LANTZ, N.S. – Relatives, classmates, teachers, Mounties, air cadets and rugby players filled every seat of the Hants East Rural High auditorium to celebrate the lives of two teenage girls who were struck and killed by a freight train last week.
READ MORE: Funeral for N.S. teens killed in train crash to be held Saturday
Members of the rural Nova Scotia community gathered at the Lantz high school where 17-year-old Cienna MacPherson was supposed to graduate this month, with a live feed being streamed for the friends and family of 18-year-old former international student Joana Hofer, who was visiting from Germany at the time of the accident.
Rev. Canon David Fletcher, who officiated the service, said the daily whistle of the train as it passes through the Trunk Highway 2 corridor will never be heard the same way, but searching for answers regarding the murky circumstances of the teenagers’ deaths “does not serve the heart that well.”
READ MORE: ‘Very, very tragic’: 2 teen girls killed after train collision in Lantz, Nova Scotia
According to RCMP, the teens were not at a crossing when they were hit by the Halifax-bound CN train on June 10.
Const. Tammy Lobb said we may never know exactly what happened, and unfortunately, the only people who do are no longer with us.
Principal Mike Smith said two trees symbolizing each of the girls’ nationalities were planted on the school’s front lawn about 4.5 feet apart “so they will grow to unite as one.”