One man has died following a boating incident that occurred off the coast of Hornby Island on Tuesday evening.
According to Hornby Island Fire Chief Doug Chinnery, emergency crews were dispatched to an area near Ford’s Cove Marina on Hornby Island, at 5 pm, for a hypothermia patient as a result of an overturned boat. Chinnery said that while authorities were en route, they were made aware of a second patient, who was possibly deceased.
First responders looked after the hypothermic patient, while another crew boarded the Hornby Island Diving boat owned by a local firefighter to search of the other person.
Officials said they were able to locate the patient, unresponsive, on Norris Rocks – a small island off the southern tip of Hornby Island.
The rescue crew was able to recover the unresponsive person and attempted resuscitation while heading back to Ford’s Cove Marina.
A witness to the incident told CHEK News that a female first responder worked on resuscitation efforts for about 45 minutes, once the man had been brought back to Hornby Island.
Despite efforts from Hornby Island Fire a BC Air Ambulance crew and the locum doctor, the man was pronounced dead at the marina.
BC Coroners Service said that the deceased was a man in his late 70s. The man who survived is in his 60s.
Chinnery says the survivor was able to back to Hornby Island to summon help, either by swimming back while hanging on to the overturned boat or righting the boat and rowing back.
“These multi-agency, multi-location, multi-patient calls can be a lot to juggle, but our team made it seem easy. We are all saddened by the loss of this gentleman, and our hearts go out to his friends, family, and community,” said Chinnery.
He says both men are not from Vancouver Island.
Hornby Island is located off the eastern shore of central Vancouver Island, east of Denman Island.
CHEK News
