On Sept. 19, 2023, Crescent Bay Construction Ltd. workers were adding the last bit of decking on a new forest service bridge some 80 kilometres downriver from Revelstoke, when a birch tree toppled over from a nearby cliff face and dealt a fatal blow.

"We didn't see it at all up there," recalled Eric Waterfield, the company's construction manager who was on site.

What Waterfield did see was a limb break off the trunk, which flew toward him and "hit hard enough that I was knocked over."

He reported being left unscathed, but it was one of his employees alongside him, a man who'd worked for him 20 years and also been his next-door neighbour in Nakusp, who was ultimately killed following the branch's impact, and who remains unnamed for privacy.

The deadly incident, which happened about seven kilometres north of Beaton, has generated a $8,995 fine for the company to pay based on multiple "high-risk violations."

WorkSafeBC, in its Jan. 23 penalty summary, said Crescent Bay Construction, a Nakusp-based trucking and automotive shop with a staff of 10 that performs work on bridges and roads, didn't adequately identify this hazard.

"The firm failed to conduct a dangerous tree assessment by a qualified person before work began and failed to ensure the health and safety of all workers at the worksite, both high-risk violations," the summary reads.

It's a penalty Waterfield told Black Press Media he's in the process of appealing, though he noted having not yet seen WorkSafeBC's summary and just mentioned knowing about the nearly $9,000 fine.

He emphasized that his company, hired by B.C.'s Ministry of Forests for three days of removing the hillside bridge and nine days of replacing it, was the third contractor to arrive to the site for the project.

First the ministry sent a team of "rock sealers" to inspect and secure the whole site, including under the trees on the cliff, followed by engineers who performed work on the bridge, Waterfield said. He added that he "presumed" these two initial contractors had done their own tree assessment, and described the mix of work and responsibility between all three different contractors as "piecemeal."

"A lot of other people were there upsetting the area," he said, calling the circumstances "frustrating."

According to Waterfield, the ministry had a contract inspector on site every second day, but disputes that Waterfield himself walked the bridge to perform an inspection before his company began work. He said his company inspected other trees around the site, but not the one that delivered the fatal blow.

"There was only one tree in question that caused any problem," he said. "We should've done a follow-up."

Waterfield said his company was fully compensated by the ministry up until their work on the bridge stopped. The bridge itself has since been "blocked" and "deactivated," cutting off the main access road for long-term private landowners in the area, Waterfield described.

"Forestry's just saying it's too dangerous," he said.

"We extend our condolences to the family and friends of the deceased and our sympathies to all those affected by this incident," the BC Forest Safety Council wrote in its September 2023 fatality alert for the incident.