Feeling blue City, regional district urged to take action to protect water. PAGE 14 Cultural excellence Jillian Vanstone earns hometown recognition. PAGE B1 Gaining prestige Premier Pirates start season among league favourites. PAGE 3
Students show skill PAGE 7
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VOL. 23, NO. 146
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Charges laid after pregnant woman dragged BY CHRIS BUSH THE NEWS BULLETIN
A pregnant woman survived being dragged by a car, thanks in part to witnesses who blocked the driver’s path. The incident happened in
Nanaimo Saturday shortly before 4:30 p.m., when police received a 911 call that a woman was being dragged by a vehicle down Bruce Avenue in the Harewood area. The 27-year-old woman was dragged for nearly a kilometre before a man and his two sons fol-
lowing the car were able to pull their pickup in front of the car to block its path. “The reason it took so long for them to stop the car was there was oncoming traffic and they had to wait for it to clear before they could pull around in front
it,” said Const. Gary O’Brien, Nanaimo RCMP spokesman. O’Brien said the incident was part of a domestic dispute that started earlier in the day. The woman was trying to get out of the passenger door of the car as it was moving, but was
unable to get free because the driver was allegedly holding onto her hair. The witnesses, who asked police to withhold their identities, told police the woman was dragged at speeds of 30 km/h to 50 km/h. ◆ See ‘PASSENGER’ /6
Escape raises questions about escorted leaves
HOT SPOT
TOBY GORMAN THE NEWS BULLETIN
The escape of a Nanaimo Regional Correctional Centre inmate is raising questions about the effectiveness of the current prisoner-to-guard ratio policy established by B.C. Corrections for inmates that leave the correction facility. Howard O’Soup, 34, gave a guard the slip March 29 while attending a treatment meeting at around 7 p.m. The meeting, the nature of which was not released, was held at a location away from the prison. The lone guard, responsible for overseeing O’Soup and several other inmates, was monitoring two exits in the building when he noticed O’Soup was no longer present. Situations like that, says Dean Purdy, chairman of corrections and sheriff services with the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union, is why the union has called on the government to have at least two guards monitoring prisoners when off-site. ◆ See ‘GUARDS’ /6
CHRIS BUSH/THE NEWS BULLETIN
Pudge Pinker, an East Wellington Volunteer Fire Department firefighter, slogs through layers of mud and fire suppression foam after battling a barn fire at a farm on Munroe Road Tuesday. Firefighters at the scene said the blaze had already collapsed the structure by the time they arrived. No one was injured in the fire and its cause has not been determined. East Wellington firefighters attended another structure fire later the same day. For the full story, please see page 5.
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