WEB EXTRA: Lucky to be alive

A Kitimat youth is lucky to be alive following a tumble down a steep rock embankment into the Kitimat River.

The ATV quad accident occurred at approximately 8:00 p.m. yesterday evening on a dirt road just off of Chinook Avenue in the Cablecar subdivision.

A furious ATV owner was seen chastising an onlooking crowd of youth.

The owner, Joe Oliveira, thought his off-road vehicle was safe in his garage when his curiosity took him down the dirt road to see what the commotion of sirens was about.

What he found was his vehicle laying upside down in the current, only the back two wheels poking out a couple of metres from the shore.

Oliveira does know the youths involved in the incident.

Emergency vehicles were immediately dispatched to the scene to attend to the injured male.

The nature of his injuries are unknown but he was immobilized in a stretcher and hauled from the shore to a waiting ambulance.

An RCMP officer on the scene noted that paramedics would immobilize a patient no matter the extent of the injuries as a precaution.

A friend of the youth told the crowd of crowd of teenagers at the scene that the injured youth had given the thumbs up just before being loaded into the ambulance.