'We have an ability to create change': Waterloo Region residents mourn those who never returned from work

Waterloo Region residents, workplace safety advocates, and politicians all gathered at the Worker’s Monument in Cambridge’s Riverside Park for the National Day of Mourning.

April 28 is an emotional day for the Wyllie family as they honour their late family member.

“I just wish this had never happened,” said nine-year-old Charlotte Wyllie about her dad, James Wyllie. 

James Wyllie was 26 when he died in an industrial workplace accident on Aug. 27, 2015 in Guelph.

“He was up in we think was a cherry picker and his gear kind of had a malfunction and then it shot him right up in the air 30 feet,” said mother of Charlotte, Emily McGuffin. “There was a beam and it pressed him against and suffocated him until his last breath.”

“There was a coroner’s case and it was an accidental but there were things that could be put in place for instance, a belly guard because when he was thrusted against the beam, he was sardined in between that steel beam and the control panel…and he was unable to do anything,” said Wyllie’s mother, Anne Wyllie.

She says James was dedicated to his work, his family and friends and most importantly, his daughter Charlotte who was just 16 months old at the time of his death.