Ten youths and two adults were taken to hospital Monday after an electrical incident at a waterpark in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley.
Eleven-year-old Elias Sgouraditis was celebrating finishing Grade 5 with his fellow classmates when he heard a commotion about 10 or 15 feet away.
“I saw people on the ground getting CPR,” he said.
Within minutes ambulances, police and the fire department began arriving. Then he saw two helicopter air ambulances arrive.
“I thought it must be pretty bad if there were helicopters,” he said.
Ken Hoff, assistant director of communications for the Coquitlam School District, said the students from Minnekhada Middle School were being assessed for unspecified injuries.
The incident occurred during a field trip for Grade 6 and 7 students, he said.
Chilliwack RCMP confirmed 12 people were taken to hospital, and were in stable condition after receiving serious but non-life-threatening injuries at the Cultus Lake Waterpark, east of Vancouver.
RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Carmen Kiener said officers responded to the scene just after 11 a.m., and after an initial investigation determined the incident was not caused by a “deliberate action by a person.”
She said the investigation has now been turned over to WorkSafeBC, with support from the police. Many of the victims were transported to hospital out of an abundance of caution.
A statement from the waterpark posted on social media didn’t say what happened, only that a “serious incident” occurred near one of the rides in the queuing area and several guests, including children, were hurt.
Elias said water park staff closed the slide closest to where the incident happened, but most of the park kept operating as usual.
“There were two slides that were really close to it and they didn’t want us seeing the people get taken away in stretchers, so we weren’t allowed to go on those,” Elias said.
Neither Elias nor any of his friends were injured. The victims all appear to have been from a different school. Once all the ambulances left, Elias and his friends went back to playing on the other waterslides. When they left about two hours later, the park was still open and operating, he said.
That raises significant questions for Elias’s mom, Katy Sgouraditis.
“Luckily nothing happened to Elias, but if it had done, I would be super angry and really wanting some answers right now,” Ms. Sgouraditis said. She said she received an e-mail from her son’s school alerting parents to the incident and that none of the students from that school were hurt.
Hours later she was still trying to get her head around what happened.
“These are little kids that get sent to the waterslides for a really fun end of school celebration, and they get electrocuted,” she said.
BC Emergency Health Services said it had received a call shortly after 11 a.m. and dispatched ambulances, advanced care paramedics and other resources to the site.
Cultus Lake Waterpark said it would close for the next few days in order to conduct a thorough and independent investigation.
“We are fully co-operating with the authorities through the process of investigation and assessment. We are determined to ensure that something like this does not happen within our facility again.”
In a statement, Technical Safety BC, the organization responsible for ensuring safety compliance around electrical systems, said it is also investigating.
“Safety officers have been dispatched to the site to conduct a thorough assessment,” spokesperson Lindsay Byers wrote.
BC Hydro, meanwhile, said an initial investigation had identified an electrical issue originating on the customer’s side, rather than from the utility’s infrastructure.
“The safety of the public is our top priority, and we’re continuing to work co-operatively with the waterpark operator and will support the ongoing investigation in any way we can,” the provincial utility said in a statement.
With a file from the Canadian Press.
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