Suncor Employee Killed by Bear

[bwackwabbit]

Tragic...

http://www.leaderpost.com/touch/story.html?id=9816836

[troutbug]

wow thats horrible. Wonder who she worked for exactly, when I worked up that way you were not allowed to work alone most places

[catnthehat]

Got a text from one of my HR contacts a few hours ago but no solid details yet.
If I do find out anything I will post it here.
This is certainly a tragic blow for the lady's friends and family.
It is also the very first fatality I have heard of in this area concerning a bear!
Cat

[troutbug]

Originally Posted by catnthehat

Got a text from one of my HR contacts a few hours ago but no solid details yet.
If I do find out anything I will post it here.
This is certainly a tragic blow for the lady's friends and family.
It is also the very first fatality I have heard of in this area concerning a bear!
Cat

I have had ALOT of run ins with bears all over fort mcmurray work sites. Even a momma and cubs, they never showed interest in humans. So to hear this is shocking and horrible.

[Pagespirit]

Tragic, God Bless her and the familyj

[north american hunter]

Very sad, condolences to her family and friends.

[cochranenite]

Got a txt from buddy that's going into work tonight , she got charged mauled while coming back from the washroom to the lunch room. I use to work in that area and we always see bears. The guys that where in the lunch room tried to fight off the bear and they said the screams where something else.

[Flight01]

Very sad and sobering. Up north we have tons of encounters but this was a very different outcome. I was at Suncor Today and left site at 2pm. A very real incident

[Popcan]

This is horrific ! God darn shame.

[winmag]

Sorry for the woman' s death and for her family , it must have been horrific ... part of safety for some remote bush workers would be to educate about black bears they are like a ghost, buddy system , bear spray etc. may be they already do?..... for you older guys you will remember the rig deaths in the Zama , Rainbow Lake area the 150 pound black bear pulled one of the deceased out of a tree and he was a big man.. such power, you would hardly stand a chance if a bear was serious.

[Kurt505]

Wow!!! I honestly never would have thought something like this would happen. Hard to believe.

[Lone_Wolf]

I agree with Kurt, this is one of those things you don't think will happen. Extremely tragic.

[southernman]

Condolences to her family and co workers, been a bad year so far for work deaths at Suncor,

[zero]

Originally Posted by winmag

Sorry for the woman' s death and for her family , it must have been horrific ... part of safety for some remote bush workers would be to educate about black bears they are like a ghost, buddy system , bear spray etc. may be they already do?..... for you older guys you will remember the rig deaths in the Zama , Rainbow Lake area the 150 pound black bear pulled one of the deceased out of a tree and he was a big man.. such power, you would hardly stand a chance if a bear was serious.

black bears can be vicious, RIP.

for anyone else wondering

Lee Randal Morris, 44, male
Carol Marshall, 24, female August 14, 1980

it was near Zama City, Alberta Morris and Marshall were killed by the same bear in separate attacks over a span of two hours. They were working at a remote oil drilling camp cantex rig 10 details http://books.google.ca/books?id=3UAJ...20zama&f=false

[Jims71duster]

Got a email from site at around 430 ish saying she was walking down the stairs of a wash car in area 82 when the bear drug her down and started to eat, workers tried air horns and rocks but the bear would not stop. Horrible,, condolences to all her family and co workers.

[Selkirk]

Originally Posted by Kurt505

Wow!!! I honestly never would have thought something like this would happen. Hard to believe.

Agreed ^ ... hard to believe!

Mac

[astepanuk]

Very sad forsure. She was infact a Suncor employee I infact was in the same lay down over 10years ago when a bear walked into our lunchroom. It was trapped and re located.

[toomanyhobbies]

Brutal. Condolences to her family. Hope Suncor gets sued to hell and gone. Air horns and rocks? What stupid Gaia-worshipper thought that it would be a good idea to put people in bear country with no means of defence?

[CBintheNorth]

Very, very sad news. Condolences to all who knew her.

[Smokinyotes]

Terrible news. Glad they shot the bear. If they hadn't it probably would attack again.

[troutbug]

Originally Posted by Smokinyotes

Terrible news. Has anyone shot the bear?

article says they shot it as it was still in the area

[troutbug]

Originally Posted by toomanyhobbies

Brutal. Condolences to her family. Hope Suncor gets sued to hell and gone. Air horns and rocks? What stupid Gaia-worshipper thought that it would be a good idea to put people in bear country with no means of defence?

I have worked on many sites up north, they have bird cannons, air horns etc etc but the bears get used to them. Once you see first hand the detestation caused by the mining their then you will wonder why more attacks dont happen. I have had more encounters with bears up that way then I can even remember. Most of the time the bears have done there own thing, looking for garbage etc etc. I was working for a big company contracting to Shell, one day the site super said, and I quote *we try not to make a fuss about bears in the area and do what we can to scare them off because if they become an issue in the area they will shut this part of the site down*

It was only a matter of time before this happened, very very sad, I just hope it was quick, thats no way to go

Last time I was up there I pulled into the laydown and a blackbear was literally sniffing the back pocket of a mechanic working on a machine, I laid on the horn and floored it towards the bugger, should have seen the face of the mechanic once he saw what was behind him

[Luxor]

Originally Posted by Kurt505

Wow!!! I honestly never would have thought something like this would happen. Hard to believe.

It's not really hard to believe if you know that camps are set up in wilderness areas with no fencing. Some sites are huge.
Wild animals frequent sites and enter lunch trailers quite often.
Any job in the wilderness has risks of wildlife encounters.

Horrible encounter and a terrible way to die.
Extremely sad to say the least.

[bill9044]

Itst oil companies put thier staff through a bear awareness training. Also like the coyote black bears have thrived under humans expansion into the wilderness.
It is a shame that it happened. Probably a electric bear fence will now be put up around all camps. You know reactive instead of proactive.

Also my mom lived in yellow knife in the early 70's she was told that when " that time of the month" happened she was not to venture around the city by herself. Due to polar bears. am not trying to cause a huge debate but many factors could have prevented this tragedy. Hopefully precautions are taken to rectify any short comings.

[3blade]

Condolences to the family. At least the offending bear was dealt with, it's not much in the face of such tragedy, but better than having it loose.

Stay safe out there people.

[HunterDave]

Terrible news. My condolences go out to the lady's family.

[barsik]

the bear that killed her was most likely a rogue male. males come out of hibernation and they are very hungry and will attack and eat humans. females have cubs to nurture and their metabolism is a bit different. at this time of year, berries, greens, insects, and other food sources are not available, and they will attack. the only way to stop them is by killing them. condolences to the woman's family and friends.

[pickrel pat]

Originally Posted by bill9044

Itst oil companies put thier staff through a bear awareness training. Also like the coyote black bears have thrived under humans expansion into the wilderness.
It is a shame that it happened. Probably a electric bear fence will now be put up around all camps. You know reactive instead of proactive.

Also my mom lived in yellow knife in the early 70's she was told that when " that time of the month" happened she was not to venture around the city by herself. Due to polar bears. am not trying to cause a huge debate but many factors could have prevented this tragedy. Hopefully precautions are taken to rectify any short comings.

I think they were pulling your moms leg. yellowknife is a huge distance from the ocean. There is black bear and a few barren ground grizzly around though....

[1899b]

You get complacent. I worke on that site as well as Syncrude. Used to laugh when I would go throw the garbage out and a bear popped his head out of the big metal bin. At Coal Valley we had Grizz all over the place. It was nothing to be working on something and have your back to a Grizz 50 to 75 yards away with cubs even. Dad worke at Suncor for 32 years . One year his shift woke a bear out if it's den with a D9 an the bear came out swinging knocking the perma frost off the dozer blade. Seeing a bear on these sites is commonplace like seeing a neighbours cat in your back yard. Tragic but bound to happen. RIP

[catnthehat]

Originally Posted by bill9044

Itst oil companies put thier staff through a bear awareness training. Also like the coyote black bears have thrived under humans expansion into the wilderness.
It is a shame that it happened. Probably a electric bear fence will now be put up around all camps. You know reactive instead of proactive.

Also my mom lived in yellow knife in the early 70's she was told that when " that time of the month" happened she was not to venture around the city by herself. Due to polar bears. am not trying to cause a huge debate but many factors could have prevented this tragedy. Hopefully precautions are taken to rectify any short comings.

You obviously know nothing about UHF near sets tends progrAm Sunvor has in
Place or where this happened this was not done remote well dire it was the middle of plant 82.
This bear was also hit with bear spray a fire extinguisher and a shovel ,
Nothing short of a bullet was going to stop it.
Cat