'Long way to recovery' for Sapotaweyak Cree Nation girl injured in bus crash, mother says

A Sapotaweyak Cree carry nation overprotect says her 16-year-old girl has "a long path to retrieval" after suffering broken bones when a school bus crashed along an icy stretch of rural Manitoba highway on Tuesday. 

Fourteen high school students and an adult driver were hospitalized after a bus travelling from Sapotaweyak to schools in Swan River, located about 380 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, rolled over just south of Mafeking on Highway 10. 

RCMP said preliminary details suggest the bus driver lost control while trying to pass another bus. Forensic collision experts are still investigating the incident, police said. 

Four people — three teens and one adult — suffered "significant but non-life-threatening injuries" and were airlifted to the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg, according to RCMP. 

Others were treated for injuries at the scene and were taken to a hospital in Swan Valley, where the students' families and caregivers gathered on Tuesday.

Christa Copapay said her daughter Kylee has "got a long way to recovery" after breaking two vertebrae during the crash. 

She said she was getting ready for work when she found out about the accident and drove to the scene as fast as she could. 

"I was just thinking the worst as a parent, thinking that one of them was gone or if it was very serious. But I really just wanted to see my daughter and to know that she was safe," she said. 

She said she was "a bit relieved" to see that Kylee was OK, but Copapay said her daughter was left feeling dizzy and in pain.

"She looked sore … her back was sore, her hip was sore, but she just grabbed me right away and she cried in my arms and I cried, too," she said. 

Kylee was taken to the hospital in Swan River alongside other students, Copapay said. 

School bus rolled over after driver tried to pass another bus: RCMP

"A lot of parents were worried. A lot of them were going through a lot of emotions," she said, adding she's relieved that no one was killed in the accident. 

Copapay said her family was staying in a hotel in Swan River overnight to stay close to the hospital. Kylee is expected to recover within three weeks, she said. 

But she says she doesn't think she will be sending her daughter to school on the bus anytime soon. 

Copapay said school buses are "carrying precious cargo" every single day, and she would like to see seatbelts added as a safety precaution. 

"I hope they can find a solution and that these buses can be safe for all of our students, especially when they travel on highways," she said. 

Frank Gott, a teacher at Chief Charles Audy Memorial School in Wuskwi Sipihk First Nation, said the bus from Sapotaweyak veered off the road while trying to pass a bus from his school. 

Kinew on the possibility of mandatory seatbelts on school buses after rollover

Gott, who is originally from Sapotaweyak and used to teach in the community, said he's never seen a school bus with seatbelts in his more than two decades of teaching. And he wonders if maybe it's time for that to change. 

"It's incidents like that that really open your eyes, and I don't see why they wouldn't implement seatbelts on buses," he said.

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew called the rollover a "very scary situation" during an unrelated news conference on Tuesday. 

He said he is "open to the conversation" around whether seatbelts should be required on school buses in future.

"I am open to the conversation, but we have to be patient about identifying what took place in this instance before we rush to propose the right solution," Kinew said. "We don't have that information yet."

Last month, the Opposition Progressive Conservatives introduced a private member's bill calling for mandatory seatbelt use on new school buses in the province.

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