1 dead, 6 seriously injured after charter bus rollover on northern Alberta highway

GRANDE PRAIRIE – A church says one of its members died and several others were injured after the bus they were on lost control, rolled over and ejected children and adults on a northern Alberta highway Saturday night.

Grande Prairie Seventh-day Adventist Church says the members were on their way back to Grande Prairie, Alta., from a city northwest of Edmonton, when their bus crashed on an icy road while trying to switch lanes near an exit on Highway 43.

“Dark and cold, they did their best to help each other,” the church’s pastor, Dan Wilson, said in a Sunday statement on the church’s Facebook page.

“One of our kids found a phone and called 911. I hate with all my being to share that Lillian Banda died at the scene after being ejected from the bus.”

Wilson did not identify Banda’s role with the church. The Alberta Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church said in a statement on its website the person who died was an adult leader with “the Grand Prairie Pathfinder Club.”

The church’s website says its Pathfinder program is for youth between 10 and 17 and is “focused on spiritual growth, leadership development, community service, and outdoor adventure.”

RCMP in Grande Prairie said Sunday they responded to a call about a rollover at around 10:30 p.m. Saturday. Police said the bus was carrying 37 children and adults.

A 50-year-old woman was pronounced dead at the scene, six people were taken to hospital in serious condition and 16 others were assessed for injuries, police said.

Mounties said passengers who weren’t injured were taken to a firehall in Debolt, a town just east of the rollover and 60 kilometres east of Grande Prairie, so they could get warm.

An initial investigation has found road conditions may have been a factor in the bus’s collision with a median, before it rolled over and landed on its wheels.

An RCMP collision reconstructionist attended the scene and Mounties said an investigation is ongoing.

Wilson said its members are either at home or recovering in hospital.

“Some will need broken bones repaired. All will need healing of the heart,” he said in the statement. “I hesitate to give specific reports as the cases of those in hospital are unfolding. 

“I can say with almost 100 per cent confidence that none are in danger of dying or having serious lasting injuries.”

He said pastors and counsellors will be made available for the community.

Later Sunday, the church held a prayer service, where Wilson gave updates on the conditions of some of those injured. Two of those people, who he said were from Jamaica and only recently joined the church, remain in hospital, and their daughters were staying at his home.

Wilson also called for people to pray for the driver of the bus, whom he said he spoke with at the fire hall in Debolt. He said the people attending the service wouldn’t know him, and likely won’t meet him.

“He was sitting in a chair by himself with his head down,” Wilson told the congregation, choked with emotion. “I went and sat with him and I talked with him.

“This morning when I was leaving the hospital, he was in the waiting room, waiting for a ride to come pick him up, and we chatted again. He’s devastated by what happened and he needs our prayers.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 8, 2026.