A SCENE TOO FAMILIAR
For months, the mayor of Prescott has sounded the alarm about a busy stretch of Highway 401, where a bus crashed into a ditch Monday, injuring dozens
A notorious stretch of Highway 401 was the scene of another major crash Monday when a passenger bus carrying Chinese tourists slammed into a rocky embankment, sending dozens to hospital — at least four with critical injuries.
The Ontario Provincial Police said the westbound bus left the highway and smashed into a rock cut, just west of Prescott, at about 2:30 p.m. for reasons that remain unexplained.
The crash forced the closure of all westbound lanes, from Edward Street to Maitland Road, as ORNGE air ambulances and local ground ambulances ferried the most seriously injured to hospitals across the region. Those lanes reopened late Monday evening, OPP said OPP spokeswoman Const. Suzanne Runciman said four people suffered life-threatening injuries.
Brockville General Hospital said it had received five patients, four women and a man, four of whom were in critical condition late Monday. It had brought in a Mandarin speaker to assist in their care.
The hospital declared a “code orange” to deal with the casualties, and had 10 doctors and 20 nurses involved in the emergency response.
Three of the injured women were later transferred to Kingston Health Sciences Centre, a regional trauma centre.
Another 20 passengers with non-life threatening injuries were sent to the Queensway Carleton Hospital to be assessed. Seven passengers were also treated and released from Kemptville District Hospital.
Runciman said police are still investigating the cause of the crash, which involved a Union Tour Express bus with 37 people on board. No other vehicles were involved in the collision, she said.
“Where it went off the highway, it struck this rock cut on the pas- senger side and that’s what caused all the injury,” she said. “There was extensive damage on the passenger side.”
Union Tour Express manager Aiden Liang said late Monday that the bus was on a 10-day tour of the eastern United States and Canada. It had left Ottawa earlier in the day, he said, and was bound for Toronto.
He has not been able to speak yet with the bus driver, who was injured in the crash, Liang said. He said the driver, one of 25 employed by the firm, had been with the company for about a month.
“So far I just know they had an accident: we’re still under investigation,” he said. “We’re still waiting for the police report.”
Liang said the bus tour originated in Washington, D.C., on May 28. The Massachusetts-based company, he said, is six or seven years old and caters primarily to Chinese tourists. It operates 18 buses, he said, and has never before suffered such a serious collision.
Ray St. Aubin, from Burlington, was driving eastbound past the crash site at around 3:45 p.m. He said about 20 firefighters were working in front of the vehicle, which plunged off the highway into some kind of embankment.
“The whole front end of the bus was completely gone,” he said.
“A really, really bad scene. I’ve never seen a crash like that in my life.”
Police were combing through the wreckage of the bus Monday evening. The vehicle was mangled on its passenger side, and had many windows broken, including the windshield.
The stretch of highway between Cornwall and Kingston has been the scene of some major crashes in recent years, and local mayors have asked the province to widen the highway in an attempt to address the issue.
Last month, Prescott Mayor Brett Todd said the stretch of highway that runs through the city is prone to trouble. In May, a driver was killed when two transport trucks and a tanker collided on Highway 401, near Prescott, forcing the closure of the road in both directions.
“We’ve clearly got a significant issue with the 401 in parts of Eastern Ontario,” Todd said last month.
In March 2017, a massive pileup on the highway killed one driver and sent 29 to hospital because of the effects of a toxic spill near Mallorytown.
Todd has been pushing for the highway to be widened to three lanes in each direction. Others have called for speed reductions.
Michelle Taylor, the NDP provincial candidate for the area, said local highway safety needs to be taken more seriously by Queen’s Park: “Provincially speaking, it’s really time to be taking action on it, to be actually sitting down with all the stakeholders, the police and everyone and coming up with some solutions quickly and acting on them quickly. Because we can’t keep having tragedies like this.”
Monday’s crash triggered a massive response from emergency services.
ORNGE dispatched two air ambulances, one fixed-wing ambulance and a ground ambulance.
Leeds Grenville sent six ambulances to the scene, and five more ambulances arrived from Ottawa, Smiths Falls and Cornwall, said Chris Lloyd, chief of Leeds Grenville Paramedic Service.
First responders encountered a language barrier on scene, but one passenger managed to act as an interpreter and assist in the initial medical assessments, he said.
“Anytime you have a multiple casualty situation like that, the first few minutes are always a bit chaotic,” Smith said, “but that’s where the training comes in. They start their assessment and triage, then treat and transport by priority.”
According to the early assessments, Lloyd said, six passengers had critical injuries and seven suffered serious but non-life threatening injuries. Patients were taken to hospitals in Brockville, Kingston, Kemptville and Ottawa, two of them by air ambulance.
Another 20 patients with minor injuries were taken by bus to the Queensway Carleton Hospital.
The large ambulance bays at the Queensway Carleton turned into an outdoor M.A.S.H. unit just after 5 p.m. when an orange school bus arrived with 20 survivors.
All were able to walk, though a handful immediately sat in waiting wheelchairs.
About three-quarters appeared to have little or no physical injury, though one woman could be seen with a bandage wrapped around her head and another wore a neck brace.
Emergency room director Dr. Bhaskar Gopalan said it was the first “code orange” called since an OC Transpo bus crashed into a VIA train, killing six, in September 2013.
Dr. Gopalan said extra staff members were called in and orthopedic surgeons put on standby. A call went out for staff members able to speak Mandarin or Cantonese.
The hospital eventually took the patients into a special waiting room to be comforted and fed. Social workers were on hand to assist with the next step, including overnight accommodation.
One man was injured trying to help the injured bus passengers. Terry Bates, 68, of Prescott, was driving along a rural road near Highway 401 when he noticed the carnage and stopped to help.
“I looked out and I saw a bunch of people (sitting) in the ditch,” said Bates, who parked on the side of the road and tried to vault a fence to reach the crash scene.
“I swung my right leg over and my left leg behind it twisted,” said Bates. He suffered torn cartilage and a possible fracture. “I had to crawl back to my car on my hands and knees.”