Dauphin community turns to each other for support following fatal bus crash
CBC
Eileen Smelski went to play bingo Friday afternoon at the Dauphin Active Living Centre knowing it was going to be a small crowd.
"I was there to be there," said Smelski, who said she knew a lot of the people who were on a bus that collided with a semi-trailer while crossing Highway 1 at Highway 5 Thursday.
The bus was carrying 25 people, mostly seniors from the Dauphin area, and was headed to a casino near Carberry, Man. Of the people on the bus, the crash left 15 dead and 10 injured.
"It's very sad," she said. "Today bingo was very, very small."
One of those injured was Smelski's husband's cousin, Josephine Stokotelny.
Smelski said Stokotelny was supposed to go to the casino in Carberry with her and her husband the day before, but opted to go on the Thursday casino run with one of her friends instead.
"We said we weren't going to go to that one. It wasn't the right date for us," Smelski said.
A close relative of Stokotelny told CBC News she was being treated at the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg.
Smelski said the phone hasn't stopped ringing since news of the collision broke.
"We must have got 40, 50 phone calls, [asking] if we were on that bus. 'Cause everybody knows we've been going on bus trips," she said.
"For a while there, I picked up the phone and said, 'Yes we're alive, we're at home,' and 'Oh, there's another call waiting.'"
Kim Armstrong, administrator for Dauphin Active Living Centre, said it's important for the community to come together during times like this.
"They will need to discuss their friends, discuss the tragedy, and hopefully that'll help heal," she said during bingo at the centre Friday.
That's why programs at the seniors centre — like bingo — are still happening.
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