Third Academy knew of bus driver’s distress before fatal crash

Parents and staff knew a bus driver had mental health issues, but a senior administrator testified Tuesday there was nothing the school could have done to prevent a crash that killed a student in 2007.

The driver, Louise Rogers, was taking antidepressants and had attempted suicide a month before the fatal crash.

The chief operating officer at Third Academy International said he wasn’t really sure how or why the crash happened, so it was difficult to make any recommendations.

“I have been thinking about it for two years and it has not been a very pleasant thought process,” said Sunil Mattu.

Mattu told Alberta government lawyer Nancy McCurdy “it would be presumptuous” to suggest any recommendations to prevent a similar tragedy.

“I’m still not sure what the facts are. . . . I think this is a tragic accident for which no paper (written policies) could have avoided this accident.”

Mattu said he was aware of Rogers’ mental health issues from May 2007, when she took stress leave. He felt she was much improved in August.

However, he said he didn’t know it was an overdose that prompted her hospital stay in mid-September 2007.

“I did not know that,” Mattu testified. “What I knew was Louise was involved in a domestic dispute . . . and she was sent to hospital.

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“We had no idea Louise had to go to hospital by police because of suicide.”

Mattu said the private school is very small and everyone looks out for everyone else’s safety and wellbeing, and that was the case with Rogers as well.

He said she had been seeing the school psychologist for her personal problems, including marital ones, and it appeared to help.

Mattu acknowledged there had been some complaints about Rogers’ driving, including a speeding ticket, but nothing to seriously alarm him before the crash.

The mother of a child who attended Third Academy testified Tuesday she was concerned about her 10-year-old son’s safety because of Rogers’ mental condition.

Miranda Findell said the driver told her a few weeks before the deadly crash that she was suffering from depression and was having trouble at home.

Findell said that when she heard about the crash that morning, she spoke to Rogers on her cellphone within 45 minutes of it happening.

The mother, whose son was not on the bus at the time, said the 42-year-old sounded very distraught and wasn’t making much sense.

Findell said she regrets to this day that she didn’t do more to ensure the children’s safety, given the information she had about Rogers.

Kathelynn Occena, 9, died when the bus driven by Rogers veered onto the shoulder in the 1500 block of Crowchild Trail S.W. and struck a disabled gravel truck on Oct. 18, 2007. The bus then caromed into a light standard. Julia Occena, 7, the victim’s younger sister, and at least two other students were seriously injured.

Rogers told a police officer at the scene that she may have fallen asleep.

Mattu said Rogers was a competent enough driver to do her job properly. She had been driving for the school for three years before the accident.

He said although drivers’ training was a policy, many things were not written in a manual but practised daily.

Mattu also said he spoke regularly to Rogers and other drivers.

An updated staff handbook on policies and procedures, put in place since the crash, has made it more defined, he said.

He noted the school’s nine drivers are evaluated weekly throughout the school year.

Terry Krepiakevich, an RCMP toxicologist, testified three drugs were found in Rogers’ system after the collision — an anti-depressant, a sleep aid and an antihistamine — but all were at levels much below what would affect her ability to drive safely.

He said it would even be less likely to affect someone who was tolerant to the drugs.

The inquiry before provincial court Judge Bruce Fraser continues today.

dslade@theherald.canwest.com