Three Hutterites die in Granville Street accident

VANCOUVER – Three members of an Alberta Hutterite colony died and another was seriously injured Monday evening after their car slammed into the back of a transit bus.

The red Toyota Corolla was southbound on Vancouver’s busy Granville Street around 6 p.m. when it rear-ended the bus.

Daniel Tschetter survived the accident and remains in hospital according to Mary Hofer, a member of the Spring Ridge colony near Wainwright, Alta.

"The last we heard is he’s doing very good," Hofer said Tuesday. "The relatives are all there."

Hofer said Daniel’s family members Suzy, Danny, and Debbie Tschetter all died in the accident.

The details of the crash are still fuzzy, but police say the bus was in the process of making a scheduled stop when it was hit by the vehicle.

"Witnesses reported seeing the car travelling at a high rate of speed and weaving through traffic shortly before the collision," wrote Vancouver police spokeswoman Const. Jana McGuinness in a news release.

After the collision, the car spun around backwards and came to rest in bushes on the southwest corner of the street. The engine compartment was pressed far back toward the passenger cabin.

Two of the vehicle’s occupants died on the scene and another died on the way to hospital. Police have not yet confirmed the identity of the victims.

Claudio Puyssegur said he was riding on the bus when it was hit. He was dozing off at the back of the bus on the passenger side when he was awoken by the impact.

"It was pretty traumatic," Puyssegur said of the accident.

"We got out of the bus and we saw the car was smoking and there was . . . pandemonium," he said. "The fire department got there really quick, as did the ambulance."

There were 12 passengers in the bus when the car crashed into its rear-end, said TransLink spokesman, Drew Snider.

The bus driver – who helped extinguish the fire – required peer counselling at the scene to deal with the experience, but is otherwise all right, Snider said.

One female bus passenger was treated for minor injuries at the location of the accident, Snider said.