Lionel Hall, who was 10 years old, was killed in a speedboat accident in North Vancouver on Saturday night.
Before 6:30 p.m. PT on Saturday, a speedboat hit an inflatable tube that Hall and another child were on while it was being pulled by a boat.
The first child, Hall, died at the scene, and the second was flown to the hospital in critical condition.
Speed and alcohol are being looked into as possible causes of the fatal crash. Soon after, police arrested a guy from North Vancouver. He hasn’t been charged or named yet.
Coreena Robertson, a family friend, said that Hall was the victim because the 10-year-old’s mother Shelley Klassen and father Jason Hall said their son was “bigger than life itself.”
In the wake of the disaster, Robertson said Hall’s family, loved ones, and friends were there for them.
“The parents that I’ve seen come here with tears in their eyes … really hard,” she told CBC.
“It’s also beautiful to see, you know, the love that Lionel’s heart, and just his light, reached.”
Robertson said that Hall was a young athlete who liked to play soccer, rugby, sprints, and track.
She said that things should be looked into by the cops to find out why the speedboat driver wasn’t stopped before the crash.
“This should be a fun, enjoyable activity that kids and family members can enjoy and not feel like … it’s going to end in a tragedy,” she added. The 10-year-old boy who died in a speedboat accident on Saturday while tubing off of Cates Park in North Vancouver has been named. Leanne Yu of CBC has more on what happened and the calls for change.
The RCMP stated that the speedboat driver was freed on Sunday. His court date is August 27.
Police say Hall and the other child on the inflatable tube are not connected, but they do know that the 10-year-old is a student in the Vancouver school district.
A spokesperson for the Vancouver School Board said that kids at the victim’s school now have access to more help and counsellors.
The district will talk to the port authority.
Along the shore of Burrard Inlet, at the eastern end of Dollarton Highway, you’ll find Cates Park.
The park’s famous boat launch, which is also called “Whey-ah-Wichen,” was locked down on Saturday while police looked into what happened. It’s now open again.
On Monday, Mayor Mike Little of the District of North Vancouver said that his staff would talk to the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority about making the rules around the famous park stricter.
The port authority controls traffic in the Burrard Inlet, the body of water where the fatal accident happened. On Sunday, police said that the area, which is next to an oil terminal, already has various speed limits.
“[The port] is in charge of the areas with navigable water,” Little told Michelle Eliot, host of CBC’s BC Today.
“And so [we’ll] work with them, see if there’s different speed limits that can be considered, or perhaps channels and lanes so that you have slow traffic separated from faster traffic.” The government is putting a lot of money on the idea that it can get doctors and nurses from the U.S. to help with the health care system in B.C. Katie DeRosa talks to a family doctor who is moving from Colorado to Colwood on Vancouver Island.
