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It was a trip to the washroom that likely saved his life. Wayne Cleghorn went to the basement washroom moments before the April 23, 2012 explosion and fire that destroyed Lakeland Mills’ sawmill, killing Glenn Roche and Alan Little and injuring 22 others. “It’s very likely he would not have survived the blast if he had been in his booth,” Paul Orr, WorkSafeBC’s lead investigator, told a six-man coroner’s inquest into the disaster Tuesday. Cleghorn was the slasher operator, which is directly...

An appreciative and emotional Don Basserman became the latest Prince George resident to be conferred with the Freedom of the City honour. “I’m so proud of this community, especially over the past few weeks for the support and leadership that you showed the Canada Winter Games,” he said to about 700 people gathered for the annual civic dinner, celebrating Prince George’s 100th birthday. Bassermann is known as one of the biggest community boosters in the city, and a mainstay in leadership...

A Prince George fire prevention officer went through Lakeland Mills about a month before the April 23, 2012 explosion and fire that destroyed, killing two men and injuring 22 others. It was the first time Capt. Steve Feeney toured the mill with the knowledge that the fine dust in the air was an explosion hazard. It was only after the Babine Forest Products sawmill explosion and fire in January of 2012 that Feeney became aware that the fine dust could explode. “I knew it was a fire hazard,”...

As far as electrician Donald Zwozdesky is concerned, the Lakeland Mills explosion and fire was not caused by a gear reducer. “It irritated me that (WorkSafeBC) identified a gear reducer,” he told a coroner’s inquest into the April 23, 2012 explosion at the mill that killed Alan Little and Glenn Roche and injured 22 others. A WorkSafeBC report into the accident pegged the ignition source as a gear-reducer fan that worked its way loose and became stuck in a steel screen with the shaft...

Other than smoke inhalation, Wayne Cleghorn emerged from the April 23, 2012 explosion and fire that destroyed Lakeland Mills unharmed. The lunch horn had sounded a few minutes prior to the blast and Cleghorn was in a basement washroom, not far from the epicenter of the blast. “It sounded like someone threw gas on a fire,” he told the six-member coroner’s inquest jury Wednesday. “I felt the shockwave.” He said he knew he couldn’t stay where he was and stumbled his way through the pitch...

Workers at Lakeland Mills prior to the April 23, 2012 explosion felt the mill was in jeopardy, financially, and that they had to focus on keeping the mill operating, according to employee Lorne Hartford. “We were struggling with keeping the place running, we were concerned with keeping the doors of the mill open … Management was struggling to keep the mill operating too,” he told a six-person coroner’s jury examining the deaths of Alan Little and Glenn Roche as a result of the explosion and...

Both Alan Little and Glenn Roche were worried about dust in the Lakeland Mill prior to the April 23, 2012 explosion that killed them. “Nobody’s going to die on my shift,” Little, a supervisor at the mill, told Roche and fellow head rig operator Brian Primrose, when he ordered a shutdown for clean up in January of 2012 following two fires at Lakeland and an explosion and fire at Babine Forest Products in Burns Lake that killed two men. “Glenn and I were both concerned about the amount of...

It was Lyn Hall who got him. Anthony Everett went off script and admitted it was going to be hard enough for him to get through his own comments to wind up the 2015 Canada Winter Games. But when Mayor Hall singled out Everett, chairman of the Games, and CEO Stu Ballantyne for praise, it was hard for Everett to keep his emotions in check. “I have one mission this morning, and that’s to recognize two gentlemen who made this absolutely possible,” Hall said at the closing press conference for...