Thousands Expected at Memorial for Canadian Paramedics

VANCOUVER (CP) - Only five British Columbia ambulance paramedics have died in the line of duty in the past three decades.

Two of them - Kim Weitzel and Shawn Currier - will be remembered Monday in Kimberley when several thousand people are expected to attend a parade and memorial for the fallen emergency service personnel.

About 20 people have been working for more than a week to organize a parade and memorial to honour the paramedics who died in an industrial accident May 17 at an abandoned mine site in the southeastern B.C. community.

The organization has been done by members of the B.C. Ambulance Service and the Ambulance Paramedics of B.C. union.

''We're still working on the numbers and it's a rather large task but we're still expecting several thousand people,'' said union spokesman William Chute, including as many as 1,000 emergency service personnel.

They have received confirmation that some emergency service workers will make their way to Kimberley from every province.

They also have been told that some colleagues from the U.S. will attend, including from the Washington state cities of Seattle and Spokane, said Chute.

The parade will include not only ambulance paramedics, but also police officers, firefighters, and military and search and rescue personnel.

The memorial and parade, which are always done when police and firefighters die in the line of duty, is to remember the two paramedics and two other men who died in the bizarre accident.

The freak accident is still under investigation but the first person to die was Doug Erickson, 48, who was working for a private contractor at the decommissioned Sullivan mine. He was taking air and water samples from inside a small enclosed shed, something he had done many times before.

He was discovered dead by Teck mining company employee Robert Newcombe, 49, who called the paramedics.

When the ambulance paramedics responded, they died along with Newcombe.

On Thursday, B.C.'s chief mines inspector issued a warning about poisonous fumes at mine sites.

Fred Hermann said it appears the four died because of a lack of oxygen in an underground pumping station.

''The atmosphere within one of the water sampling buildings located at the toe of a reclaimed mine waste dump was severely oxygen-depleted,'' Hermann says in the news release.

Mines Minister Bill Bennett will attend the memorial along with Health Minister George Abbott and other speakers from the ambulance service.

''They lost two of their own . . . and when there is somebody from the police department or a firefighter or a paramedic who loses their life in the line of duty they show in force and show respect for what that person did,'' said Bennett.

''I think it's a very noble thing for people to do, to show that kind of respect for people who has given their lives in the service of others.''

Chute said the group of emergency personnel who are coming from the Ottawa area were considering chartering a 737 airplane to get everyone to Kimberley from Eastern Canada.

Because Kimberley is a small community with the nearest airport in Cranbrook, a half-hour drive away, Chute said transportation has been organizers' biggest headache.

Their first obstacle was finding a venue large enough and they settled on the Kimberley Civic Arena, which holds more than 2,000 people.

Overflow facilities will be set up outside and in the adjacent curling rink, said Chute.

The Sullivan lead-zinc mine closed officially on Dec. 21, 2001, after 92 years of production.

At its peak, it employed more than 2,000 people but the workforce was down to about 700 before it closed.

After the closure, mine owner Teck Cominco (TSX:TEK.SV.B) began extensive decommissioning and reclamation.