A crew member on board a freighter in English Bay died of a heart attack Thursday evening, a sad occasion critics believe possibly could have been avoided if the Kitsilano Coast Guard Base were still open.
“We can’t say definitively … but everything we know about search and rescue is that the quicker you get there, the likelihood of saving a life is dramatically better,” said Bill Tieleman, spokesman for the Union of Canadian Transportation Employees.
The federal government cut funding to the Kitsilano Coast Guard Base earlier this year, shuttering the station in February in a swift move that caught many off guard. Critics have lamented the additional time it now takes for a rescue hovercraft stationed in Richmond to respond to emergencies in Vancouver’s English Bay.
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According to Tieleman, a distress call went out just after 4 p.m. Thursday from the freighter stationed near the western edge of Stanley Park’s Ferguson Point. Paramedics responded to the shore at Vanier Park, near the old Coast Guard station, to wait for a Vancouver police boat to ferry them to the freighter. A hovercraft from the Sea Island Coast Guard station was also sent directly to the ship.
Tieleman told The Province nearly 40 minutes passed between the time paramedics were dispatched and when they finally reached the crew member. The hovercraft took about 25 minutes to reach the freighter.
It would have taken a boat only 10 minutes to reach the freighter departing from the old Kitsilano station boat launch.
“We don’t want to draw conclusions that his life would’ve been saved but we can say definitively the rescue services could have got there much faster if the Kitsilano Coast Guard station had been there to respond,” Tieleman said. “Whether it’s someone in cold water from a boating accident or someone suffering a heart attack on a boat — like we saw today — time is of the essence.”
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