Police say dozens of people were injured, some critically, when the second storey deck of a home in Langley collapsed Friday evening during a wedding celebration.
RCMP Cpl. Craig Van Herk said 911 calls started flooding in around 5:45 p.m. reporting multiple injuries at a home on 268th Street.
Van Herk said police, the B.C. Ambulance Service and firefighters all responded to the scene where they found 35 to 40 injured people ranging in age from children to the elderly.
He said one person was transported by air ambulance to hospital in critical condition, while possibly two others, also critical, were taken to hospital in road ambulances. Van Herk said nearly 20 people suffered serious injuries, while 12 to 15 others were treated in hospital for minor injuries.
Van Herk said there were more than 100 people at the party, however, it wasn’t immediately known how many were on the deck when it fell.
He noted that it was a “fairly dynamic, complex situation” as first responders arrived to find so many injured people. He said investigators would return Saturday to try to determine the cause of the collapse.
Neighbour Charles Ford said he was working with a friend in his backyard when he heard a “deafening boom.”
“I looked at my friend, because my back was toward the neighbour’s, and I said, ‘I think that came from next door.’ And my friend said, ‘I can see people running.’ And we could hear shouting going on. It looked pretty serious.”
Ford said he ran into his house to grab first-aid supplies, then headed next door. Around where the deck had collapsed, he said, there were “bodies everywhere.”
“Me and my friend tried our best to move as many people away from the porch as possible. There were two ladies, one was unconscious and the other was bleeding from her ankle pretty badly. I just put whatever bandages I can there. Paramedics eventually got there and switched off with me.
“It was supposed to be a good day, some people were getting married. Luckily there were no kids underneath the porch that got hurt. Today was supposed to be a day of happiness and now it’s a day … of this.”
