Truck driver who hit bus full of Alta. oil workers says there were no lights on
Dean Bennett, THE CANADIAN PRESS
EDMONTON - A trucker on trial after his semi broadsided a passenger bus straddling a dark Alberta highway says there was no way to avoid the deadly collision.
Inderjit Singh Virk testified Monday that the bus carrying oilpatch workers didn't have any lights on when he slammed into it in the inky midnight blackness three years ago, killing six and injuring 21.
"Had there been any reflectors or warning I would've avoided it," Virk, through a Punjabi interpreter, told Justice Laurie Smith in Edmonton Court of Queen's Bench.
"I have no enmity with anybody. They were just like my brothers and sisters. I didn't intend to hit them."
The 35-year-old from Brampton, Ont., is charged with six counts of dangerous driving causing death and 19 counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm. He originally faced 21 counts on the latter charge, but two of them were dropped Monday after the Crown couldn't track down the passengers to confirm their injuries.
Virk has pleaded not guilty.
His testimony conflicts with earlier witnesses who told court the bus, which was carrying 42 workers from Fort McMurray to Edmonton, was ablaze with interior lights, headlights and hazard lights.
The events that led to the collision just before 1 a.m. on May 20, 2005, began more than an hour earlier. Police had been called out to Highway 28 north of Edmonton to investigate a driver who had fallen asleep and rolled his car.
While fire crews pulled the man out, officers began halting and redirecting a long lineup of traffic that was being delayed by the accident.
North of the scene, the bus decided to try to make a U-turn on the narrow two-lane highway to find another route to Edmonton.
Instead, it got stuck. It blocked both lanes of traffic, its rear wheels spinning in mud off the shoulder. Some passengers got out to stand beside the vehicle to smoke.
RCMP Const. Daniel Kehler testified last week that he didn't stay to direct traffic and didn't put out any warning pylons or flares to warn other drivers because, he said, the bus was fully illuminated and "bigger than anything I could put in front of it."
Seconds later, Virk's semi, loaded with peat moss and driving 90 kilometres an hour, barrelled down on the bus on the rain-slicked road.
"I saw a brown-coloured object blocking all the lanes," said Virk.
"I put my foot-brakes on. I tried to push as hard as I could because it was a life-and-death situation.
"But there wasn't enough time."
Right behind him was Gordon Phillips, a 65-year-old health-care consultant, driving his silver Chevy Avalanche SUV.
"There were no lights, no flares, no triangles, nobody on the road with a flashlight. There was nothing," Phillips testified Monday.
"I hate to say it," he added, "but I said to myself at the time 'I'm glad someone was ahead of me or I would've hit the bus.'
"I never saw any lights on the bus."
He testified that after the crash he called the emergency operator on his cellphone and did a quick assessment of the scene: bodies on the road, in the ditch, pinned under the bus.
The operator told him an ambulance was on the way.
"I told her she better get a least 10 more coming."
A crash analyst has estimated the semi T-boned the bus at 60 kilometres an hour, sending bodies, luggage, glass and clothing flying in all directions.
Virk said he had had lots of sleep prior to the crash, didn't drink or take drugs, wasn't in a hurry and was focused on the road. He had been driving big rigs for more than two years prior to the accident.
He was born in India but came to Canada six years ago when he married a Canadian citizen. His bid for citizenship, he said, was rejected after he was charged. He retains landed immigrant status.
Six months after the crash, he said, police marched into the Brampton, Ont., classroom where he was taking English lessons and arrested him.
The pain, he said, continues.
The impact forced his skull into the driver-side window and wrenched his back to the point he needed a year to recuperate. "I still can't stand for a long time."
He is haunted by memories of the crash, has difficulty sleeping and now works as a helper in a truck repair shop in Brampton.
"I don't drive a truck anymore. I'm scared."
[ 2008-09-29 ]
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