A contractor shuttle bus carrying data centre workers went into a ditch
A shuttle bus chartered by a contractor for data centre company Iren crashed into a ditch on Highway 39 approximately four kilometres south of Mackenzie, B.C., on the morning of Wednesday, injuring about 20 people and triggering a mass-casualty response that stretched two northern hospitals to their limits.
When police arrived, they found a northbound white shuttle bus in a ditch with about 20 passengers and the driver sustaining injuries ranging from minor to serious, Sgt. Michael McLaughlin of B.C. Highway Patrol said in a statement.
For OHS professionals, the fact that those workers were travelling to a remote worksite aboard a contractor-chartered vehicle is not a minor detail — under B.C.’s Workers Compensation Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation, prime contractors at multi-employer worksites carry a legal duty to co-ordinate health and safety across all employers on site, including oversight of contracted services such as worker transport.
That duty extends to emergency communications planning for workers at remote British Columbia project sites — a standard the Mackenzie crash has thrown into sharp relief, according to a CP24 report.
Three people were left in serious condition following the crash. One passenger was flown to hospital by air ambulance directly from the scene, while six were taken by ground ambulance and subsequently transferred to another facility by air. B.C. Emergency Health Services deployed six ground ambulances with primary and advanced care paramedics, six air ambulances with critical care paramedics and primary care flight paramedics, two paramedic supervisors, two area managers, and a clinical operations director, paramedic spokesperson Brian Twaites confirmed, according to a Data Center Dynamic report.
The Northern Health Authority declared Code Orange — a designation typically used for mass-casualty events — at both Mackenzie and District Hospital and the University Hospital of Northern B.C. in Prince George. Both declarations were lifted later the same day once the emergency departments returned to normal operations.
The employer and contractor
In a statement, Iren confirmed the incident.
“Our immediate concern is for everyone on board and their families, and we are supporting the response however we can. We are in close contact with the contractor, emergency responders and the RCMP as they work to establish what happened. The safety of site personnel and community members remains our top priority, both on and off site.”
Iren operates three data centres in British Columbia — in Mackenzie, Prince George, and Canal Flats — with its Mackenzie site, currently undergoing a hardware upgrade, sitting on a 4.5-hectare plot.
The involvement of a contractor-chartered bus raises immediate questions about the scope of OHS liability at the site. Under s. 118 of B.C.’s Workers Compensation Act, a designated prime contractor at a multi-employer worksite is legally responsible for co-ordinating OHS activities across all employers — a duty WorkSafeBC guidance confirms extends to emergency response planning, incident reporting, and worker safety while travelling under arranged transport. As COS has previously reported, prime contractors face significant legal obligations when subcontractors are engaged on a worksite, including due-diligence duties that cannot simply be delegated downstream.
Police confirmed the cause of the crash remains undetermined, stating “nothing has been ruled out,” and appealed for dashcam footage or eyewitness accounts of events leading up to the collision. Kiel Giddens, the legislature member for Prince George-Mackenzie, described the crash as a “scary situation” in the small community of about 3,300 people, noting the data centre is an “important employer” in the area, according to a paNOW report.
