(Montreal) A crew member was seriously injured last week aboard a brand new Société des traversiers du Québec (STQ) boat on the Lower North Shore. The man might have found himself trapped by a sharp drop in pressure inside the engine room.
Posted at 4:23 p.m.
The incident occurred last Thursday, October 13, aboard the NM Riviere-Saint-Augustin, while he was in transit between the villages of Chevery and Saint-Augustin. These municipalities are located between La Romaine and Blanc-Sablon, near the Labrador border.
According to the Sûreté du Québec, an emergency call was received around 9:45 a.m. on the morning of October 13 to report the incident on the boat. The police force says, however, that it has transferred responsibility for the investigation to the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) of Canada, which will have to try to understand the circumstances that led to the tragedy.
On the side of the STQ, the communication adviser Bruno Verreault confirmed by email that a person “was taken care of on the ship and was evacuated quickly”.
Two inspectors from the Commission for Standards, Equity, Health and Safety at Work (CNESST) were also dispatched to the scene. They will have to determine if it is indeed a work accident and if a thorough investigation is necessary, said the CNESST communications manager for the Côte-Nord region, Allison Ouellet.
According to information obtained by The Canadian Press, the victim was the chief engineer on board the ship. Shortly after leaving the Chevery wharf, the man may have found himself trapped inside the engine room when the air sucked in by the engine created a suction phenomenon in the room, sealing all the doors s opening outwards.
Other members of the crew would have managed to rescue him by using the only door opening inwards. They would then have found the man seriously in bad condition, possibly due to the lack of oxygen. They evacuated him to the bridge. He would then have been evacuated on another STQ ship, the NM Sparkling Waterswho made the crossing between Harrington Harbor and Chevery, before being airlifted to hospital.
the NM Rivière Saint-Augustin is a brand new vessel built by Industries Océan, a subsidiary of Groupe Océan, at a cost of 5.5 million. According to a recent press release, it was officially delivered to the STQ on August 24th.
It specifies that it “was designed specifically to meet the requirements of freight transport in the maritime region of the Lower North Shore and the Saint-Augustin River”. This boat is to take over from the barge and the tug that are currently used to transport goods to the village of Saint-Augustin.
The delivery of goods in this coastal region is mainly done on board the NM Bella-Desgagnes, but this vessel cannot navigate the St. Augustine River. The goods must therefore be transported by another boat between the Pointe-à-la-Truite wharf and Saint-Augustin.