Bus accident - tragedy for Canadian Junior Hockey Team

[Gee Whillickers]

A junior hockey team's bus and a semi hit each other at the intersection of two highways in Saskatchewan, Canada Friday night. There were 29 people on the team's bus. At the point of this writing, 15 of them have died. Many others are hurt, some critically, one has a broken back and cannot feel his lower extremeties and may never walk again, let alone ever skate or play hockey again.

These were kids. 

Junior hockey means teenagers. The youngest was 16, and the oldest was 21.

Those of you that follow hockey at all, or any other sports where buses of kids travel to other towns to play can perhaps understand the level of tragedy here. The town, Humboldt  Saskatchewan is like a lot of small towns. Their junior hockey team was a very important part of their community. They were in the middle of playoff series, and were about halfway between that town and their own when the accident happened.  The entire town is absolutely devastated.

If anyone has read my story 'Out of My League', or any of the other wonderful stories here and elsewhere about teens involved in sports teams you can perhaps understand the upcoming massive challenges for the survivors.

Among those killed were the team's coach--a family man with two young boys at home, the bus driver, the team captain, a 16 year old player, and many other players who's identities haven't been released yet.

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/nipawin-humboldt-bus-crash-1.4609835

 

[colinian]

Terrible. Just terrible. And so very, very sad.

Colin 

[Merkin]

A terrible, terrible tragedy, destined to rip this small town apart.

I grew up in a small town where school sports were one of the things that glued the town together.  Along with the rest of the town’s youth I often rode to those distant 40-plus mile playdates in old decrepit school busses that were mobile tragedies waiting to unfold.  I think it’s high time we looked hard at bus safety, driver training, and regulations affecting the ‘volunteer’ bus drivers so often found at the wheel of these sports buses.

[Gee Whillickers]

3 hours ago, Merkin said:

A terrible, terrible tragedy, destined to rip this small town apart.

I grew up in a small town where school sports were one of the things that glued the town together.  Along with the rest of the town’s youth I often rode to those distant 40-plus mile playdates in old decrepit school busses that were mobile tragedies waiting to unfold.  I think it’s high time we looked hard at bus safety, driver training, and regulations affecting the ‘volunteer’ bus drivers so often found at the wheel of these sports buses.

 

 

Agreed. In this case the accident is still under heavy investigation.

 

But it doesn't take an experienced traffic scene examiner to look at the pictures and at google maps and make some conclusions. The bus was traveling on main highway. The semi was traveling on a more secondary access highway. You can clearly see it was the semi that had the stop sign. One of the articles also mentioned that the semi driver was briefly detained after the accident. Now, there is not enough information to jump to conclusions. Perhaps the semi's brakes failed. Perhaps a thousand other things. But honestly it really looks like the semi ran the stop sign.

 

[Gee Whillickers]

I just read that one of the first responders to the scene was the father of one of the kids.

I can't even imagine....

 

[ChrisR]

As a former EMT-A who has responded to mass casualty disasters, my prayers go out to the injured, survivors, families, and the responders involved. I know of no more helpless feeling than rolling up as first on scene and realizing that the entire county doesn't have the necessary resources to deal with the situation. There are generally differences between civilian and combat triage, but when faced with numerous casualties these differences pale. And the first two guys who roll up on the scene know all too well that people will die who might otherwise have survived. And when a number of those are kids...

My prayers are with those who will do all in their power to save lives. And that they accept the proferred help when they inevitably fail.

[dude]

I heard the story on NPR this morning and it brought a tear to my eye... thinking of the dead, the injured, the families and the community.  While I'm moved to say a prayer for all of them... I wonder to whom -if anyone- I should address it.

[colinian]

It was reported here on KPIX (CBS TV) that $6.2 million has been raised so far through Go Fund Me.

Colin 

[ChrisR]

Just heard that one of the victims had been mis-identified. Apparently the team - typical goofy kids - had all dyed their hair blonde. So two boys had been mixed up. I can't even imagine the  parents' roller coaster.

[Gee Whillickers]

Sadly, add one more to the fatality list.

 

The trainer, a 24 year old athletic therapist, was traveling with the team, and succumbed to her injuries.

 

Dayna Brons graduated in 2016 with a bachelor of Kinesiology at the University of Regina. She also received an advanced certificate in athletic therapy from Mount Royal University.