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| Gastown Steam Clock in downtown Vancouver |
FROM THE VANCOUVER SUN
The man who built and maintains one of Vancouver’s iconic landmarks, the Gastown Steam Clock, is recovering in hospital from grave injuries suffered in a five-metre fall from a ladder.
Ray Saunders, 79, known as “Father Time” to friends and family, fell from a ladder onto concrete while servicing a clock in Ladner a week ago, said his son, James Saunders, also a watchmaker. He suffered a fractured pelvis, broken vertebrae, three cracked ribs, a dislocated and fractured shoulder, a gash to the head that required 15 stitches and internal injuries, including a nicked spleen and damage to an abdominal artery.
He’s had three surgeries so far and spent most of the past week in the trauma ward at Vancouver General Hospital, where he’ll likely remain for months.
Saunders will have to enrol in a physical rehabilitation program at the GF Strong centre for up to eight weeks “before I can even walk,” he said in a phone call from his hospital room Thursday. “You can’t put pressure on the bones until they’ve had a chance to heal.”
Despite the injuries that have incapacitated him for the first time in his long career of building and maintaining large public clocks, which require him to climb high above the ground to access, he’s jovial and talkative on the phone.
“My family has forbidden me to go up ladders,” said the father-of-five grown children and five grandchildren. “I think it’s time to hang up my safety vest.”
Saunders has contracts to service the many clocks he maintains and some of which he built or rebuilt, including those in Mount Pleasant, Kerrisdale, Queen Elizabeth Park, at Vancouver City Hall, the Sinclair Centre, Birks and the Heritage Hall on Main at 16th Avenue. He’s making alternative plans for the switch to standard time on Nov. 3 — “it’s a big money-making weekend” — for the dozen of clocks he has to adjust back an hour.
“I lubricate them and service them at the same time,” he said. “My plans are to train my new apprentice, Dylan Scott, to do all the ladder-climbing for me.”
Saunders usually visits his most famous clock, in Gastown, about twice a week.
“I like opening the clock and talking to the children,” he said.
Saunders is upbeat and anxious to return to work, but James said it will likely take six months to a year, during which he’ll have reduced income. His apartment will also require extensive and costly modifications to allow him to continue to live there, including, a stair lift, bed rail, shower rails, shower chair and adapted furniture, including a specialized bed and reclining chair.
