Mourning Rush Hour

"We have a double-decker bus, the front end has significant damage, multiple patients on the ground. Upgrade this to a mass casualty -- six code blacks [deaths]."

Wayne Cuddington/Postmedia NewsA Via Rail train and a city bus collided in Ottawa's west end 

Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2013. The front end of the bus was severely damaged.

"We're going to get you to respond to an MVC at Woodroffe and Fallowfield, please ... An OC Transpo bus versus a train. We're receiving lots of calls for this one."
"Any idea of how many people on board?"
"We're going to be getting this information very shortly. It's a double-decker bus and ... we keep getting information ..."
"Chief, I've upgraded it to a large vehicle."
"... Dispatch: Pump 44 on scene. We have a double-decker bus.
"The front end of the bus has significant damage. Multiple patients on the ground ... Upgrade this to a mass casualty. We have one, two, about six code blacks. I have at least three or four code reds on the ground. We have a two-storey bus.
"The front end is missing..."
Ottawa, Ontario -- 911 audio

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld   The scene following a Via Rail train and city bus collision in 

Ottawa's west end Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2013. 

 

There was OC Transpo bus #8017, its front left side completely shorn off. And there were ... body parts strewn along the tracks of the VIA Rail train with which the bus had just collided at a crossing that had its lights flashing, sound gonging, stout barriers firmly down. And there, across on Woodroffe Avenue, was the line of personal vehicles stopped, waiting for the line to clear so that they could continue their journey that morning, yesterday morning, the tail end of morning rush hour.

It was a lethal encounter. Many of the passengers on the crowded bus with a capacity of 82 passengers had sighted the approaching train, the line of stopped cars, the red warning signs, the barriers swinging into place. Nothing unusual there on their morning commute. As they watched,  they wondered why their morning bus seemed still to be barrelling ahead, heedless, as though it was travelling a straight, unobstructed line to its final destination. Incredulous, then overcome with foreboding, many of those passengers screamed warning.

Riders boarded the bus at Barrhaven, a suburb south-west of the city, prepared for their morning commute, roughly 40 minutes' distance, to downtown Ottawa. They were familiar with the passage, purely routine of a Toronto-bound VIA Rail train on its way to Montreal. This time the bus driver seemed completely unaware, oblivious to the fact that the bus he was driving was headed for imminent danger unless he took immediate action. But he didn't seem all there, somehow.

At-the-scene, post-collision narratives described a last-minute attempt to brake. Ottawa Police confirmed six bus passengers were killed, including the driver; five at the scene, the sixth in hospital. The injured numbered 34, with eleven of that number in critical condition, being treated at area hospitals. Many of the passengers hadn't been following what was occurring; busy reading newspapers, listening to their iPods, texting cellphone messages, even briefly napping en route to work.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld    Emergency workers transport a person to an ambulance following a crash between a city bus and a Via Rail train, Wednesday September 18, 2013 in Ottawa.

"It didn't compute until people starting yelling 'Whoa', and 'Stop' and 'Oh my God'. It was almost as if everything was in slow motion", said one passenger, in a later interview. The front end of the bus was destroyed, sheared off. Passengers were panicked, fearful, beside themselves. They filed carefully but hurriedly down the now-mangled staircase from the top deck of the bus to get to the ground level. Greeted there with body parts from some of their fellow passengers.

"You don't unsee that. Bystanders who had stopped their cars were running over to help. Some of the bodies were still moving", said one of the disembarked bus passengers. They saw, at the front end of the bus that a man was pinned under debris. And a few people rushed over to try to lift some of the metal to ease the weight pressing down on the man, others talking to him, trying to "keep him conscious", said another passenger.

Soon, arriving first responders assumed their professional care of the man.