A woman died and more than a dozen other people were injured after a charter bus carrying a church youth group hit the median east of Grande Prairie and rolled this past weekend.
RCMP responded around 10:30 p.m. Saturday to the collision on Highway 43, about a kilometre west of the hamlet of Debolt — about 80 kilometres east of Grande Prairie.
Police said an initial investigation found the Diversified bus hit the median and rolled over once, landing on its wheels.
A total of 37 people were on board the bus, including adults and children. A 50-year-old woman from Grande Prairie died in the crash and 22 others were injured.
Grande Prairie Seventh-day Adventist Church pastor Dan Wilson said those aboard the bus were members of his congregation.
Wilson said the group was in its way back to Grande Prairie after attending a youth group conference in St. Albert near Edmonton, when the bus crashed on an icy road while trying to switch lanes near an exit on Highway 43.
“Dark and cold, they did their best to help each other,” the church’s pastor, Dan Wilson, said in a Sunday statement on the church’s Facebook page.
“One of our kids found a phone and called 911. I hate with all my being to share that Lillian Banda died at the scene after being ejected from the bus.”
Wilson did not identify Banda’s role with the church.
On Monday, Wilson said five adults and one six-year-old boy were taken to hospital in serious condition.
Wilson said three of the adults have since been discharged from hospital but two of them are awaiting surgery.
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Wilson says one adult church member remains in hospital with two cracked vertebrae, five broken ribs and a broken wrist.
Wilson says the boy is also waiting for details on what happened to his legs.
RCMP in Grande Prairie said they responded to a call about a rollover at around 10:30 p.m. Saturday after a bus carrying 37 children and adults crashed near Debolt, about 60 kilometres east of Grande Prairie.
Firefighters and multiple paramedics were dispatched; they assessed six passengers who were in serious condition and sent to hospital via ambulance.
A different bus was brought in to take 16 other patients with more minor injuries to hospital. Those people were released after being checked out.
The remaining passengers who were not injured were taken to the Debolt fire hall.
The Alberta Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church said in a statement on its website the person who died was an adult leader with “the Grand Prairie Pathfinder Club.”
The church’s website says its Pathfinder program is for youth between 10 and 17 and is “focused on spiritual growth, leadership development, community service, and outdoor adventure.”
The RCMP’s initial investigation found road conditions may have been a factor in the bus’s collision with a median, before it rolled over and landed on its wheels.
An RCMP collision reconstructionist attended the scene and Mounties said an investigation is ongoing.
Wilson said its members are either at home or recovering in hospital.
“Some will need broken bones repaired. All will need healing of the heart,” he said in the statement. “I hesitate to give specific reports as the cases of those in hospital are unfolding.
“I can say with almost 100 per cent confidence that none are in danger of dying or having serious lasting injuries.”
He said pastors and counsellors will be made available for the community.
Later Sunday, the church held a prayer service, where Wilson gave updates on the conditions of some of those injured.
Two of those people, who he said were from Jamaica and only recently joined the church, remain in hospital, and their daughters were staying at his home.
Wilson also called for people to pray for the driver of the bus, whom he said he spoke with at the fire hall in Debolt. He said the people attending the service wouldn’t know him, and likely won’t meet him.
“He was sitting in a chair by himself with his head down,” Wilson told the congregation, choked with emotion. “I went and sat with him and I talked with him.
“This morning when I was leaving the hospital, he was in the waiting room, waiting for a ride to come pick him up, and we chatted again. He’s devastated by what happened and he needs our prayers.”
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