The parents returned to the Montreal-area daycare on Thursday, where two children were killed when a bus crashed into the building, pausing to mourn and recount the difficult times they witnessed.
André Beaudoin, the father of a 2-year-old who attends the Laval centre, said he had to push through debris on Wednesday to help pull the injured children out from under the bus, which had shattered the building’s facade.
“I managed to come up with four; the last girl…her head was really stuck,” he said.
CANADIAN BUS RUNS INTO DAY CARE NORTH MONTREAL LEAVES 2 CHILDREN DIE, 6 Hospitalized
Beaudoin said he had just parked to drop off his son when he saw the city bus pull into the kindergarten. She said he ran into the building and, although most of the children fled, “we heard screams” from those still trapped.
Two children, both aged 4, were killed and six were hospitalised. Pierre Ny St-Amand, a 51-year-old driver for the Laval transit company, was arrested at the scene and later charged with two counts of first-degree murder and seven other charges, including attempted murder and aggravated assault.
Large sheets of plywood covered the damaged wall on Thursday, next to a cheery pink-lettered sign that read the center’s name, Garderie Éducative Ste-Rose. Piles of debris from the damaged roof and interior lay in the snow.
People, many in tears, stopped to pay their respects and add to the growing memorial of flowers and stuffed animals in a snowdrift outside downtown where two 4-year-old boys died in the crash.
A woman weeps at the scene of a bus crash into a Canadian daycare that killed two children. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press via AP)
Two of the six children were released from the hospital, while four youths remained in treatment, Montreal health officials said.
Montreal’s Sainte-Justine Children’s Hospital said in a statement that the two remaining children were in “favorable” health. Two children remained in a hospital in Laval and doctors said their lives were not in danger.
Pierre Ny St-Amand, a 51-year-old driver for the Laval transport company, was arrested at the scene on Wednesday. He faces two counts of first-degree murder and seven other charges, including attempted murder and aggravated assault.
Authorities said Thursday they were still trying to figure out what might have led to someone driving a bus into the day care centre.
“The reason remains incomprehensible to this day,” public safety minister François Bonnardel told reporters in Quebec City.
MARYLAND TRANSIT BUS DROP ON A TRACTOR TRAILER, 1 TOOK TO HOSPITAL
When asked what the authorities could have done to prevent the crash, Bonnardel said: ‘No one can predict this kind of event. a bus .”
Witnesses said the driver was delirious after getting off the bus, tore his clothes and screamed as several people held him down until police arrived.
On Wednesday, a police car and two officers were stationed outside St-Amand’s home on a quiet suburban street about six miles from the nursery. Several neighbors described him as a quiet and pleasant father of two girls.
One man, Thanh-Ry Tran, said his family got together with St-Amand’s family a couple of times a year, adding that their wives sometimes helped each other pick up or drop off the children. He said St-Amand never showed any signs of distress.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Lionel Carmant, the government minister in charge of social services, told reporters in Quebec City that regional health officials in Laval found no evidence that St-Armand had received treatment for mental health issues.
