Passionate young advocate for workplace safety to tour province

At 19, Nick Perry was "just a regular guy, growing up in a regular neighborhood in Victoria," looking forward to getting his own place and enjoying some independence.

But only six months into his first job, a serious injury ended any shot he had at being a regular guy or being self-sufficient, he said. "In fact, my accident made me even more dependent at 19 than I was as a little kid. For a while anyway."

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It was 2001, and Perry was working in a lumberyard. He was using a forklift to move a stack of fibreboard sheets from a shed. As he reversed, the load shifted and started to slip off the forks, so Perry got off to push the board back on. A co-worker hopped on the forklift to help, and Perry told him to lower the forks. But as he turned away from the forklift, the entire load (more than at ton) slid off and fell on him. "It immediately broke my back and I just folded in half and laid under the stuff," he said.

"I spent three weeks in a hospital, another few months at a rehab centre, then six months doing intense physiotherapy. About a year later, I started walking again. I can tell you this: working out in a gym is nothing comapred to that. It was one of the toughest years of my life, physically and mentally."

Although grateful to be walking again, Perry said that doesn’t mean his life is back to normal. "It’s strange in a way, when I’m not in my wheelchair I don’t look disabled. But I am. And that comes with its own frustrations."

Perry’s life was forever altered because of lack of training. "All the training I got was just passed down from other workers. The only training I got on driving a forklift was that I was told this goes up, back, down, forward. Here’s the gas, here’s the brake. That’s it."

Perry is now a passionate advocate for workplace safety. He is one of four seriously injured teenagers featured in WorkSafeBC’s Lost Youth video, a docu-drama includes candid, emotional interviews with the young workers and their parents, and graphic re-enactments of their accidents. He also posts regular blogs through WorkSafeBC’s Raise Your Hand website, a component of their Raise Your Hand campaign, which uses popular social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Flicker to share information and get young workers excited about workplace safety.

WorkSafeNB is proud to host Nick Perry and the Lost Youth tour. The tour will begin with a plenary session at WorkSafeNB’s Annual Health and Safety Conference in Saint John, and includes appearances at high schools, community colleges and private industries and business associations across the province.

"When Nick presents to the high schools and community colleges, it’s on a peer-to-peer level. That’s the power of his message, and feedback to his presentations has always been overwhelmingly positive. And this tour is especially timely with the introduction of the health and safety curriculum, mandatory for graduation from any NBCC/CCNB program," said Perley Brewer, manager, client consulting and education services. (Click here to read more about the NBCC/CCNB curriculum) "But it’s just as important to reach our employers. They need to know how important training is for young and new workers. Nick’s story will really drive that home," Brewer said. "That’s why we’re really pleased that industries such as Point Lepreau and associations such as Enterprise Moncton are sponsoring Lost Youth sessions."

"I want to leave a mark and know I’ve made some impact. I just don’t know how much longer I can relive my accident. As much as I know it helps other people to hear a real-life story, every time I talk about it, I can’t help but think how different my life could have been, that "what if" state of mind. Of course, I try not to live in the realm of "what could have been" so the down feeling doesn’t last long. Besides, I know the positive message far outweighs any negative thoughts I have," Perry said.