Humboldt officials share lessons from ‘overwhelming’ hours, days after crash
WINNIPEG — The manager of a Saskatchewan city that lost 16 people in a hockey team bus crash says community officials everywhere need to be trained in how to deal with trauma and mental-health needs following a disaster.
Joe Day says he only had limited training in how to respond to an emergency when he was called last spring following the deadly crash that would reshape the city of Humboldt.
A semi-trailer and a bus carrying the city’s junior hockey team collided in April. Sixteen people died and 13 were injured.
“We train for events like train derailments or big automobile accidents, but we don’t do a lot of training for what happens if there is a big mental-health type of issue in your community,” Day said at a disaster management conference in Winnipeg on Wednesday.