TRAPPED UNDER THE BUS

When the bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team collided with a semi-trailer, it took the lives of 15 people and raised serious questions about a notorious intersection.

Emergency response

At 5:29 p.m., Tisdale Fire requested aid from Nipawin and Zenon Park departments. Nipawin Fire Chief Brian Starkell said his department responded with 14 firefighters and four trucks. He says there were 30-plus firefighters on scene, plus support from paramedics and RCMP. When they arrived, the semi was on its side and the bus was on its side with its roof peeled back. Some players were trapped underneath the bus. First-responders were able to crawl underneath and extract the trapped players. First responders also called in a crane from Tisdale to hoist the roof of the bus to help extract those injured inside.

Air support

Ambulances were used to transport patients from the crash scene to the local hospitals and seven aircraft were used to transport patients from the local hospitals to Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon. The total air ambulance response was three STARS helicopters, which flew four missions total, two Saskatchewan air ambulance planes, one air ambulance plane from TransWest Air and two air ambulance planes from Alberta.

Resting place

After the semi-trailer struck the bus, both came to rest on the other side of the intersection, littering the area with the trailer’s cargo of peat moss.

First parent on scene

Myles Shumlanski got a “hysterical” call from his son, Broncos player Nick Shumlanski, screaming that the bus had been in a crash. Myles jumped into his vehicle and rushed to the scene, about a quarter mile from his home. Nick came running over to him. He was one of only two kids who seemed able to walk.

Hospitals

Victims were taken to the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon, about 230-kilometres away from the crash site. Hassan Masri, a critical care physician at the hospital, said patients began arriving around 9 or 10 p.m. The Saskatchewan Health Authority had declared a Code Orange — meaning a mass-casualty incident had occurred. Masri called his 13-hour shift “the longest, worst and most tragic night of my career. The images can’t be unseen or forgotten, the stories can’t be unheard or ignored.”

Passersby

Passing motorists stopped to help soon after the collision. “It was chaos,” said Myles Shumlanski. They held the kids steady and did what they could while they waited for emergency workers to arrive. “People were getting blankets. You were taking your jackets. You were doing anything to cover these boys,” he said. “They were in snow and ice and it was very cold yesterday. They were in very bad shape.” The first fire fighters arrived around 5:20 p.m.

The intersection

There are two stop signs with flashing lights on top located at the intersection on Highway 335. The southeast corner has a tree line that ends before the location of the stop sign. But the position of the trees would obscure the view of approaching vehicles.

FATALITIES THE BUS

The bus was provided by Charlie’s Charters, a company that was launched in 2005 to provide buses for minor hockey teams in northeast Saskatchewan. On its website, Charlie’s Charters says it is the official carrier of several junior hockey teams, including the Humboldt Broncos. The company has offices in Saskatoon and Tisdale.

THE TRUCK

The managing director at Premier Tech’s Carrot River operation said in an interview with the Saskatoon StarPhoenix that the truck involved was hauling a large load of 75-pound bags of peat moss from Carrot River into Alberta but he was unable to confirm what trucking company was hauling this specific load. The load ended up scattered across the accident scene.

Crosses

Six white crosses mark the spot where a single family, including three children, was killed more than 20 years ago in another horrific crash. On June 17, 1997, the Fiddler family was travelling from Saskatoon to Carrot River in a half-tonne truck along Highway 335. The half-tonne ran the stop sign on Highway 335, and crossed into the path of a semi-truck travelling the speed limit (100 km/h) on Highway 35. Roderick Fiddler, 33, Terri Fiddler, 30, and their three daughters — Jocelyn, 4, Jasmine, 3, and one-month-old Kassandre — were killed, as well as Rod’s sister Wendy, 26. All six died on impact, police, at the time, said.