In a fatal breakdown in communication, emergency responders took more than an hour to respond to the scene of a fatal boat crash and fire on Lake Wanapitei on June 30, 2013.
Three people died as a result of the incident, including Matthew Humeniuk, 33, Michael Kritz, 34, and Stephanie Bertrand, 25.
Although coroner Dr. David Cameron determined Humeniuk and Bertrand were unlikely to have survived regardless of the delayed emergency response, Kritz’s death was considered preventable.
The delayed response was largely to blame.
“On the night of the accident, the best chance those guys had out there was the local volunteer firefighters,” Kritz’s sister, Toni Kritz-Roque, told Sudbury.com recently.
“If they were allowed to do their job properly and in a timely manner, instead of waiting on the city services that they were made to stand and wait for, it wouldn’t have ended the same.”
With years of pressure from the victims’ families, who faced a lack of transparency regarding what took place that tragic night, the province’s chief coroner launched an inquest in 2018.
“Rescuers made sincere efforts, but the rescue was delayed and hampered by lack of co-ordination of the rescue response,” the coroner’s jury verdict concluded.
“This was due in part to poor systems of communication among the 911 call-takers, dispatchers and emergency responders.”
To mark today’s 10-year anniversary of the Lake Wanapitei boating tragedy, Sudbury.com reached out to officials from the City of Greater Sudbury, Province of Ontario and Greater Sudbury Police Service to find out what has been done during the past decade to improve upon the system which it took emergency responders more than an hour to arrive at the scene of a fatal boat collision.
In addition to Kritz-Roque, Sudbury.com interviewed now-retired Skead volunteer firefighter John Salvalaggio, who was among the first to arrive at the scene of the 2013 boating tragedy.
But first, what took place on June 30, 2013?
What happened on the island?
Matthew Humeniuk, Michael Kritz, Stephanie Bertrand and Robert Dorzek were celebrating Canada Day long weekend on June 30, 2013, when the speed boat they were on, operated by Humeniuk, collided with the rocky shore of an island on Lake Wanapitei at a location known as Redrock Point.
The following is what took place after the collision, according to the coroner’s jury verdict.
Dorzek placed his first call to 911 at 12:30 a.m.
He was the only person on the boat to gain consciousness after the collision, during which he was thrown alongside Bertrand into the front of the boat. He could not see Humeniuk or Kritz, but reported hearing Kritz moaning.
During his first call to 911, Dorzek didn’t know where they were, exactly, so he texted a screenshot of his location identified in Google Maps to the Sudbury Central Ambulance Communications Centre call-taker’s personal cellphone at 12:35 a.m.
A call-taker told Dorzek, during his third call to 911 at 12:56 a.m., to light a signal fire. He confirmed by 1:01 a.m. that he had lit a fire using a boat seat cushion, away from the boat.
By 1:13 a.m., Dorzek told a police call taker that trees were on fire and that he was fighting back a blaze. He’d reportedly pulled Bertrand out of the boat and away from the fire.
A rescue boat with emergency responders arrived on the island at 1:36 a.m., finding part of the island on fire and the crashed boat almost completely engulfed in flames. Both Humeniuk and Kritz were still in the crashed boat.
“There was evidence that Mr. Kritz was still alive shortly before this point,” according to the report, which noted the rescue boat had only three fire extinguishers on board and no fire water pump.
“Firefighters believe they witnessed Mr. Kritz succumbing to the fire and likely would have been able to rescue him in time had they arrived minutes earlier. This death was concluded to be preventable.”
Firefighters brought Dorzek and Bertrand into the rescue boat, and took them back to shore.
The rescue boat returned after dropping them off, with firefighters now bringing a fire water pump and an EMS supervisor, but both Kritz and Humeniuk were found deceased.
A coroner’s report later determined Humeniuk died of blunt-force head injuries, and Kritz died as a result of the fire. Bertrand died at Health Sciences North on July 8 as a result of a head injury.
What happened off of the island?
The first call to the city’s 911 call centre came in at 12:30 a.m., and the call-taker received a text from Dorzek on their personal cellphone at 12:35 a.m., with a screenshot of their location from Google Maps.
“Staff were unable to use this information to locate the scene of the accident,” according to the coroner’s jury report, which also noted that emergency responders on the ground, including local volunteer firefighters familiar with the area, were not sent the image.
Accurate GPS co-ordinates were received at 12:58 a.m. This information would have normally been transmitted with each call, but accurate results were not available until Dorzek’s third call to 911.
During this time, neither the 911 call-takers nor the dispatchers were aware there was a water rescue boat available at the Skead Marina.
Further, the Skead volunteer fire department was not alerted to the incident by dispatchers or police, but by a platoon chief for the Sudbury Fire Department who happened to hear about the incident while responding to another emergency.
The platoon chief asked police communications to dispatch Skead volunteer firefighters to the scene, which happened by 12:56 a.m., nearly a half-hour after the initial call to 911 was placed.
Volunteer firefighters were soon at the marina, but were asked to wait for medics approximately 15 minutes away.
Fire dispatch told firefighters at approximately 1:15 a.m. that a fire on the island “was catching and the caller is afraid that it may start a bush fire.” This, despite the caller previously indicating to police dispatch, “panicked,” that a forest fire had started.
At this point, the platoon chief told firefighters to head to the incident and leave a couple members behind to wait for EMS. As they were leaving, at approximately 1:16 a.m., EMS arrived, so the boat turned around to pick up paramedics.
Volunteer firefighters were led to believe at this point that it was strictly a medical call. This, despite Dorzek telling a 911 call taker that he was fighting a forest fire.
“As the firefighters loaded up the EMS paramedics and equipment, fire dispatch continued to advise over the radio that the fire was growing. The firefighters on the boat did not hear the messages over the radio.”
The rescue boat left the marina with firefighters and paramedics on board at 1:30 a.m., and arrived at the scene of the incident approximately six minutes later, ill-equipped to fight the fire.
This was part one of three in a series of stories about the Lake Wanapitei boating tragedy of 2013. Part two will cover what took place after the night, and part three will centre on what changes are still being advocated for.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com
This is Part 1 in Sudbury.com’s three-part deep dive into the Lake Wanapitei boating tragedy of June 30, 2013. Read Part 2 here. Read Part 3 here.
