Watch: Crane collapse victim’s mother shares a story of grief

• Crane accident claimed Danielle Pritchett’s son’s life
• 161 workers died in B.C. in 2021

The 2022 National Day of Mourning took place across the country, as a poignant way to honour and remember friends and family who were injured, made sick, or killed at work.

The Kelowna event reflected on two local tragic incidents which garnered national attention.

‘It’s hard for me to share but I feel like it’s necessary so that we can affect change,” Danielle Pritchett, said to a crowd gathered at Ben Lee Park in Rutland.

On July 12, 2021, a tower crane collapsed downtown killing five people: Pritchett’s son Cailen Vilness, Jared Zook, brothers Patrick and Eric Stemmer, and Brad Zawislak who was killed when the crane fell on an adjacent building.

On that tragic day, one of Pritchett’s daughters was informed via text that the crane fell at Cailen’s site.

Pritchett drove there for answers and was redirected to the rec centre. She said she sat for hours alone with no answers about her son until construction workers filed in with their ‘heads down’.

“At one point a gentleman wearing a Visy Vest came up to me with tears in his eyes and he said, ‘I was working just below Cailen,’” Pritchett recounted. “He fell to his knees and started to sob.”

Hours later, the RCMP informed her this was no longer a rescue operation, it was a retrieval. Then they asked about identifying marks, like tattoos, on Cailen.

It was at KGH where she was informed ‘he’s gone’.

“I died that day when I lost my son,” Pritchett said. “A piece of me died that day.”

As she recounted her story, many of those in attendance at the park were visibly emotional.

Pritchett explained how Cailen was a strong advocate for job site safety, and she claimed he received pressure to ignore unsafe practices at work and was ostracized for pointing out infractions.

“I’ve worked on worksites, I know what the safety mindset is, and that culture needs to change,” she said.

Pritchett told Kelowna10 she’s had no word from officials about a public inquiry, or details of the investigation into the accident.

RCMP have said their complex investigation is running alongside one being done by WorkSafeBC and have given no timeline for the conclusion.

Another of the fatalities the past year happened at the University of B.C. Okanagan campus.

At Thursday’s event, City Councillor Mohini Singh spoke about the murder of UBCO security guard Harmandeep Kaur.

“It should not have happened … she died going to work,” Singh said. “You have the right to go to work in the morning and come home for dinner to see your family.”

Last year, 161 workers died from a workplace injury or disease across the province.

Many of those deaths occurred in high-risk industries like construction, manufacturing, and forestry.

13 employees died last year from contracting COVID-19 at work, 15 from motor vehicle accidents, and 47 from other traumatic fatalities.

99 deaths were related to the top cause of workplace deaths, diseases like asbestos related sicknesses.