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FRIDAY, MAY 31, 2013
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◗ LIFE SAVER
◗ EDUCATION
Woken by cries for help
Trustees approve 60 layoffs
Skipper finds man clinging to his ship’s lines, saves him from drowning in river
BY CAYLEY DOBIE REPORTER editorial@royalcityrecord.com
BY CAYLEY DOBIE REPORTER editorial@royalcityrecord.com
A man is alive today thanks to the quick thinking of David Cobb, skipper of the 100-yearold fishing vessel Chief Skugaid currently moored at the Fraser River Discovery Centre. Just after 5 a.m. Thursday morning, Cobb – who was asleep on board the Skugaid – was awoken by cries for help coming from the river. “I hastily pulled on my coveralls and went out on the bridge-deck … (and) to my initial shock and amazement, there was a man clinging for dear life to one of the mooring lines,” he recounted in an email to The Record. Cobb said the man in the water was “streaming like a piece of seaweed” as he clung to one of the vessel’s mooring lines. “He’d managed to get a hold of these rather stout lines and was between the boat and the big pilings here,” he said. And if the man hadn’t managed to grab the line, Cobb said he would have most likely been swept out into the river. “The river is pretty well known to be running very quickly,” he said. “Faster than any Olympic swimmer could contest and even too fast for anything other than a good oarsman.” After scrambling down to the main deck of the vessel,
File photo/THE RECORD
Wake-up call: David Cobb, skipper of Chief Skugaid, above, pulled a man from the Fraser River Thursday morning when he was awoken by cries for help. Inset photo, taken by Cobb, shows the rescue boat arriving and the man in Cobb’s dinghy. Cobb threw the man a lifesaver and told him to let one of his hands drop from the line and grab the “buoyant life-ring.” Then – using a five-foot long boat hook – Cobb manoeuvred the lifering under the man’s shoulders and around his upper torso, and pulled him to a ladder. “(The man) was too weak
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and apparently (too) hypothermic to (pull himself up), so I continued to yell encouragement,” he said. During this ordeal, Cobb told The Record a passerby called 9-1-1, and by the time he had gotten the man between the vessel and the dock, police and emergency services arrived on scene.
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“The police came aboard the Chief Skugaid and employed my eight-foot dinghy … to get over to the man,” he said. “(He was) literally at the end of his rope.” Police used the safety harness Cobb keeps on board the Skugaid for emergencies to
Despite pleading from the community, the New Westminster school board cut about 60 positions in order to balance the budget. Trustees at Tuesday night’s meeting combed through the options presented by secretary-treasurer Al Balanuik. There were more than a dozen items up for discussion and approval by the board, including staffing layoffs for administration, teachers, support staff and special education assistants. Before the board began its discussion, board chair Michael Ewen explained to the parents, teachers and union leaders in attendance that in order to submit a balanced budget to the provincial government cuts would need to be made. “We’re presenting a balanced budget tonight,” he reminded visitors. And with that, the board began the task of removing about $5.2 million from the preliminary 2013/14 operating budget. First on the chopping block was three administration positions, including two vice-principals, saving the school district almost $250,000. After approving these cuts, trustees were faced with one of the two items most contested by members of the public since the deficit was first revealed, the possible layoffs of 35 special education assistants. While trustees and senior administration were able to bring the number of special education position layoffs down to 27, that was still too many for trustee Lisa Graham, who voiced her opposition. “I recall the panic I felt when my son was faced with the same
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