10-year-old child who died in North Vancouver boat crash identified

Akshay Kulkarni · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 10, 2025 9:36 AM EDT | Last Updated: June 10

The 10-year-old unfortunate of a speedboat clang successful North Vancouver connected Saturday evening has been identified arsenic Lionel Hall.

Hall and different kid were connected an inflatable conduit and being towed by a vessel erstwhile it was struck by a speedboat disconnected the enactment of Cates Park conscionable earlier 6:30 p.m. PT connected Saturday.

Hall died connected country and the 2nd child was airlifted to infirmary successful superior condition. 

Alcohol and velocity are being investigated arsenic factors successful the fatal crash, and constabulary arrested a North Vancouver antheral soon after. He has not been named and hasn't been charged.

Hall was identified arsenic the unfortunate by household person Coreena Robertson, who said the 10-year-old's parent Shelley Klassen and begetter Jason Hall described their lad arsenic "larger than beingness itself."

Robertson said family, loved ones and Hall's friends were supporting the Hall household successful the aftermath of the tragedy.

"The parents that I've seen travel present with tears successful their eyes ... truly hard," she told CBC News.

"It's besides beauteous to see, you know, the emotion that Lionel's heart, and conscionable his light, reached."

Robertson said Hall was a budding jock who enjoyed soccer, rugby, hurdles and track.

She said his household deserves answers aft the tragedy, and that constabulary should look into wherefore the speedboat operator was not stopped earlier the crash.

"This should beryllium a fun, enjoyable enactment that kids and household members tin bask and not consciousness similar ... it's going to extremity successful a tragedy," she said.

WATCH | Child identified amid calls for boating regularisation change: 

RCMP confirmed the speedboat operator was released from custody Sunday. He has a tribunal day acceptable for Aug. 27.

Hall and the different kid connected the inflatable conduit were not related, according to police, but the 10-year-old was confirmed arsenic a pupil of the Vancouver schoolhouse district.

A spokesperson for the Vancouver School Board said further supports and counsellors had been made disposable to students astatine the victim's school.

District to speech with larboard authority

Cates Park is located astatine the eastbound extremity of Dollarton Highway, on the Burrard Inlet shoreline.

The fashionable vessel motorboat astatine the park, which is besides known as Whey-ah-Wichen, was closed Saturday portion constabulary investigated. It has since reopened.

District of North Vancouver Mayor Mike Little said Monday that his unit would speech to the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority astir beefing up regulations astir the popular park.

The larboard authorization is liable for regulating postulation successful the Burrard Inlet, the assemblage of h2o wherever the fatal clang occurred, and constabulary said Sunday that aggregate velocity regulations already beryllium successful the country — which lies crossed from an lipid terminal.

"[The port] is the bureau that's liable for the navigable water's areas," Little told Michelle Eliot, big of CBC's BC Today.

"And truthful [we'll] enactment with them, spot if there's antithetic velocity limits that tin beryllium considered, oregon possibly channels and lanes truthful that you person dilatory postulation separated from faster traffic."

WATCH | Calls for much enforcement aft decease of child: