St. Albert family describes bus crashing into pool: ‘Could have been a hell of a lot worse’

A St. Albert family is cleaning up a massive mess after a school bus crashed into their swimming pool Monday.

The RCMP said the crash occurred at about 3 p.m. and that no children were on board at the time of the collision. The female driver of the bus was examined by paramedics but police did not say if she suffered any injuries.

READ MORE: No children on school bus that crashed into swimming pool north of Edmonton: RCMP

Watch below: (From July 29, 2019) Police are investigating after a school bus crashed into a swimming pool in St. Albert on Monday. There were no kids on the bus.

0:55 Bus crashes into St. Albert pool

Sam Akplu was building a deck around his in-laws’ pool at the time. He stopped to get a sandwich but estimates it was less than a minute later that the bus smashed into the yard and right over the spot he had been standing.

“We heard it. Like, we heard a bit of the crashing through the trees and then when we looked behind — I looked behind — and saw the bus crashing into his fence and into the pool,” Akplu said on Tuesday.

He was stunned for a moment and then thought there could be children on the bus so he ran to help.

“Fatherly instinct, I guess,” Akplu explained.

He was joined by Tyler Millan who lives in a neighbouring house and heard the crash from inside his kitchen.

“It sounded like a bomb went off almost. It was loud,” Millan told Global News on Tuesday.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "It sounded like a bomb went off almost. It was loud," Millan told Global News on Tuesday.

The pair climbed through the back emergency exit of the bus and found the driver submerged waist-deep in water.

“We had to help her unbuckle and help her get out,” Millan said.

The woman appeared to only have an injury to her arm.

“She just seemed a little out of it and not sure where she is, what’s going on,” Millan described.

Akplu is grateful he moved when he did. Usually his children are in the pool, but recent rain left it in need of a cleaning before it could be used.

“Where the bus hit, my oldest son and my oldest daughter are normally in the deep end because they’re good swimmers,” Akplu said.

“[It] could have been a hell of a lot worse.”

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An RCMP spokesperson told Global News they had yet to receive information about where the bus had been and where it was going at the time it crashed in the area of Morgan Crescent.

Police did not say if they expect to lay any charges in the crash. They said “road conditions are not a factor in the collision.”