17 children, 1 adult injured after walkway collapses during school trip to Fort Gibraltar in Winnipeg

Eighteen people, 17 of them children, were taken to hospital after many of them fell about five metres from an elevated walkway at Fort Gibraltar in Winnipeg's St. Boniface area on Wednesday.

Jason Shaw, a Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service assistant chief, said the accident happened shortly before 10 a.m. He said three of the children were taken to hospital in unstable condition, while the remaining patients were in stable condition.

The children are 10- and 11-year-olds from St. John's-Ravenscourt School who were on a field trip, the school confirmed in a statement.

Tameem Aljafari, 10, said he was among three classes of Grade 5 students who were on the field trip. He estimated about 30 people were on a walkway at the site when it fell.

"Randomly, it just started cracking when we were on it, and then a lot of people just fell down," he told reporters outside Winnipeg's Children's Hospital.

WATCH | Aerial camera shows collapsed walkway at Fort Gibraltar:

A teacher and two students were under the walkway when it collapsed, he said.

"I just didn't know what happened and then I couldn't breathe."

Aljafari received scratches, but said the people who were under the walkway were more seriously injured.

Health Sciences Centre was put into code orange, which is triggered by disaster events that result in a mass influx of patients, said Dr. Karen Gripp, medical director of the Children's Hospital emergency department.

"As of right now, there is one patient being admitted to hospital for observation. The rest either have been or will be discharged today," Gripp told reporters outside the hospital on Wednesday.

"It could have been so, so much worse. We were prepared for the worst."

Adult and pediatric surgeons, orthopedic surgeons and medicine and trauma staff were called on for help, which caused some surgical delays, she said.

"I don't think it overall had a huge impact, but there was definitely a period of time where everything was on hold just to make sure we knew what we were dealing with."