Twelve youths are in stable condition after being injured in an electrical incident Monday at a water park in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley.
The Grade 6 and 7 students from Minnekhada Middle School in Port Coquitlam were on a field trip to Cultus Lake Waterpark when the incident occurred, said Ken Hoff, spokesman for the Coquitlam School District, correcting earlier reports that 10 students had been injured.
All 12 students were transported to hospital and treated for unspecified injuries, Mr. Hoff said.
BC Hydro 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 water park operator and will support the ongoing investigation in any way we can,” the provincial utility said in a statement.
Elias Sgouraditis, 11, who goes to a different school, 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.
Ambulances, police and the fire department arrived within minutes, followed by two helicopter air ambulances.
“I thought it must be pretty bad if there were helicopters,” Elias said.
Twelve people, including 10 students, taken to hospital after electrical incident at B.C. waterpark
Corporal Carmen Kiener, a spokesperson for the RCMP’s Upper Fraser Valley Regional Detachment, said officers responded to a report of multiple injuries at the water park, located east of Vancouver, at about 11:20 a.m. Investigators do not believe the incident was the result of deliberate human action. Mounties described the injuries as serious but non-life-threatening.
The investigation has now been turned over to WorkSafeBC, with support from police, Corporal Kiener said.
Elias said water park staff closed the slide closest to where the incident happened, but most of the park initially 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. Once all the ambulances left, he 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 mother, Katy Sgouraditis.
“Luckily nothing happened to Elias, but if it had done, I would be super angry and really wanting some answers right now,” she said. Ms. Sgouraditis 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 had 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.
A statement from the water park posted on social media late Monday afternoon didn’t say what happened, only that a “serious incident” occurred in a queueing area near one of the rides and several guests, including children, were hurt. The water park would close for the next 48 hours as an investigation was conducted.
“We are fully co-operating with the authorities through the process of investigation and assessment,” the statement said. “We are determined to ensure that something like this does not happen within our facility again.”
Technical Safety BC, the organization responsible for ensuring safety compliance around electrical systems, said in a statement that it is also investigating.
“Safety officers have been dispatched to the site to conduct a thorough assessment,” spokesperson Lindsay Byers wrote.
With reports from Andrea Woo and The Canadian Press