News and event information for Williams Lake, BC - as it happens.

By LeRae Haynes

One young Cataline Elementary student who was on the school bus that struck another vehicle coming down the icy road from Mt. Timothy on Friday said that damage to the bus was limited to a ‘popped-in’ light on the front.

(Andy Dyck is a 9-year-old Grade 4 student who enjoyed his first ‘mountain snowboard’ experience on Friday on a school ski trip. It was also his first big trip with Cataline.)

“The first I heard about the accident was from one of my friends on the trip,” said Andy’s step-mom Sunny Dyck. “She was driving her kids home in her own vehicle and noticed that the bus wasn’t right behind her.” 

She said that she found out more details about the accident online. “The nice part was knowing that there were no injuries; the hard part was being far away and not knowing how upset the kids were and how soon they would get home,” she said. “It’s not like it’s a 20-minute trip to pick up the kids.”  

The moms waiting to pick up the kids found out the information about the incident with the bus—online and from each other, according to Sunny. 

“Andy was just under two hours late getting home,” she said. “It’s a long time not to see your child’s face and not to know how they’re doing.”

She said that Andy showed no concern about the accident. “He said that one little girl got really upset on the way back because her mom was supposed to go to work at 5:30 and might be late,” Sunny continued. “But if that’s the worst thing people were worried about, everybody was lucky.”

He said that on the ride on the school bus heading home he sat in the back of the bus on the side with the emergency door. “I was trying to sleep and there was a ‘bam’ and I go, ‘What was that?’ and then someone started to cry.”

“We ran into a car. It was going straight and our bus was going to turn. We nailed the car and dented the fender and wrecked the tire,” he said. “The driver of the car was OK and our driver was OK and all the kids were OK.”

Andy said that he had an ‘awesome’ day snow boarding. “I finally got to go up in the chairlift for the first time--it was fun and scary and great to be up there and see everything,” he said. “I really liked it and look forward to the next time.”

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