The Canadian Coast Guard and a Federal Workers Agency are investigating after a Faro Guardian in Service died in April at a fair station on the Northwest Coast of BC, about 40 kilometers west of Prince Rupert.
It is assumed that the Triple Island lighthouse station is attended by a director and assistant of light assistant at all times, but due to a shift change, the Coast Guard says that the man was alone when he died.
The lighthouse is located in the northwest rock of a group of three islets known as the triple islands and was built in 1920 to guide the marine traffic that travels north along the coast of British Columbia to Alaska, as well as for the Deepsea ships that browse and from Prince Rupert.
The remote station can only be accessed by helicopter.
On the afternoon of April 2, the Coast Guard says he tried to contact the Lightkeeper several times. Upon hearing anything, he sent a nearby helicopter to perform well -being control over him.
When the pilot arrived, they found the Lightkeeper without responding and called 911. BC of emergency health services reached the site and pronounced the dead man.
The RCMP and two members of the Prince Rupert Station of the Coast Guard traveled to Triple Island before giving the matter to employment and social development of Canada, the Federal Department responsible for working conditions, for greater investigation.
The department will investigate whether the Canada Coast Guard meets the Canadian Labor Code. According to the code, employers regulated by the federal government must protect the health and safety of each employee while they are at work, and ensure that they have the necessary information, training and supervision to carry out their work safely.
Worksafebc has said that because the incident took place in a federal workplace, it is outside its jurisdiction.
“This was a very, very tragic and very sad event that had to happen,” said Jim Abram, a retired guardian and former local president of the Union of Canadian Transportation Employees (UCTE), who represents the Faro’s guardians.
Lighthouse should have had 2 people, says the retired goalkeeper
Abram says that the Triple Island Lighthouse station is extremely important to provide weather observations for marine and aviation traffic, and he is concerned that the beacon’s goalkeeper was alone at the time of his death.
He says that the station has rotational personnel where two guardians will work a turn of 10 to 14 days and are then replaced by two other guardians.
“The remote isolated stations are not supposed to be treated by a single person, so this has always been the case whenever it has been a guardian,” he said.
Abram says that his understanding of what happened in April is that when the two outgoing guardians were collected during the shift, only an archer was left with the supplies.
The Coast Guard has not provided details about why the Lighthouse Keeper was alone at the time of shift, but Abram hopes that the investigation will throw more light on the circumstances surrounding the death of the goalkeeper.
“In this situation, if there are security measures that can be taken, if it was a security problem, then those security problems must be remedied by the Coast Guard,” he said.
“It has been extremely devastating for the other three guardians. All have been extremely distressed by this. Making someone die right there at their station is not a happy event.”
The regional vice president of the Pacific of UCTE, Barry Tchir, says that the union will not be able to make a formal comment until the investigation is completed.
The Canadian coast guard says that she expresses sincere condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of the individuals of the individual and will continue to support employees, as well as the family, during this difficult time.
