Uncertainty lingers after crash

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This article was published 17/06/2023 (988 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DAUPHIN — Twenty-four hours after a semi-truck collided with a bus full of Dauphin seniors on a day trip to a casino in Carberry on the Trans-Canada Highway, it seems to be business as usual in Dauphin — at least on the surface.

The local restaurant fills up at lunch hour and the senior centre runs the usual Friday afternoon bingo. But in spite of appearances, residents say there is a heavy feeling of uncertainty about the 15 seniors who were killed and the 10 survivors who were taken to hospital.

“You just feel it in the air, it’s just a very heavy atmosphere,” said Cheryl Sokol, manager of Corrina’s on Main, a local diner.

It was late Friday afternoon that RCMP confirmed that 10 people injured in the collision have been identified, and anyone else who was on the bus is presumed to be dead, and even then no names of the deceased were released, leaving residents to wonder about the fate of those on the bus they might have known.

At the restaurant Friday morning, Sokol wondered if some of the victims were customers. She said she noticed a lot of sadness as she served diners their coffee that morning.

“There’s a lot of chatter of, ‘Oh, is it that person?’ ‘Oh, is it this one’s mother?” she said.

On Thursday morning, the bus passengers had met at the Dauphin Active Living Centre, which is just behind Corrina’s restaurant, as a pickup spot for the bus. Many parked their vehicles before heading out on the trip.

But for Sokol, who walked by the centre’s parking lot Friday morning, the cars left behind by the victims of the crash were a sobering reminder of Thursday’s tragedy.

“There was a whole bunch of parked cars there, and I’m like, ‘Oh, those probably are the seniors that were on the bus and they didn’t make it home to take their vehicles,’” she said. “And it just really hit home that this actually happened — this is real.”

Sokol also said that the community was still dealing with another recent tragedy, four teens from Dauphin who were killed in a car crash in Gilbert Plains.

“I don’t know how much this town can handle,” she said. “But in past tragedies, you’ve seen the town come together, and hold each other up and help each other.”

Margaret Moar, who lives in Kinosota but came to Dauphin to meet her sister, Roxanne Ross, a resident of Dauphin for 25 years, at the restaurant. Ross, who is a retired personal support worker, said that when the list of names of the victims of the crash is released, she’s confident she’ll know somebody.

“I just know that I’m gonna know [that] one of my friends will be affected,” she said.

Having lunch at the same spot, and making a stop in Dauphin, were Russell and Debbie Murray, who live north of Dauphin and were still awaiting word about Debbie’s sister-in-law’s brother, who was on the bus with his wife.

They had heard that his wife, who is in her late 70s, survived and was in Winnipeg hospital with two broken legs and broken ribs. They said close family is with her at the hospital. They haven’t heard any news about her husband, but Debbie Murray said that she’s assuming the worst.

“There’s a good chance he was one of the ones that was in the vehicle, which was burned,” Debbie said.

She said she wasn’t sure if the couple she knows went on regular day trips to the casino, but noted that seniors generally like to take advantage of opportunities for social outings.

“We’re seniors too, and if someone phones and says, ‘Hey, do you want to do this?’ you jump on the bandwagon and away you go because we’ve got the time to do it,” she said.

Russell said that as the couple talks to more people, they realize they know people who were among the 25 passengers on the bus.

“We’re finding out more people that we do know,” he said.

In a town where residents say “everybody knows everybody,” Mayor David Bosiak told the Sun that the town is following the advice from Humboldt, Sask., and the RCMP, which is to not release any identification information until they are sure they have correct information.

“We’re trying to just be as accurate as we can be with sharing information that we know is 100 per cent factual,” he said.

He said that the impact on the community is far reaching, especially since many of the passengers had lived in Dauphin their whole life and have children and grandchildren in the town.

“Twenty-five people were on that bus,” he said. “I bet you, everybody in town knows somebody that was on there.”

Recounting his personal experience learning about the crash on Thursday, the mayor said he knew people who jumped in the car and headed to Winnipeg as soon as they knew that there were survivors. He said there was a sense of disbelief and somberness in the town on Friday.

The mayor said that the outpouring of support from the province and other cities has been overwhelming. He said that reeves from other municipalities have reached out to him, and the provincial government, the regional health authority and the school division.

Outside city hall, flags flew at half mast, and a #dauphinstrong message was written on an electronic sign in front of the building.

He said that the town is still figuring out how to meet the community’s needs and how they will be releasing information, which will shift over the next few days. Still, Bosiak said that he knows that people will need to grieve and that he hopes to give people the space and comfort they need to be able to heal.

“I’m completely confident that staff, and council and citizens of our community will pull together— because we have to,” Bosiak said.

At the Dauphin Active Living Centre, administrator Kim Armstrong said that the centre is a gathering place for Dauphin seniors. The centre hosts meals and social games like Scrabble and bingo. She said that her and many of the staff personally know many of the seniors who visit. She said the tragedy is a huge blow to everyone at the centre.

The centre will continue to bring in necessary supports for people, Armstrong said.

“Because our focus is on seniors, this place is open for seniors [and] friends and family to touch base,” she said.

Friday bingo ran as usual at the centre Friday afternoon, but many faces were missing, said Sandra Kaleta. She said that the seniors that spend time at the centre are like family and the crash touched everybody.

“Even sitting here today there’s people that are always at bingo that aren’t here,” she said.

She said that she almost went on Thursday’s bus tour, which she said was the first since COVID-19, but at the last minute decided not to. She said she felt “saved.”

She said that she came to bingo on Friday because that’s her routine and she said keeping busy helps with the grief.

“This is what I always do on Fridays,” she said. “I mean, life has to go on.”

Another man, Matt Burdeniuk, who spoke with the Sun outside his home, said that he almost went on the bus trip too. Burdeniuk, who is 87, said that he has gone on many trips to the casino before.

Chris Drysdale, manager of the Lorray Manor, a retirement home in Dauphin, said that no one from the building was in the crash, but he went door to door in the building to make sure everybody was OK. He said that many people are concerned for the driver of the bus, who was well known among seniors for taking them to and from appointments.

Meanwhile, Father Michel Nault, a priest at the St. Viator’s Roman Catholic church, said that he carries a little black book of names as he talks to people around the community. When he learns the name of someone who was in the crash from a family member, he writes their name down. He said he only had about nine names — far short of the 25 passengers he noted.

“I’m keeping track, little by little, names that I have,” he said.

The priest said that when he heard about the crash, he changed the sermon he had planned to deliver that evening.

“The temptation is to go into the mass and say, “Look forward,’” he said. “But the truth is to be there and let that be the moment that God is speaking to us and blessing us and strengthening us to go forward. That’s the message I gave.”

Also at the church, Darrell Yunker, a caretaker, sweeps the floor. He said he had just called his wife, who learned that her friend survived and was in the hospital with a punctured lung.

A parishioner carrying a water can and tending to flowers, said that she was supposed to have lunch today with one of the passengers of the bus. Fortunately, her friend was one of the survivors, she said.

She noted that many people were comparing the crash to the Humboldt tragedy in which 16 people on board the Humboldt Broncos team bus were killed in 2018. But there’s a difference, she noted, as many who were killed in the Humboldt crash were young. In the Carberry crash, those in the bus were 58 to 88 years old.

“It’s going to be a little different in that these are seniors, you’re not looking at how they’re not going to graduate [or] marry,” she said. They’ve had their families and had their lives, but the families all wanted a little more time, as we all do when there’s a death.”

There were 19 women and six men on the bus. Of the survivors six are women and four are men.

RCMP confirmed that video footage of the collision from the semi-trailer shows that the bus drove on to the roadway where the semi-trailer had the right of way.

Mounties say that they have spoken with the driver of the semi-trailer but not the driver of the bus, as he is being treated in hospital.

» gmortfield@brandonsun.com