Draft:Dresden cave-in of August 14, 1957
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On August 14, 1957, an excavation in Dresden, Ontario collapsed, killing six workers.
The excavation was part of a new waterworks construction for the town of Dresden. The project was one of the first undertaken by the recently formed Ontario Water Resources Commission. The designs for the pumping station and water treatment plant were made by Canadian British Consulting Engineers, which was based in Toronto. The contractor was Keillor Construction, based in St. Thomas, Ontario.
The victims were all Dutch immigrants, who had come to Canada with their families a few years earlier, part of a wave of postwar emigration from the Netherlands. They wereJan Bremer (43), Hendrik Drenth (58), Enne Hovius (39), Wiebrand Hovius (19), Jan Oldewening (45), and their foreman, Dirk Ryksen (37).
There was extensive news coverage of the tragedy in Canada and the Netherlands. A mass funeral for the six men was held at the Christian Reformed Church in Aylmer, Ontario on August 17, 1957. Five of the men were buried side-by-side in the Aylmer Cemetery. The sixth man, Dirk Ryksen, was buried in the Woodland Cemetery in London, Ontario.
A Coroners Inquest, held in Dresden on September 12, 1957, found that the deaths had been accidental. In January 19578, the Town of Dresden charged Keillor Construction with breaching the Trench Excavators Protection Act. The trial was held in Chatham, Ontario. Alvin Keillor was represented by Harold Stafford. On March 6, justice of the peace Ivan B. Craig acquitted Keillor, ruling that it was not clear whether the definition of trench applied in this case.
The Dresden cave-in was one of Ontario's worst multi-fatality workplace accidents, second only to the Heron Road Bridge collapse of 1966.