Crews used crane-mounted rescue bucket to lower the worker to ground level
A construction worker was seriously injured Wednesday after falling roughly six feet from a ladder on the third storey of the new Nanaimo Cancer Centre, according to a report.
The fall occurred just before noon on Sept. 16 at the construction site on Dufferin Crescent, on the grounds of Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, Nanaimo News Now reported. The worker was impaled in the fall, per the outlet's account.
Nanaimo Fire Rescue dispatched multiple engines to the scene. Assistant fire chief John MacKenzie told Nanaimo News Now that crews used a crane-mounted rescue bucket to lower the worker to ground level.
"They had a rescue bucket…and we utilized that to bring the patient down," MacKenzie said. "Tower cranes usually have a rescue basket, so we were able to bring him down pretty fairly easily."
BC Emergency Health Services confirmed to Nanaimo News Now that the worker was transported to hospital in serious but stable condition. MacKenzie said workers on site were "skilled" in stabilizing the man before emergency crews arrived, and a debrief involving dozens of workers and responders followed. The method mirrors a similar operation described in a Parliament Hill worker rescued by crane after a blunt-force injury, where crane operators played a comparable role extracting an injured worker from a hard-to-reach section of a construction site.
Investigation and site context
WorkSafeBC has been notified and will conduct its own investigation into the incident, a standard step for serious workplace injuries in the province, according to Nanaimo News Now. No findings or timeline have been released. The agency has previously issued fines in comparable circumstances; WorkSafeBC's crackdown on fall protection violations outlines several past cases where B.C. firms were penalized for exposing workers to unprotected falls from heights on active construction sites.
MacKenzie noted the same crane-basket lowering method was used earlier this year in a separate incident involving an injured worker at a Vancouver Island University construction site, according to the report, suggesting the technique is becoming a recurring option where tower cranes with rescue baskets are already on hand. That trend lines up with B.C.'s move toward mandatory licensing and permitting for crane operations under WorkSafeBC, part of a broader regulatory push following a string of high-profile crane incidents in the province.
The hospital campus is home to several concurrent construction projects. Beyond the cancer centre, slated to open in 2028, a three-storey parkade at the property's northeastern corner is expected to open later this year, and additional surface parking near Boundary Avenue and Nelson Street was completed last year.
A separate project, Jesse's House, a 16-bed family accommodation facility, is targeted for completion by next spring, adding to the density of active work at the site during the investigation period.
