Greater Vancouver: Dozens injured as floor collapses at Christian rock concert
Stage scaffolding fell and knocked approximately 70 people through the floor and into the basement at a crowded Christian rock concert in an Abbotsford church on Friday night.
Thirty-two people were injured and treated at Central Heights Church on McCallum Road by ambulance, police and fire personnel from several Fraser Valley communities. Twenty-two of them had to be taken by ambulance to hospital, said Const. Casey Vinet of the Abbotsford Police. Three were seriously injured, although Vinet did not know their ages or conditions.
About 1,000 people from around the Lower Mainland and Washington State were enjoying the concert by Christian rock band Starfield when light fixtures and scaffolding above the stage crashed down at 9:17 p.m. It landed on a crowd of people dancing in front of the stage and knocked them approximately 12-15 feet through the floor to the basement below. The hole left in the floor was about 24 feet sqare.
Alyx Peckinpaugh, 13, was distraught and crying after narrowly averting the fall.
“People were jumping and I started to jump,” she said. She then saw a security guard gesturing and all of a sudden the floor gave way. “I ran to the wall and yelled for my friend. I couldn’t find her, and then I saw her. I ran out to the hallway and then outside.”
Groups of people, including parents of youth who attended the show, huddled outside the church crying and praying after the incident, as the injured were treated and rushed to hospitals in Abbotsford, Chilliwack and Langley.
“Most of the injured were walking wounded, but some were taken away in stretchers,” said Chris Douglas, senior pastor of Central Heights Church.
Read more - http://www.canada.com
