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PASSING THE IRON ROSE
Last survivor of bridge collapse gives final salute BRENT RICHTER
brichter@nsnews.com
After 67 years, the last living survivor of the Second Narrows Bridge collapse says his memories are fading. To Lucien Lessard, 96, it means the duty of remembrance for the workers killed must be upheld by the rest of us.
Dozens of iron workers, labour organization members and dignitaries gathered in New Brighton Park in Vancouver June 17 to mark the anniversary of B.C.’s worstever industrial disaster. As one of the survivors, Lessard was among the Iron Workers Local 97 members who first began annual commemoration events that eventually led to the North Shore’s busiest bridge being officially renamed the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing. “I have stretched my life to the limit. I don’t think I have any more memorials that I will be there to attend, and while I am still alive, I want the chance to say thank you to all the people that they have organized and the attended memorials to remember the 19 men that lost their lives that day and their families,” he said. In keeping with a tradition started by Lessard’s daughter, he passed an iron rose to an apprentice iron worker, who now works on construction of the new Pattullo Bridge, symbolizing the continuity of remembrance and Continued on A18
Lucien Lessard, the last living survivor of the 1958 Second Narrows Bridge collapse, speaks to gathered iron workers and dignitaries, 67 years after the disaster, in Vancouver on June 17. BRENT RICHTER / NSN