Injured Canadian Firefighter’s Wife Killed Enroute To Hospital

The Canadian Press

NAPANEE, Ont. - Three sisters whose mother died in a bus crash as she travelled home with her husband - the victim of an earlier crash - were given a police escort Monday to visit their father in hospital.

Dave Goodfellow was among three survivors of Sunday's crash in southern Ontario who remained in hospital in London, Ont., while nine others were headed home.

Darlene Goodfellow was the sole fatality when the bus, carrying volunteer firefighters who had been in a van crash one day earlier, slammed into a guardrail on Highway 401 as it travelled eastbound and flipped over.

No funeral arrangements had been made for Goodfellow, 49, because her husband remained in hospital.

Provincial police were escorting Goodfellow's daughters _ aged 20, 16 and 11 _ to the hospital for a visit, said Gord Schermerhorn, the mayor of Napanee in eastern Ontario.

''We're taking the girls (Monday) - his daughters- up to London to see him,'' said Schermerhorn.

''So, we don't know any of the (funeral) arrangements yet.''

The cause of the crash remained under investigation amid word the roads were wet at the time.

The wheels were shorn off the badly damaged bus, which had been chartered by officials in Napanee to go pick up the firefighters stranded by another accident on Saturday.

The first crash happened on Highway 401 near Woodstock, Ont., as five firefighters returned home from Windsor, Ont., where they had participated in the FireFit Championships.

The group of five was in their fire department van when it was involved in a crash after a transport truck jack-knifed.

As a result, Schermerhorn and concerned family members chartered a bus to get the firefighters home from London, where they had been discharged from hospital, thinking it would be safer than driving down separately.

Those still in hospital had injuries such as broken bones.

''Nothing life-threatening,'' the mayor said.

''We hear broken vertebrae and things like that.''

The tragedy hit Napanee, with a population of about 16,000, hard.

The nine who were on their way back to Napanee were ''looking forward'' to getting home, Schermerhorn said.

''We're looking forward to seeing them.''

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