Sometime in the early fifties, Oris decided to give it a go on the Great Lakes. He got shipped out on one of Quebec and Ontario Paper Co., boats the Outarde (see picture) The season passed and they had put the pulp carrier into Port Weller Drydock for work over the winter. When laying up, Oris and another deck hand were up on two extension ladders, 180 degrees apart, putting a tarp over the funnel.
It was a very windy day, and while they were engaged at this task, a gust pulled the tarp from the other seaman's grip, blowing it back across the top of the funnel toward Oris. Oris's ladder wasn't tied off, and the tarp carried him backward, ladder and all out over the boatdeck, where Oris released his hold and dropped, striking the boat deck, where he hit the rail, bounced and landed on the cement floor of the dry dock. Nine day's later, he regained concééniousness in St. Catherine's General Hospital. He awakened just as the Drs. were having a consultation at his bedside as to whether or not to pull the plug on the support system.
" You feller's never mind that, I'm alive; now get to work!" Which they did.
After multiple operations, pinning and screwing and plating this human Humpty Dumpty together again, they sent him to The tario Workers Rehabilitation Hospital at Malton, where he was a guest for fourteen months. He arrived back home in a white 1950 Ford two door. I believe he had 87 fractures, which says volumes about the toughness and positive attitude of this native son of DH., one of the perpetrators of the Gull Egg Caper.
The surgeons had fused both his ankles, which impeded his ability to drive heavy trucks to some extent ( or so they lead him to believe) but he kept on a-truckin' ! Witnesses said that the tarp billowing around him as he fell the 73 feet to the floor of the dock undoubtable saved his life.
Don
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