An early morning crash in Jasper has left a Greyhound bus in tatters, but no one seriously injured.
Just before 6 a.m. on Jan. 5, Greyhound bus No. 5046—en route from Prince George, B.C. to Edmonton—slid off the road at the east end of town, as it exited onto Highway 16 from Connaught Drive.
The crash happened at a relatively low speed, but an overnight storm left the road in a treacherous condition, causing the bus to lose control and end up in the ditch at the entrance of Pine Bungalows.
Although no one was seriously injured, all 35 passengers, plus the driver, were taken to the hospital for assessment.
Chris Smith was on the bus, and in an interview the morning of the crash remembered looking out his window and seeing the bus begin to spin out of control.
At first he remembered feeling the back end of the bus sliding, and then the driver trying to apply the brakes. But the trailer the bus was pulling jackknifed and hit its rear end, sending the vehicle into the ditch.
“Then that was pretty much it: we hit the ditch and went for a little ride,” he recalled.
Thomas Descally was also on the bus. Like many of the passengers at the time, he was asleep just before the crash, and woke up when he felt the bus sliding.
He recalled laying with his knees to his chest, and waking up just before getting slammed against the window.
“So then, when we hit, I went BOOM into the seat,” he recalled.
“I was like,” he put his hands next to his head and shook them, making a surprised sound. “I didn't know what was happening, or where we are. I thought 'am I going to die?' and all of the sudden the bus stopped and I was like 'okay, I'm alive.'”
Smith remembered a similarly chaotic scene.
“It was [the driver cursing], then a bunch of people going 'oh!' and then boom! Crash! And then a bunch of people screaming.
“It was pretty loud, everyone woke up instantly. And there was a lot of head contusions on people and bloody noses.”
Many people were on cell phones calling police and ambulance, and others were making sure no one was seriously injured.
Descally remembers making sure the three-year-old child seated next to him was OK, before noticing the damage to the bus.
“The driver's side front end was bashed right in on the inside of the bus. On the front end the seats were all warped,” he said. “Towards the front of the bus, the floor was literally warped. And seats were crunched closer together.
“It was gnarly. Underneath me the floor was split, and there was cold air coming up through the floor.”
Shortly after the crash, emergency services personnel arrived on scene. According to Fire Chief Greg Van Tighem, rescue workers used ladders and emergency exit windows to evacuate people, and almost the whole fleet to transport them back to town.
Once there, passengers were taken to a reception area in the Emergency Services Building, where Jasper Victim Services provided support until a new bus was sent to finish the trip to Edmonton later that day.
“We had to transport a lot of people in a short period of time. We were basically using every vehicle we had to shuttle people to the fire hall or to the hospital,” said Van Tighem.
Despite the damage to the original bus, Kerry Williamson of Alberta Health Services reported that the Seton Healthcare Centre only treated people for minor bumps and bruises. A single fracture was the worst injury.
Greyhound spokesperson Lanesha Gipson said that the company is not yet sure of the cause of the accident, but said the company is cooperating with the Jasper RCMP and conducting an investigation of its own.
She confirmed that the driver who put the bus in the ditch had just started his shift in Jasper, so it is unlikely driver fatigue was a factor in the crash.
In a press release sent Jan. 5 , the Jasper RCMP wrote that "the matter is still under investigation while police determine the exact cause of the collision."
Just after 11 a.m. most of the passengers appeared tired but calm, although a few did profess jitters to board another bus.
“I'm a little uneasy about busses now,” Descally said with a chuckle.
Trevor Nichols
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