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WEDNESDAY, July 11, 2012
NEWS BRIEFS The Dr. is not in
◆ Following her passion P. 12 ◆ Classifieds P. 10-11
◆ Letters P. 4 ◆ For the birds P. 5
VOL. 35 NO. 19 $1.34 inc. GST
Oh Canada!
With Dr. Stent taking some well-earned vacation time in July, Fort St. James will be without an emergency room and without a medical clinic at times. No physician services will be available while Dr. Stent is away, however, the health unit and Nak’azdli Health will still be open for nurse visits. The Fort St. James Medical Clinic will be closed on: July 2, 16, 1823, 25, and July 27 until August 3. The Stuart Lake Hospital emergency room will be closed for the remainder of July, unless Northern Health is able to find locum physicians for the community.
Corrections Treeplanter donation To clarify: In the June 13 issue of The Caledonia Courier, the donation by treeplanters working for Artisan Reforestation was a combination of $1,700 from the planters, and $1,700 from Artisan to match this. Planters chose to plant however many trees they wanted towards the Community Foundation, and Artisan then matched their donations. Not your average grad There were mistakes in the details pertaining to the new mom and her son from the June 27 issue of The Courier. Katelyn Joseph’s new baby is named Carson Frank George Joseph and was born on June 19, 2012, weighing 6 pounds, 8 ounces.
Chrome and Canada Day flags were decorating the vehicles in the Canada Day Parade on July 1. For more photos see Page 6, 7 and 8 or go to www.caledoniacourier.com. Ruth Lloyd Photo
Canada Day fireworks leave one injured Ruth Lloyd Caledonia Courier A fireworks technician was injured by a misfire on Canada Day in Fort St. James. At shortly after 11 p.m., only a few minutes into the annual Canada Day fireworks display over Cottonwood Beach, the show was brought to an abrupt end when a misfire occurred and the blast went out over the ground instead of up into the air. The technician from Northern Lights Fireworks was injured in the blast. The injured man had burns to his lower body, but the injuries were considered not life-threatening. He was taken by ambulance to Vanderhoof due to the current closure
of the Stuart Lake Hospital Emergency room. He was expected to make a full recovery, according to Bruce Hinton of Northern Lights Fireworks. The injured man was still in hospital in Prince George on Thursday of last week, but was expected to be released later that day. The burns were mostly on one leg, but he had also breathed in some of the hot gases during the explosion, and so had needed assistance breathing for the time being. The remaining fireworks were packed up from the Lakeshore Drive site on Sunday after the accident, and stored until Hinton came up to dismantle and retrieve the remaining fireworks. Until they are dis-
mantled, the fireworks are essentially armed explosives, and so must be taken apart by a licenced technician. Once dismantled, the fireworks can be used again, except for damaged devices, which are taken to a special facility to dispose of explosive materials. While Hinton said misfires can happen, they are rare, and injuries from them even rarer, occurring in about 0.1 per cent of cases. He said this was the first serious injury from a show he could recall in almost 20 years of business for Northern Lights Fireworks. The devices are set to go up to certain heights according to the site, and at Cottonwood were set for 300-600 feet in the air,
to explode to a diameter of 500 feet for the device which misfired on Sunday. This kind of force means the devices are quite dangerous if they fire on the ground instead. “He’s lucky, very lucky,” said Hinton of the injured man. The technician would have been wearing personal protective equipment, including fire-resistant coveralls, eye and hearing protection, a hard hat, gloves and boots. Hinton said in cases where not all the fireworks are used, the unused portion is normally removed from the bill. RIGHT: Bruce Hinton of Northern Lights Fireworks dismantles the left over fireworks from Canada Day.