LOCAL NEWS: UPCOMING CRAFT FAIRS ▼ A8
Times
Thursday, September 26, 2013 ▼ Volume 48 No. 39 ▼ www.clearwatertimes.com ▼ $1.35 Includes GST
THE
NORTH THOMPSON
RECREATION:
Second Place Best All Round Newspaper Third Place Best Editorial Page All of Canada <1,250 circulation 2013
Go Hike - Go Outdoors Series. See A20.
Second Place General Excellence B.C. and Yukon <2,000 circulation 2013
Amassadors visit Peachland North Thompson Fall Fair and Rodeo Ambassadors (l-r) Cherie Witts, Jenna Zeitsov and Vannessa Balatti represent the North Thompson Valley at the 65th Annual Peachland Ambassador Coronation event in Peachland Sept. 13-14. Photo submitted
Body collection service centralized to Kamloops Keith McNeill When the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board was in Clearwater last August, Mayor John Harwood spoke about a situation that had arisen a few months earlier. The Clearwater mayor said that the BC Coroners Service (BCCS) had centralized to Kamloops the collection of bodies that result from sudden and unexpected deaths in the North Thompson Valley. According to BCCS spokesperson Barb McLintock, the change was brought in last May after being advertised on BC Bid in January. The contract was awarded to C. Thompson & Sons, which is a company based in Kelowna. The area covered by the contract includes the North Thompson Valley as far north as Clearwater, but not beyond. It also includes 70 Mile House, Spences Bridge,
Merritt), Westwold, Sorrento and Scotch Creek. “The Coroners Service contracts for body transport services across the province,” said McLintock. “The terms of the service contracts are consistent throughout the province, although the required response time may vary depending on the population density of the area covered, ranging from 30 minutes in the densest urban areas to 90 minutes in areas of low population concentration.” “It should be noted that the number of cases involved is very small,” she said. “The total number of cases reported to the Coroner and handled by the Clearwater and/or Barriere RCMP detachments since Jan. 1, 2013, is 14.” According to McLintock, in at least 75 per cent of those cases, the situation also required the attendance of a coroner and/or a specialized police investigator such as forensic identification or a traffic analyst. These persons are also deployed from the Kamloops area, so person-
nel in the North Thompson would wait for their arrival and investigation, no matter where body removal is dispatched from. Clearwater RCMP, the highway rescue teams in the North Thompson Valley and the people involved in counseling the bereaved were not consulted about the possible effects on the family of having to wait with a dead body for someone to come from Kamloops, said the spokesperson. “Since the new service contract for this area came into place, BCCS has not received any complaints concerning the service quality, delayed response times or any other issues, or response times from police, first responder agencies, or families,” she said. If the body of a loved one is taken to Kamloops, BCCS is not required by legislation to return it to the North Thompson, she said. Continued on page A2
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