Mission residents jumped to the aid of a St. Albert bus driver who crashed into a residential backyard Monday afternoon, pulling the driver from the empty bus after it plunged into their pool.
Homeowner Bob Hanson, whose property the bus crashed into, and his son-in-law Sam Akplu were outside and watching when the bus charged into their backyard. The two were shocked to see the vehicle barrel through their fence and plunge into their pool.
They had spent the early afternoon building a new deck around the pool and had stopped construction just minutes earlier to sit down and eat a sandwich for their lunch break.“Our jaws just dropped,” Akplu said, saying it took a few minutes to register what they were seeing.
The bus came through the fence with a loud bang and landed in the pool with a massive splash.
“I just couldn’t believe it. It was just surreal,” Hanson said.
The duo were thankful they hadn’t been standing on the deck at the time, as they would have been hit by the bus or the part of the tree it downed as it crashed into the yard.
Once Akplu registered the situation in front of him, he realized it was a school bus in the pool and rushed to see if there were kids on board.
He met neighbour Tyler Millan at the bus, who had also rushed over to help, not knowing how many people were on the bus.
The duo discovered thankfully there were no kids on board, but they pulled the back door of the bus open to rescue the driver.
“It’s crazy how fast it happened,” Tyler said.
“It’s hard to stand back and not help when something like this happens,” Tyler said.
The two rescuers jumped into the back of the bus and found the driver, estimated to be in her mid-50s, sitting in waist deep water in the driver's seat.
Tyler said she was conscious but disoriented and shaken up. The rescuer said the windshield was smashed and she could have hit her head, and she had an injury to her wrist.
The two men helped the woman out of the back of the bus, down a ladder they had propped up and she was eventually taken to the hospital by emergency responders. Tyler then ran back and turned the bus off.
Tracie Millan said she and her family had been building a fence in their backyard at around 3 p.m. when they watched the yellow bus whip around the corner and crash into Hanson's pool. Tracie said typically their neighbours have their young grandkids swimming in the pool, but luckily that day there were no little ones out for a splash.
“I think luck played in a lot of places today with that accident and we just hope that that carries on to the driver and she will be okay,” she said.
The Millan family was outside in their yard on the corner lot when they saw the bus come barrelling north up Mission Ave. The driver blew threw a stop sign at the intersection with McKenney Ave., and the Millans say the bus seemed to stay locked in a left-turn position. It looped around the house on the corner, turned west in the oncoming traffic lane on McKenney, drove up the boulevard and then turned into Hanson's backyard.
“She just came around this corner and she came in hot, full acceleration, everything,” Tracie said.The bus took down a fence and part of a tree before the front end plunged into the neighbour's backyard pool.
Tracie said if the bus had taken a tighter turn it could have hit her son and husband, who were in the yard at the time.
Akplu said he was thankful his kids weren’t in the pool that day, as they often spend summer afternoons in their grandparents' pool.
Hanson said the kids would have been in the pool that day but the rain over the weekend caused algae blooms in the water and they had to treat it before the kids could get in.
“The kids are usually in there having fun all the time. We would have them in there 24/7 if we could. They love it,” Hanson said.
Once the driver was taken care of, the attention turned to getting the bus out of the pool.
A towing company was called, bringing their biggest truck to the scene, and it took several hours for the bus to get extracted from the pool.
For hours, dozens of spectators stood on the side of the road and watched as the bus was slowly inched out of the pool and yard.
As hundreds of drivers passed by the incident, their jaws dropped when they saw the yellow bus lodged in the yard.
Traffic was rerouted in areas of McKenney Avenue to allow for the emergency responders and tow truck to work safely.
A statement from Cunningham Transport, the company the driver was working for, said the driver suffered minor injuries and was released from the hospital Monday night.
"Right now, our focus is the gratitude we feel that no one else was injured. We are also thankful that the driver has not suffered any major injuries. She was taken to the hospital immediately after the accident and we thank and applaud St. Albert RCMP, emergency services, and fire departments for their quick response," the company stated.
"We are currently working with the local RCMP in order to complete a thorough investigation on the cause of the incident but as of right now, we have no comment at this time."
On Monday afternoon, the RCMP said police were investigating and road conditions were not a factor in the collision.
