There's surely not a mother alive whose blood doesn't run cold when she hears stories like this one about the seven members of a New Brunswick basketball team, who were killed, along with a teacher, while driving home from a game in snow and freezing rain.
I had just put my teenage daughter on a ski bus when the report came over CBC radio news, and my mind flashed back to a novel I once read, before I was a mother, about a high school ski-trip bus, which went over a cliff killing everyone on board. And, of course, I also remembered a Quebec ski bus accident last year, where, thankfully, no one was seriously injured.
But the personal memories that bothered me the most were those of a synchronized swim meet in Jonquiere almost two years ago. To save money, the swim team coach cancelled the bus she had originally planned on hiring, and had parents car pool up along one of Quebec's most treacherous highways, the Autoroute des Laurentides. My daughter went with a friend, the friend's mother, who was driving, and a synchro judge while I stayed home. When they left, the weather was okay, but it turned nasty along the way.
I ended up in a complete panic when they didn't call at the appointed arrival time, and, since they were in the boonies, cell phones didn't work so I couldn't get through despite pressing redial every five minutes.
Later, the friend's mother told me it was the worst drive of her life and she would have stopped if the judge hadn't been urging her on. Apparently, the swim coach put pressure on other parents to drive no matter what, but some of them simply refused and checked into hotels.
I had never been comfortable about this particular trip and felt tremendously guilty for not speaking out, when the decision was made not to get a bus, and to send 10 cars along that road in winter. I felt worse when the journey ended up happening in a storm.
Unfortunately, this kind of thing happens far too often when the decisions about whether to go, what transport to use, and when to cancel or reschedule events are left in the hands of young coaches and sports-obsessed organizers, who mean well but have very poor risk assessment skills.
A van with a basketball team travelling in freezing rain in the middle of the night should be avoided at all costs.
My sympathies go out to the parents living this unspeakable loss. There but for the grace of God...
6 comments:
A terrible story and I felt exactly the same way when I first heard about it.
Good post.
Just awful to hear about.
I totally agree. Am sending my kids to Israel this summer but with the knowledge that if the rockets start flying again, the organizers will send them home. The safety of the kids has to be paramount at all times, and too often adults just want to cut corners.
You know, it's funny but I think we are too protective in certain areas and not enough in others.
And this driving to sports events in bad winter weather is one where we are not careful enough. It seems to be an example of the way we as humans over estimate minor risks and under estimate the most serious risks.
In this case, having kids and jocks running the show doesn't seem to help.
And I think, many parents go along with letting their kids go on these kinds of drives because it's sports, team work, camaraderie,etc. In another situation, would we find it esier to say no?
When I was a newspaper photographer, I spent too much time shooting carnage and death on slippery roads. (Yes, car wrecks sold newspapers!)
This has turned me into a car Nazi about seat belts, talking on cell phones, taking eyes off the road or any carelessness. It can happen so easily.
I feel sick to my stomach for those people and for the family in Alberta before Xmas.
We're thinking along the same lines.
My first reaction was Oh My God, those poor families. My second was wondering about the wisdom of making the trip at all.
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