and take the injured to hospital. In rural areas where there is not a trauma hospital, like Sechelt with St. Mary's, once a patient arrives in emergency and is assessed by the doctor, if the patient has to be transferred to a trauma centre, like VGH or Lions Gate, the doctor would call, arrange for a bed and call a helicopter. Now with this system, a helicopter is automatically called when the initial callout is made to the paramedics."
Gibson said with this incident, the helicopter was already waiting at St. Mary's when the paramedics arrived.
"What could normally be a one to two hour process, probably took 45 minutes," Gibson said. "I've been testing GPS in various locations up and down the Coast and seeing where we could land a helicopter be it on the highway or even in places like the elementary school in Halfmoon Bay. This system saves lives."
