Article content

Robert Luggi Jr.

Carl Charlie.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Nine of 10 workplace deaths are men: Day of Mourning Back to video

Glenn Roche.

Alan Little.

The names of four men killed on the job in sawmill explosions this year in Burns Lake and Prince George were among many mentioned at a sombre memorial service on the Burrard Inlet waterfront Friday morning.

A larger crowd than usual, about 400 people, gathered this year for Metro Vancouver’s annual Day of Mourning for those killed or injured on the job – in accidents every speaker said were ultimately preventable.

The audience members’ sympathy and, in some cases, anger had been heightened by the two high-profile sawmill disasters that this year killed the four men and injured dozens of others, mostly with severe burns.

“This year we saw industrial accidents on a scale not seen in this province since the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge collapsed in 1958,” said David Anderson, president of WorkSafeBC. Nineteen tradesmen died in that long-ago accident in Burrard Inlet.