One woman was taken to hospital with minor injuries after a balcony collapsed in White Rock during Canada Day fireworks celebrations Friday.
Deputy fire Chief Ed Wolfe said crews were called to a home in the 15300-block of Marine Drive just after 10 p.m.
"(It was) a deck on an older house that had collapsed," Wolfe said Monday. "The support collapsed… the deck just sloped down towards Marine Drive, and everybody just slid off, with all the lawn furniture."
Wolfe said 11 people were on the deck at the time, including a young child.
The child was assessed at the scene; the woman was transported to hospital.
"She had a chest injury, she was having difficulty breathing," he said.
Wolfe said the incident was quickly deemed "relatively minor, as far as injuries were concerned," but acknowledged it had potential to be worse.
The slide down the deck was about a two-metre drop, however, had the revellers tumbled over a concrete retaining wall, they would've gone a further two metres onto Marine Drive itself – a concrete landing.
Fortunately, "it was more of a startle than anything," Wolfe said.
The call was among 22 handled by the White Rock fire department over the holiday weekend, which Wolfe described as busy for the crews on duty.