(Joliette) A Montreal firefighter told the coroner’s inquest on Tuesday that he was desperate to stay afloat and find his colleagues in the stormy waters of the Lachine Rapids after the boat carrying them capsized during a rescue attempt.
Robin Brunet-Paiement said he knew he and his colleagues were in dangerous waters when they stopped near a disabled boat with two people on board on October 17, 2021 — although he didn’t. didn’t realize how far they had gone in the rapids.
The coroner’s inquest into the 2021 drowning of Montreal firefighter Pierre Lacroix is looking into the frantic search that unfolded after his boat capsized in the Lachine Rapids during a rescue attempt.
Mr. Lacroix and three of his colleagues were trying to save two boaters in distress when the fireboat capsized in the waves of the St. Lawrence River. The other three firefighters survived.
Mr Brunet-Payment told the inquest that he was trying to maneuver the craft to a more stable position when he felt a wave hit. Their boat collided with the pleasure craft and he saw water coming towards him. The next thing he knew was that he was under the overturned HammerHead lifeboat.
“I remember that I found myself on the ceiling (of the boat), he told. The lights illuminated the boat and I saw pebbles on the bottom of the water. »
Coroner Géhane Kamel is presiding over hearings that are expected to last two weeks at the Joliette courthouse, about 75 kilometers northeast of Montreal. She told firefighters her goal was not to assign blame, but rather to prevent future tragedies.
Mr. Brunet-Paiement managed to extricate himself and climb onto the overturned boat, shouting at his colleagues. His fellow firefighter Michael Maillé climbed up next to him, but they were both quickly swept away by another wave, he testified.
He said that eventually, as he struggled to breathe in the water, he managed to catch up with his other colleague, François Rabouin, who was in bad shape.
“I told him that I wouldn’t leave him, that we would finish this together,” he said.
“He was still smiling”
Eventually, they headed for the pleasure boat, which had not capsized, and were pulled aboard by the two occupants. Later, he directed another rescue boat to a light in the water, hoping it was his other two missing colleagues.
Shortly after, that boat returned, but only one of the remaining missing firefighters was on board. “It was then that I realized that Pierre was dead,” he said.
Michael Maillé told the inquest he was the only one of the four who was not initially trapped under the boat. He says he saw Robin Brunet-Payment and François Rabouin come out, but not Pierre Lacroix.
Mr. Maillé told the inquest that he was able to make a first call “for help” before being swept away by the hull of the boat in the water.
For his part, Mr. Rabouin mentioned that he never saw Pierre Lacroix again after the boat capsized. By the time he escaped from under the boat, he was exhausted and disoriented and convinced he was going to die.
His last memory of his friend, he said, was on the boat in the chaotic last minutes as the wave hit. Mr. Lacroix was trying to pull up his collar to prevent the water from getting into his raincoat, and the two men exchanged a look. “He was still smiling,” he said.
Stéphanie Lacroix, daughter of Pierre Lacroix, spoke to each of the firefighters at the end of their testimony. In a tearful exchange, she told Robin Brunet-Paiement and François Rabouin that she had known them since she was a young girl and did not want them to blame themselves.
“I will love you unconditionally until the end of my life,” she told them.
Lt. Sylvain Dominique, of the Montreal Fire Department, testified earlier Tuesday that despite considerable effort in the water, on shore and in the air, rescuers did not look under the capsized HammerHead boat in the first hours after the accident.
Mr. Dominique, who worked at a command post from shore, said the capsized fireboat was located less than an hour after the accident. But he was stuck at the bottom of the river and could not be immediately turned around.
He says he ordered search parties to ignore the boat and focus instead on finding Mr Lacroix in open water, as he believed the firefighter was likely already dead if he was trapped below.
“Given the time that has passed, if Pierre was under the boat, nothing could be done,” he said.
It was not until around 3 a.m., seven and a half hours after the accident, that a Montreal police underwater camera determined that Mr. Lacroix’s body was trapped under the capsized boat.
Mr. Dominique told the inquest that he did not know that the Montreal police had underwater cameras capable of looking under the hull of the boat. If he had known, he would have asked for them, he assured.
He later told a lawyer for the Commission de la santé et de la sécurité au travail du Québec that he felt the water squad did not have the proper equipment, including proper maps, waterproof radios and personal GPS trackers.