VICTORIA – Four passengers and one crew member sustained injuries after the Queen of Nanaimo crashed into the BC Ferries dock at Mayne Island Tuesday morning.
Of the 207 passengers and crew on board the ferry, one person was airlifted to hospital in Vancouver.
"It was quite scary," said Mayne Island resident Laura Robertson who was had just gotten out of her car on the Mayne Queen when she witnessed the crash.
"We were going, ‘Geez, that Nanaimo’s coming in awfully fast.’ Then we hear this noise and we can see the anchor coming down. It was just coming so fast," Robertson said.
"I turned to look at the dock and I saw a couple of the workers were running back, getting away from the dock. Then all of a sudden it just smashed (into the dock). It threw the Nanaimo back half way out from where it’s supposed to be and then came roaring back in again. I thought, ‘Oh my God. I hope everyone’s OK because all the doors were open.’"
A request for medical personal was then made over the ferry’s intercom.
"They went running off of our ferry onto their ferry to check it out," she said.
The crash, which BC Ferries spokeswoman Deborah Marshall is describing as "a very hard landing," happened about 7:30 a.m.
"We’re not going to speculate (as to what happened). We’re going to do an investigation into it," Marshall said.
People nearby said there was no mistaking the crash.
RCMP, Mayne Island firefighters and Coast Guard attended the scene.
Carol Alexander was also on the Mayne Queen leaving Mayne for Victoria when the incident occurred. "I heard that they’d lost power and they tried to drop anchor just before they crashed," Alexander said
Marshall confirmed the anchor was deployed but would not comment further.
Mayne Island is about 50 kilometres north of Victoria.
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