Students from Manitoba and Iowa killed in Vancouver Island bus crash: RCMP
Credit to Author: The Canadian Press| Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2019 19:42:16 +0000
VICTORIA — One of two 18-year-old students who died when a tour bus crashed on Vancouver Island is being remembered by his former principal as a friend to everyone at the high school he attended in Iowa.
John Geerdes graduated from Iowa City High School this year before enrolling at the University of Victoria. He was killed when a charter bus carrying 45 students and two teaching assistants crashed on a gravel road between Port Alberni and Bamfield late Friday.
John Bacon, Geerdes’s former principal, says he emailed parents and students Saturday after learning about the crash and a crisis team is providing counselling to the school’s 1,600 students. Bacon says Geerdes has four siblings, including a sister at the school, who are mourning the loss of a talented soccer player.
The RCMP say an 18-year-old woman from Winnipeg was also killed in the crash, but neither the provincial coroner’s service nor the Mounties are releasing the names of the students.
In a statement, the RCMP says the driver of a second vehicle who was in the area at the time of the crash remained at the scene. The crash remains under investigation, but police say alcohol has been ruled out as a contributing factor.
A passenger bus involved in a fatal accident along a logging road Friday night is carried from the crash scene by a tow-truck near Bamfield, B.C. on Saturday, September 14, 2019.
UVic says the students were travelling to the Bamfield Marine Science Centre when the crash occurred.
Robert Dennis, chief councillor for the Huu-ay-aht First Nations, drove past the scene shortly after the crash and said the bus was overturned and about six to nine metres down an embankment, resting against trees that stopped it from rolling further.
Port Alberni Mayor Sharie Minions described the nearly 80-kilometre road as mostly gravel and “challenging at the best of times.” The city has supported the First Nations community’s call for improvements to the road and has also reached out to the B.C. government, she said.
The university began offering counselling services to survivors Sunday after they returned to the Victoria campus and it said additional support would be offered to help students continue their studies.
Search and rescue crews and RCMP help a tow-truck crew to remove a bus from the ditch of a logging road near Bamfield, B.C., on Saturday, September 14, 2019.
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