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Quarry incident in Inuvik prompts police investigation

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Kirsten Fenn/NNSL photo Jesabell Day displays a small bunch of flowers she picked at the Inuvik Community Greenhouse on Aug. 30.

A local company is offering a $2,500 reward for information leading to a conviction after a worker narrowly avoided injury by heavy steel parts that shot out of the company's rock crusher one day last month.

Lyle Gully, vice-president of Bob's Welding Ltd., said he believes the 12 pieces of steel were put in the machine deliberately, sometime between the evening of Aug. 18 and the morning of Aug. 21.

It happened at a rock quarry outside of town, close to the airport.

Wes Bergeron, a supervisor with Bob's Welding Ltd., says a steel object flew out of a rock crusher and nearly hit the control tower where he was working last month. Kirsten Fenn/NNSL photo

SA国际影视传媒淭hey fired up (the machine) Monday morning and SA国际影视传媒 it shot back out of the cone there,SA国际影视传媒 Gully said of one of the steel pieces. SA国际影视传媒淚t just missed the tower van where the operator sits in. If it was another two feet over, we would've had a seriously hurt person.SA国际影视传媒

Wes Bergeron, a supervisor with the company, was sitting in the three-metre-high control tower when the incident happened.

He saw the piece of steel fly over the tower and land in the yard where he said workers normally shovel.

Luckily, no one was roaming about when the object went flying through the air, but SA国际影视传媒渋t could have taken someone's life,SA国际影视传媒 said Bergeron.

He explained the steel parts appear to be teeth used for digging with heavy equipment.

SA国际影视传媒淭hey vary in size SA国际影视传媒 20 to 40 pounds SA国际影视传媒 so you could imagine one of those flying 20 feet in the air and hitting someone,SA国际影视传媒 he said. SA国际影视传媒淗ard hat or not, I don't think you're going to make it.SA国际影视传媒

Gully said he didn't know where the objects came from.

While the machine has magnets designed to find objects like the pieces of steel, there were too many for it to pick up at once, said Bergeron.

As soon as the first one went through the air, he stopped the machine and did a walk-around.

He then called all four workers on site into the tower when he realized the pieces were in the machine, he said, adding everyone was SA国际影视传媒渟haken up.SA国际影视传媒

Bergeron had to use a torch to cut one piece out of the machine, and the company has now added

screens outside the control tower windows for protection, he said.

SA国际影视传媒淪omeone could have been killed,SA国际影视传媒 said Bergeron.

Gully said the incident has since been reported to the as he is concerned about his employees' safety.

In his 38 years in business, he said he has never experienced anything like this before.

The Mounties are investigating the incident and are asking anyone with information to contact Inuvik , according to spokesperson Robert Frizzell.

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Kirsten Fenn/NNSL photo Matthew Dares is the founder and a coach with the Inuvik Robotics and Engineering Club, which is headed into its sixth year this fall.




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