Advertisement

Alleged crane climbers arrested in North Vancouver

Six men have been arrested in North Vancouver, B.C., after first responders were called twice to the same construction site in one night to help get people off a tall crane.

North Vancouver District Assistant Fire Chief Dave Burgess said the two incidents happened about two hours apart on Thursday night.

Firefighters, including a technical rescue team, were called to the construction site on West Queens Road and Bewicke Avenue sometime before midnight.

"We had two males up the crane at a construction site. Our staff responded, talked the persons down and those persons were taken into custody by the RCMP," said Burgess.

Soon afterward, police and fire crews were again called to the same construction site. North Vancouver RCMP arrested four men in the second incident.

Costly rescues

Burgess said each time, seven of his firefighters were called to help RCMP.

"We would prefer not to respond to these types of calls for different reasons: Safety of the persons, safety to our crews, and it ties up resources we could use in other situations," said Burgess.

"Even though we're trained, equipped, and prepared for these types of rescues, it's more geared towards workers, and not persons climbing cranes in the wee hours of the morning, said Burgess. "So, stay off the cranes, it's not safe."