The Transportation Safety Board is conducting an investigation into the death of a CN employee (Monday, June 1) at the Canadian National Railway Thornton Yard in North Surrey.
“This morning, a fatal incident occurred on CN property involving a CN employee in Surrey, BC. We want to offer our sincere condolences to the employee’s family and community in these tragic times,” CN spokesman Jonathan Abecassis told the Now-Leader.
He declined to comment further.
“At this point it’s still under investigation so we not going to be saying anything about the statement I sent you earlier,” he said. “We’re not adding anything to what was said earlier.”
A TSB bulletin said an investigator has been deployed “to an occurrence that took place during switching operations,” but did not reveal the particulars.
Chris Krepski, a spokesman for the TSB, said “the occurrence” happened at about 2 a.m. Monday.
“I don’t have any other information at this point to share,” he told the Now-Leader. “We received and initial notification from the railway, TSB is sending an investigator to gather some more information and then determine what our next steps might be as far as investigating it.”
“As far as TSB, they said an accident took place and our mandate is to investigate accidents from a safety perspective.”
Surrey RCMP Corporal Joanie Sidhu said police received a call at 1:40 a.m. from Surrey firefighters, in the 11700-block of 138th Street.
“The Surrey RCMP General Investigation Unit has taken conduct of the investigation,” she said. “We also know that Transport Canada, WorkSafeBC, Technical Safety BC and BC Coroners Service are also conducting an independent investigation.”
She wouldn’t reveal the age or gender of the deceased.
“We don’t have confirmation that next of kin have been notified,” Sidhu explained.
“There’s no information to suggest that it was anything to do with a crime that was committed,” she added. “We do believe that it is a workplace incident but of course that will be confirmed as the investigation goes on.”
tom.zytaruk@surreynowleader.com
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