‘There’s just sadness:’ Bus driver says rides should continue after fatal accident
DAUPHIN, Man. – Doug Westhouse sits right behind the wheel of a 12-passenger bus cruising down a rural Manitoba highway, waiting for the next call for a ride.
The Grand Plains Handivan dispatcher and driver in Greenview, Man., brakes the heavy vehicle as an oncoming semi-trailer truck passes along Highway 5.
He says he’s been thinking a lot about another minibus, not much bigger than the one he’s driving, that crashed with a truck on the same road last week. Fifteen seniors on the bus were killed.
“There’s only sadness,” says Westhouse.
The bus was traveling south on Highway 5 on Thursday, carrying a group of senior citizens from Dauphin and the surrounding area to a casino, when it crossed the Trans-Canada Highway and entered the truck’s path near the town of Carberry, about 120 miles away. to the south.
Health officials have said 10 others on the bus, including the driver, were in hospital. Five were in critical condition.
“Because I know that angle, it’s a dangerous angle,” says Westhouse, shaking his head.
“They should have traffic lights there.”
Westhouse has been driving minibuses and other passenger cars for years, after giving up his career as a welder. In his current job at Grand Plains Handivan, he transports seniors and people with disabilities from Grandview and Gilbert Plains, about 30 miles east, to Dauphin for medical and dental appointments, grocery shopping, and visits to family and friends.
He smiles as he talks about a regular passenger, a woman in her nineties who is extremely funny and visits her husband at a nearby care home.
Another passenger, a younger woman in a wheelchair, calls him Grandpa.
The customers are like family, he says.
Westhouse knows a woman who was on the bus that crashed. She had just bought new furniture for her house and was looking forward to Monday delivery, he says.
He pauses. “She was so nice.”
He hasn’t heard yet if she was killed or survived. RCMP will release the names of the victims on Thursday.
Quality Care Transit in Dauphin owned the bus involved in the accident. RCMP has said there were 25 people on board.
Grand Plains Handivan buses are smaller. There is the 12 passenger bus, an older 15 passenger bus and a wheelchair accessible minibus.
Westhouse says they get a security check every year. And before every trip, drivers check the vehicle to make sure it is in good working order. All passengers are required to wear seat belts and wheelchairs are clipped to the floor.
Westhouse says he knows all the grain bins, trees, and dangerous intersections on the routes he takes several times a day.
But he still has to be careful.
The bus drives differently from other vehicles, he says. It takes much longer to accelerate and much longer to decelerate.
Despite giant side mirrors, there are still blind spots, he adds. Before crossing a highway or making a turn, drivers of the larger buses have to do an extreme “head bop”.
Lean far forward, look both ways, lean back and do the same, he says.
For seniors in communities across Manitoba, these buses are an essential means of transportation.
Westhouse uses the wheelchair-accessible van to pick up a client from an appointment in Dauphin and return it to Grandview. A volunteer who helps seniors to appointments also joins.
They talk about health care and the warm weather as the van drives past farms and fields.
Westhouse says most customers haven’t spoken much about the crash. Some have Alzheimer’s disease or other health problems that make it difficult to understand what happened.
Others just aren’t ready yet, he says.
Westhouse says he and other bus drivers have talked about the wave of guilt that washes over them when they say to themselves, “Thank God it wasn’t me.”
But they still get behind the wheel, he says, because they know how important transportation is.
“I’m responsible for those people in the back,” says Westhouse.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on June 21, 2023.
