Missing medals
A war veteran is distraught after returning from Powell River General Hospital without his war medals.
Bronislaw Laska, 89, served with the British Army in Europe and Africa during World War II. He is in declining health and visits the hospital regularly.
“It happens every few weeks that he goes to the hospital,” said Laska’s live-in caregiver Ellen Tighe. “They put him on oxygen and give him antibiotics to take.”
For the past five months, every time Laska has gone to the hospital he has worn his navy blue Legion blazer with his war medals, not expecting to return.
At 1 am on March 23, Laska was taken to hospital by BC Ambulance Service, but when he returned home later that morning his medals were missing. The five medals were pinned to the front of his blazer.
The paramedics searched the ambulance for the medals without finding them. Tighe called the hospital to talk to the nurses who attended to Laska to see if they knew what happened, but no one she spoke to knew about the missing medals. She contacted hospital security and finally the RCMP.
“I was getting pretty frustrated,” she said.
Four days after the medals went missing Tighe posted on Facebook about the incident looking for help. Both pawn shops in town were checked and nothing was found.
“I’ve been told that there are people who buy war memorabilia like medals” she said.
Tighe is asking for help from the public to have the medals returned. If anyone has any information about them, she asks that they please contact Powell River RCMP (604.485.6255) or Tighe at [email protected].
“He’s not handling this well at all,” she said. “His health has degraded a lot in the last two weeks. He should have gone to the emergency room last night, but he’s refusing saying he is going to die at home in his chair.”
Scam resurfaces
A scam that entices victims to allow strangers to access their computers has resurfaced in Powell River.
Residents have received calls from people who say they are from Microsoft. The callers tell people they have a virus in their computer that is destroying their hard drive. They ask people to follow their instructions for downloading software to fix the problem.
The callers are persistent, calling back more than once if people hang up on them or decline their offer. They sound convincing as well, particularly to users who are not confident about their computer skills.
The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre said there has been an increase in the number of complaints received involving fraudulent telephone solicitation for anti-virus software. In the scheme, callers offer to repair the computer over the Internet, which can involve the installation of software or customers allowing the representatives remote access to their computer. Payment for the software or repair service is handled via credit card.
Allowing a third party to download software or remotely access a computer carries inherent risks. Keyloggers or other malicious software could be installed to capture sensitive data such as online banking user names and passwords, bank account information and identifying information. Callers often reference Microsoft, Windows or Online PC Care.
Readers who believe they or someone they know has been a victim of fraud should contact the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre at 1.888.495.8501.
Seismic upgrades
Two Powell River schools will be receiving seismic upgrades in the coming years with new funding from the provincial government announced Monday, April 8.
Henderson Elementary School and École Côte du Soleil are two of 45 high-risk schools in the province that will have work done to make them more quake-proof over the next three years.
Premier Christy Clark announced $584 million in funding for the upgrades. In the first year the province has earmarked $111.8 million for work on 10 schools.
The province has been quake-proofing or replacing schools since 2001. Three hundred schools in BC were identified by the School Seismic Mitigation Program as needing work to bring them up to standard. With these 45 new projects, only 102 high-priority schools are left. The goal is to complete them by 2020.
According to Steve Hopkins, secretary treasurer for School District 47, Henderson is a vulnerable structure not in the sense that it poses a risk to safety to teachers and students, but that the structure could suffer irreparable damage in the event of a significant earthquake.
He said the school needs to have its posts “beefed up” because “a big part of the classroom block is on a second story,” and have its sheer wall reinforced to give the structure more stability.
Since 2001, the provincial government has spent or made commitments to spend a total of $2.2 billion to seismically upgrade schools.
