Sawmill blast victim was driven to ambulance in pickup
Firefighters found Alan Little burned beyond recognition, but still alive, Lakeland Mills inquest hears
A worker who was killed in a Prince George sawmill explosion had to be loaded into the back of a truck and driven to an ambulance, a coroner’s inquest has heard.
Firefighter Peter Brbot said he found Alan Little lying in some mud outside, burned beyond recognition but still alive, after the blast at Lakeland Mills on April 23, 2012.
Little, whose clothes were burned off to the point that he had nothing but a sock on one foot, was taken to a triage station at the scene where firefighters waited “seven, eight, nine minutes maybe” for an ambulance to arrive, Brbot said.
He said firefighters eventually put Little in the back of the fire chief’s pickup truck and took him to a road at the mill’s entrance where an ambulance had previously been stationed.
Once there, they waited for a second ambulance to show up while a still- conscious Little occasionally moaned and asked for help, he said.
He said Little was mostly silent, and “looked like he was in a lot of pain and we didn’t want to question him too much.”
The inquest has heard that Glenn Roche, the other man who died in the blast, was taken to hospital in a fire chief’s sport utility vehicle after he was put on a stretcher.
Firefighters and ambulance do not communicate through a common radio channel but instead go through dispatch, Brbot said Thursday.
Once inside the ambulance, paramedic Grant Jameson said Little was covered in severe burns but able to tell him he was at a machine during the explosion and was thrown.
He was “surrounded by fire,” the inquest heard, but “crawled and rolled” his way out of the mill.
Jameson told the inquest that as a matter of policy, paramedics keep their distance from potentially dangerous scenes and remain at the “closest safe spot” until given the go-ahead to advance by dispatch.
He said there was even some concern about where paramedics had stationed themselves near Lakeland’s entrance, because there was debris on the road.
Jameson said Little was taken straight to hospital.
When he arrived, Little was covered in third- and fourthdegree burns everywhere on his body except the soles of his feet, Dr. Brian Hillhouse told the inquest Wednesday.
Hillhouse said he determined Little would not survive, but tried to ease his pain and give him some comfort.