Students Escape Near Miss

Students Escape Near Miss

Michelle Pinon NewsAdvertiser

Town of Smoky Lake CAO Adam Kozakiewicz was driving to work travelling east on Highway 28 early Monday morning (Dec.2) when just before the intersection of Range Road 180 he observed a picker truck pushing a school bus into the field. “It took out the fence and the pigs started coming out to see what was going on. At first it didn’t seem real.”

Kozakiewicz explained that he started breaking his vehicle, turned around and parked on the shoulder of the highway facing west. He then put on his emergency lights and called 911 at 8:20 a.m. About three minutes later, four or five people started helping the kids out of the bus. He estimates the bus was dragged 30 metres by the picker truck was probably travelling 100 km/hr. “If I was there two seconds earlier I would have been the one hitting the bus.” He took two blankets out of his car and ran over to the bus. “By then kids were already coming out of the back of the bus.” He added that every child he could see had lacerations. “We were trying to keep them warm with blankets.” He said there were two wonderful people that had full medical kit who started triaging and helping students until emergency crews arrived.

Firefighters with the Town of Smoky Lake, Smoky Lake County, the Villages of Vilna and Waskatenau, Associated Ambulance, as well as ambulances from Redwater St. Paul and surrounding areas came on scene shortly after. Kozakiewicz said about an hour and a half later, an emergency bus came from Edmonton. He found out later that when he made the 911 call that STARS air ambulance was also dispatched. He said one student was airlifted from the scene, two more students were airlifted from the hospital, and a couple of other students were transported to Edmonton by ground ambulance. “Once emergency crews arrived I directed traffic, then our fire chief contacted the school and requested them to bring a bus to keep students warm.” He also helped move kids to the other bus as emergency crews were using the jaws of life.

He stayed on scene for about an hour and went to the town office, typed up his statement, and took it to the police station. He then went to the hospital to see how the people were doing. He said it was a very good feeling to see a little girl walking out of the hospital with smile on her face while talking to her Dad.

He set up a debriefing that evening. “One of local businesses donated all the food and we had frank discussion about the whole event. It was nice to have debriefing early for mental health reasons because it’s very stressful for them (first responders) as well. My fire chief and the county fire chief headed that up and gave a few updates on the kids.

“I have to say the first responders did an amazing job. It was very well organized chaos you know. It was absolutely amazing how well the people responded and were prepared for it. I mean our fire department does exercises every other week and this is what they exercise for, which is was the worst case scenario, which unfortunately happened. One thing I want to mention are the highway heroes, (private people) who risked their life and safety to help.” He wanted them to know if they need to talk to somebody they are welcome to talk to him. He went onto say, that no one is prepared for anything like this and the hardest thing for first responders is that they know all these children on the bus, they’re not just strangers, often times they can be neighbours or family members, although he doesn’t believe any family members were involved in this case. He wanted to personally express his gratitude to all the first responders who assisted the students.

Town of Smoky Lake Mayor, Hank Holowaychuk also wanted to thank the highway heroes who put their own safety aside to assist the students and the driver. He also wanted to thank all of the firefighters, police, emergency services and health care personnel and hospital staff. Smoky Lake County Regional Fire Chief Scott Franchuk confirmed it was a two vehicle motor vehicle collision. Two patients were trapped and the jaws of life used to extricate them before they were airlifted by STARS the other students were taken to the local hospital and other hospitals in the surrounding area. All students are reported to be in stable condition. Franchuk said the thoughts and prayers of all first responders are with the students and their families at this time.

At press time Tuesday afternoon the HAK Collision GoFundMe page, organized by Shelby Henry had already raised $6,275.