Twenty years ago, 18-year-old Lindsay Santos was killed on the job working at a sawmill in Fraser Lake.
She had just graduated from Duchess Park Secondary School and was working her last shift of the summer.
It was Aug. 21, 2003 and her life was cut short only a couple weeks before she was about to start university.
“She wanted to be a lawyer, she joked that the family would need one,” said Ginny Correia, Lindsay’s aunt, who joined her husband Louie at a gathering of about 100 people Friday on the National Day of Mourning at the Prince George Workers Memorial at the base of Connaught Hill.
"She had a great sense of humour and was very smart, very caring, and she was kind.”
The Prince George couple have been attending the National Day of Mourning every year since Lindsay died. The event was hadn’t been held in three years due to the pandemic.
“You’ve got to remember these people, I mean, to die at work, that’s not right,” said Louie Correia “You’re going there for a living and someone that young, doesn’t make sense.”
“We know it happens, especially around here where you’ve got heavy industry, but it’s just sad to hear. You go to work planning on coming home.”
Mayor Simon Yu and Sheila Malcolmson, the B.C. Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, attended the ceremony with the UHNBC Traditional Drummers along with the labour leaders, and spokespeople from WorkSafe BC.
Yu’s son Jordan was dating Santos at the time she was killed and in his speech to the crowd the mayor acknowledged his ties to her family.
Last year in B.C., five workers in Lindsay’s 15-24 age group died of workplace injuries and illnesses. There were 181 workplace deaths in B.C. last year, six of which happened in the Fraser-Fort George district. Traumatic injuries claimed the lives of 74 workers in the province in 2022, including 48 that happened at the worksite and 26 that were due to motor vehicle incidents.
About a thousand Canadians die each year either from injuries or workplace hazards such as asbestos inhalation.
