The 10-year-old victim of a speedboat crash in North Vancouver on Saturday evening has been identified as Lionel Hall.
Hall and another child were on an inflatable tube and being towed by a boat when it was struck by a speedboat off the shore of Cates Park just before 6:30 p.m. PT on Saturday.
Hall died on scene and the second child was airlifted to hospital in serious condition.
Alcohol and speed are being investigated as factors in the fatal crash, and police arrested a North Vancouver man shortly after. He has not been named and hasn’t been charged.
Hall was identified as the victim by family friend Coreena Robertson, who said the 10-year-old’s mother Shelley Klassen and father Jason Hall described their son as “larger than life itself.”
Robertson said family, loved ones and Hall’s friends were supporting the Hall family in the aftermath of the tragedy.
“The parents that I’ve seen come here with tears in their eyes … really hard,” she told CBC News.
“It’s also beautiful to see, you know, the love that Lionel’s heart, and just his light, reached.”
Robertson said Hall was a budding athlete who enjoyed soccer, rugby, hurdles and track.
She said his family deserves answers after the tragedy, and that police should look into why the speedboat driver was not stopped before the crash.
“This should be a fun, enjoyable activity that kids and family members can enjoy and not feel like … it’s going to end in a tragedy,” she said.
Child killed in boat crash at North Vancouver’s Cates Park identified
RCMP confirmed the speedboat driver was released from custody Sunday. He has a court date set for Aug. 27.
Hall and the other child on the inflatable tube were not related, according to police, but the 10-year-old was confirmed as a student of the Vancouver school district.
A spokesperson for the Vancouver School Board said additional supports and counsellors had been made available to students at the victim’s school.
Cates Park is located at the eastern end of Dollarton Highway, along the Burrard Inlet shoreline.
The popular boat launch at the park, which is also known as Whey-ah-Wichen, was closed Saturday while police investigated. It has since reopened.
District of North Vancouver Mayor Mike Little said Monday that his staff would talk to the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority about beefing up regulations around the popular park.
The port authority is responsible for regulating traffic in the Burrard Inlet, the body of water where the fatal crash occurred, and police said Sunday that multiple speed regulations already exist in the area — which lies across from an oil terminal.
“[The port] is the agency that’s responsible for the navigable water’s areas,” Little told Michelle Eliot, host of CBC’s BC Today.
“And so [we’ll] work with them, see if there’s different speed limits that can be considered, or perhaps channels and lanes so that you have slow traffic separated from faster traffic.”
