Inquest to start in December in train conductor's death in Ponton, Man. derailment

The Pas, Man. -

A mother from The Pas, Man. is preparing for an inquest into the death of her son in a train derailment more than three years ago.

Kevin Anderson, 38, died of his injuries after he and a co-worker were trapped in the train for several hours.

It happened in September 2018 near Ponton, Man. about 150 kilometres southwest of Thompson.

In her home just outside The Pas, Anderson’s mom Debbie Leeper has been busy preparing for the inquest next month which she hopes provides answers on why her son ended up dying doing a job he loved.

“How could this have happened that someone suffered all these hours?” Leeper said in a recent interview. “Nine, nine-and-a-half hours and nobody went in. No medical intervention is the biggest issue in our minds because that would’ve given Kevin his best chance to live.”

Anderson was the conductor and his co-worker was the engineer on a Hudson Bay Railway train that derailed after going over a bridge that washed out in a remote area near Ponton at around 3:30 p.m. on Sept. 15, 2018.

Two hours later, the wreckage and the men pinned inside were discovered by a civilian helicopter flying overhead but it would be hours before medical help arrived.

“To lose your child in such a horrific way, suffering for so many hours is really the hardest part for me,” Leeper said.

RCMP arrived on scene around 7 p.m. that night but due to concerns over leaking fuel, access was blocked until the site could be assessed.

Emergency personnel did not get to the scene until midnight. Anderson, who was still pinned in the wreckage died shortly after having never received medical attention. His co-worker who also suffered serious injuries survived.

“Most of our questions are around that,” said Leeper. “How was it that paramedics didn’t go in?”

The Chief Medical Examiner called the inquest to determine the circumstances of Anderson’s death, review coordination of a multi-agency response to a serious incident in a remote setting, examine policies and protocols used by police, paramedics and other first responders in a potentially dangerous setting and determine what, if anything, can be done to prevent similar deaths from occurring in the future.

Leeper said her family is hoping for changes when the inquest ends.

“Ultimately the inquest is about ensuring this doesn’t happen again and if it does happen again, there’s a plan in place, everybody knows what they have to do,” Leeper said. “We don’t want other families to go through what we’ve gone through.”

In a report released in April 2020, the Transportation Safety Board identified a number of factors that caused the track to wash out. It found that although inspections had been done and water was flowing through culverts, rising water levels and uneven ponding against the embankment led to the track failure.

Anderson’s family, Hudson Bay Railway Corporation (HBR), and OmniTRAX which owned HBR at the time are among the applicants who’ve been granted full standing in the inquest. The Attorney General of Canada on behalf of the RCMP and Transport Canada, the City of Thompson and Thompson Fire and Emergency Services, Office of the Fire Commissioner of Manitoba, Northern Regional Health Authority and Shared Health have also been granted permission to participate in the inquest.

It’s slated to start Dec.6 in The Pas.