A 17-year-old boy is dead after climbing a fence and falling off a cliff at North Vancouver's Lynn Canyon Park while visiting with a group of friends.The teen, originally from Windsor, Ontario, is the latest among dozens who have lost their lives in cliff-related incidents at the park over the past few decades.District of North Vancouver Fire and Rescue Assistant Chief of Operations Dwayne Derban told Global News that his crew received a call from the BC Ambulance service at 3 p.m. on Sunday asking for assistance. He later found out that the teen's friends had waited to call 911 because they thought he was fine.Upon arriving at the park, authorities got to work tracking him down, and soon discovered his body at the bottom of the cliff, 150 feet from where he had fallen. A lowering system was set up to begin the rescue operation, but it soon became clear that he was dead."Once we know that there's no life to be saved, then we slow things down and it becomes recovery," Derban explained. "We notify RCMP, it becomes their jurisdiction, and the coroner gets involved as well."He noted that after retrieving their friend's body, he had to deliver the news to the group himself, which hit close to home as his own uncle had died while cliff jumping in the park at around the same age in 1944.The group told Derban that the teen had hopped a fence and moved closer to the edge in order to get a better view, and slipped when the ground beneath him gave way."There is lots of fencing showing where you should be, where you shouldn’t be," he explained. "This one young lad took it in his mind to get closer to the edge to get some pictures, and in the end, it was a bad decision."He shared a simple message to those considering breaking the rules near cliffs in the park: "Don't do it. Period."According to Global News, the teen had been accepted into the University of British Columbia and was set to start classes for his first semester. His friends had accompanied him from Ontario to help him get settled in, and had been sightseeing in the park when he fell to his death.
A 17-year-old boy is dead after climbing a fence and falling off a cliff at North Vancouver's Lynn Canyon Park while visiting with a group of friends.The teen, originally from Windsor, Ontario, is the latest among dozens who have lost their lives in cliff-related incidents at the park over the past few decades.District of North Vancouver Fire and Rescue Assistant Chief of Operations Dwayne Derban told Global News that his crew received a call from the BC Ambulance service at 3 p.m. on Sunday asking for assistance. He later found out that the teen's friends had waited to call 911 because they thought he was fine.Upon arriving at the park, authorities got to work tracking him down, and soon discovered his body at the bottom of the cliff, 150 feet from where he had fallen. A lowering system was set up to begin the rescue operation, but it soon became clear that he was dead."Once we know that there's no life to be saved, then we slow things down and it becomes recovery," Derban explained. "We notify RCMP, it becomes their jurisdiction, and the coroner gets involved as well."He noted that after retrieving their friend's body, he had to deliver the news to the group himself, which hit close to home as his own uncle had died while cliff jumping in the park at around the same age in 1944.The group told Derban that the teen had hopped a fence and moved closer to the edge in order to get a better view, and slipped when the ground beneath him gave way."There is lots of fencing showing where you should be, where you shouldn’t be," he explained. "This one young lad took it in his mind to get closer to the edge to get some pictures, and in the end, it was a bad decision."He shared a simple message to those considering breaking the rules near cliffs in the park: "Don't do it. Period."According to Global News, the teen had been accepted into the University of British Columbia and was set to start classes for his first semester. His friends had accompanied him from Ontario to help him get settled in, and had been sightseeing in the park when he fell to his death.
