A man is dead due to an apparent workplace mishap at Canfor's Plateau Mills near Vanderhoof.
"There was an industrial fatality at about 4 a.m.," said North District RCMP spokeswoman Const. Lesley Smith. It was too early for police to speculate on any potential criminality. The RCMP are working with the BC Coroners' Service during the initial stages of the investigation.
"We are still on-scene," said regional coroner Donita Kuzma. "It was early Thursday morning when a Vanderhoof coroner was dispatched to the scene, and we are working alongside WorkSafeBC with RCMP assistance."
It is unknown if the worker was at the facility's sawmill, planer mill or other aspect of the Plateau complex. It also remains to be disclosed what the nature of work the victim was doing.
"The details are still not fully known, but we have assigned and dispatched a team of officers to the site about 50 kilometres west of Vanderhoof, the site of Canfor's mill there at Vanderhoof," said Donna Freeman, spokeswoman for WorkSafeBC. "One of the things we are gathering as we speak is, was the worker employed by Canfor or a contractor working on the site for someone else?"
This is the fifth death at an area sawmill since January 20 when two died in the explosion and fire at Babine Forest Products in Burns Lake followed by two more who died in the April 23 explosion and fire at the Lakeland Mills site in Prince George.
