'All hell broke loose': Second Narrows ironworker recalls bridge collapse

Gary Poirier thought he was dead.

It was June 17, 1958 and the 18-year-old ironworker was submerged in the water below the Second Narrows Bridge, which he had been working on moments earlier when it collapsed. 

As he floated to the surface, Poirier looked above at what remained of the bridge to see men shouting and pointing in his direction.

Two doctors who had been fishing nearby pulled him into their boat. Poirier had a broken leg, a torn muscle in his arm and a black eye.

"I wasn't hurt that bad," he said, remembering that moment. 

Sunday marks the 60th anniversary of when the bridge, which connects Vancouver to the North Shore, collapsed while it was under construction.

That day, 67 people had been working on the bridge; 19 people died.

Poirier, one of three remaining survivors, will be attending the ceremony on Sunday to commemorate the victims and the 60th anniversary of the tragedy. 

A new documentary, featuring previously unseen footage of the bridge, will also be presented as part of the ceremonies that day.

'All hell broke loose'

The day the bridge collapsed, Poirier had been inspecting bolts on a steel beam with a supervisor.

The bridge was midway through construction. The $23-million project was the second-largest cantilever bridge in the country, made with 16 million tons of steel. 

There were few safety precautions in place for workers like Poirier, who worked up high with no ties to keep them from plunging into the water nearly 50 metres below.

It was shortly before 4 p.m. when Poirier felt the bridge lurch. 

"As I turned around, the bridge went down," he said. "That's when all hell broke loose."

In total, 79 workers fell into the water that day. Poirier and the doctors who collected him looked around for more survivors. Bodies floated all around. 

A royal commission later established that two engineers, who both died in the accident, had miscalculated the temporary support beams that collapsed in the crash. 

'The work had to go on'

A few hours after the bridge collapsed, Poirier was in hospital but eager to get home to let his mother know he was alive. 

His younger brother later told him he had run all the way from their home on Commercial Drive to the south side of the bridge to see what happened. 

When Poirier recovered, he joined his colleagues and went back to work on the bridge to dismantle what was left of it. 

"The work had to go on, and I had to continue to make a living at something in this world," he said.

The bridge opened in 1960, and was officially renamed the Ironworkers Memorial in 1994. Poirier went on to work for years in his trade. He says safety measures have vastly improved. 

Still, some aspects of the job remain the same.

"You're up in the air, and you'd better be careful," he said.