N.B. city remembers 10 years after van crash killed eight

It was just after midnight on Jan. 12, 2008, when a 15-passenger van carrying the Bathurst High School boys’ basketball team lost control on a slushy highway.

An oncoming transport truck tore the van apart, killing seven teenage players and the wife of their coach — and brought a grief-stricken northern New Brunswick community to its knees.

“I had never seen anything like it. There was such profound and widespread grief throughout the community,’’ said John McLaughlin, the thensuperintendent of the Bathurst school district, who added the tragedy brought messages of condolence from around the world.

“The tragedy of the loss of the promise of those young men, what they could have been and what they dreamed of. That just resonated with people everywhere.’’

Five of the boys who died — Javier Acevedo, Nathan Cleland, Justin Cormier, Codey Branch, and Daniel Hains — were 17 years old. The other two students were Nick Quinn, 16, and Nikki Kelly, 15.

“Part of me died that day when I lost my son. Nothing changes for me. Those 10 years — it’s just like yesterday,’’ Isabelle Hains, Daniel’s mother, said in an interview.

“I drove him to school that morning and I don’t know why he spoke about his future plans that morning with me. He said he wanted to travel to Europe and he talked about his birthday coming up, and it was just like a normal day for me. I never expected that by midnight that night I would never see him again.’’

The team was returning from a night game in Moncton, N.B. The coach’s wife, Beth Lord, 51, was also killed. Coach Wayne Lord, who was driving the 11-year-old van, his daughter and two team members survived the crash.

The truck driver was not hurt. Separate reports by the RCMP and Transport Canada identified safety problems with the 15-seat-van, including worn all-season tires, broken brakes and a rusting body.

The RCMP report said the 1997 Ford Club Wagon would not have passed safety inspection at the time of the accident.

In the years that followed, Hains and other family members successfully pushed for changes in the vehicles and rules used for student travel. McLaughlin, now the province’s deputy education minister, said the tragedy brought about important changes, and the transport of students is safer now because of it.