A 36-YEAR-old woman who left Ireland for Canada with her parents more than three decades ago has been killed by a bear while working on an oil field.
The Suncor Energy company released a statement reporting that an employee was the victim of a bear attack at its Oil Sands base plant. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene. This morning the Irish Independent named the woman as Dublin-born Lorna Weafer who had been working as an instrument technician doing electrical work.
Executive Vice President of the company Mark Little described it as a “very unusual incident” and said “there are no words to express the tragedy of this situation”.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to family, friends and co-workers.
“All of us need to focus on personal safety and I would urge everyone to be extremely vigilant in dealing with wildlife,” he added.
A spokesperson for workers union Unifor told the Canadian Press that the 36-year-old was dragged away from a group of people she was working with by the bear.
“People tried to stop it and do everything they could,” he said. “Obviously they are fairly horrified at what they saw and witnessed”.
More than 400 people have joined a memorial page for the woman on Facebook.
Reuters reports that Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Alberta Environmental and Sustainable Resource Development (AESRD) both responded to the incident and the bear was put down.
An investigation into the incident will now take place.
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