A woman was taken out of the crowd in a wheelchair during Friday’s Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa after being struck by a piece of falling plywood.
The large, flat piece of wood fell several stories from scaffolding set up on the side of the Canada Post building on Sparks Street, just as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, were arriving at the National War Memorial.
Winds were gusting at between 32 and 43 kilometres per hour at the time of the accident.
There were audible gasps as the plywood, which was several feet in both length and width, tumbled onto the crowd. The ceremony continued uninterrupted, however.
The female victim was seen lying on the ground being helped by paramedics before she was taken away for further treatment. The extent of her injuries was unclear, but she was conscious and visibly shaken as she was wheeled out of the tightly-packed crowd.
Thousands of people gathered at the War Memorial, which recently underwent extensive renovations, on Friday to pay tribute to Canada’s fallen soldiers and veterans.
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