‘There’s just sorrow’: Bus driver says rides must continue in wake of deadly crash – Winnipeg | 24CA News
Doug Westhouse sits straight behind the wheel of a 12-passenger bus driving alongside a rural Manitoba freeway ready for the subsequent name for a trip.
The coordinator and driver for Grand Plains Handivan in Grandview, Man., slows the hefty automobile down as an oncoming semi-trailer truck passes by on Highway 5.
He says he’s been considering quite a bit about one other minibus, not a lot bigger than the one he drives, that crashed with a semi final week on the identical highway. Fifteen seniors on the bus have been killed.
“There’s just sorrow,” Westhouse says.
The bus was heading south on Highway 5, carrying a gaggle of seniors from Dauphin and the encircling space to a on line casino Thursday, when it crossed the Trans-Canada Highway and went into the trail of the truck close to the city of Carberry, some 190 kilometres to the south.
Health officers have mentioned 10 others on the bus, together with the motive force, have been in hospital. Five have been in important situation.
“Being familiar with that corner, it’s a dangerous corner,” says Westhouse, shaking his head.
“They should have stoplights there.”
Westhouse has been driving minibuses and different passenger autos for years, after retiring from his profession as a welder. His present job with Grand Plains Handivan sees him transport seniors and folks with disabilities from Grandview and Gilbert Plains about 50 kilometres east to Dauphin for medical and dental appointments, grocery buying and visits with household and associates.
He smiles whereas speaking a few common passenger, a lady in her 90s who’s fiercely humorous and visits her husband in a close-by care residence.
Another passenger, a youthful lady who makes use of a wheelchair, calls him grandpa.
The clients are like household, he says.
Westhouse is aware of one lady who was on the bus that crashed. She had simply purchased new furnishings for her residence and was excited for the supply on Monday, he says.
He pauses. “She was so nice.”
He hasn’t heard but if she was killed or survived. RCMP are to launch the names of the victims on Thursday.
Quality Care Transit in Dauphin owned the bus concerned within the crash. RCMP have mentioned 25 folks have been on board.
Grand Plains Handivan buses are smaller. There’s the 12-passenger bus, an older 15-passenger bus and a wheelchair-accessible minivan.
Westhouse says they get a security examine yearly. And earlier than every journey, drivers examine across the automobile to make sure it’s in good situation. All passengers are required to put on seatbelts and wheelchairs are clipped in to the ground.
Westhouse says he is aware of all of the grain bins, timber and harmful intersections on the routes he takes a number of occasions every day.
But he nonetheless needs to be cautious.
The bus drives otherwise than different autos, he says. It takes quite a bit longer to speed up, and quite a bit longer to decelerate.
Despite big facet view mirrors, there are nonetheless blind spots, he provides. Before crossing a freeway or making a flip, drivers of the bigger buses need to do an excessive “head bop.”
Lean far ahead, look each methods, lean again and do the identical factor, he says.
For seniors in communities throughout Manitoba, these buses are an important technique of journey.
Westhouse makes use of the wheelchair-accessible van to select up a shopper from an appointment in Dauphin and take him again to Grandview. A volunteer who helps seniors get to appointments additionally will get on.
They chat about well being care and the recent climate because the van passes by farmhouses and fields.
Westhouse says most purchasers haven’t been speaking a lot concerning the crash. Some have Alzheimer’s illness or different well being points that make it troublesome to understand what occurred.
Others simply aren’t prepared, he says.
Westhouse says he and different bus drivers have talked concerning the wave of guilt that washes over them once they inform themselves: “Thank God it wasn’t me.”
But they’re nonetheless getting behind the wheel, he says, as a result of they know the way vital the transportation is.
“I’m responsible for those people in the back,” Westhouse says.
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