Winnipeg bus collides with bus shelter, women injured

Two women say they are lucky to be alive after a bus crashed into the shelter they were standing inside. Joseph Bernacki reports.

A pair of Winnipeg bus riders said they narrowly escaped serious injury after a city bus collided with the shelter they were sitting in.

Audrey Paupanakis was sitting in a bus shelter waiting for her dentist’s appointment downtown with her friend Karalee Linklater just after noon on Tuesday.

“I turned around; all I heard was a big boom,” Paupanakis said. “I went forward and smashed against the other side of the bus shack,”

A transit bus clipped the glass panel behind the women, hit them on the back and shattered the glass.

“That’s when I looked back, and there’s a big bus right beside me, the whole transit bus,” Linklater said.

Bits of glass rained down on the women, cutting up their hands and the pair said the transit driver just drove off .

“He didn’t even stop, he didn’t stop to come and check on us,” Paupanakis said as she visited the site of the accident on Wednesday.

“I don’t even want to look at it. I seen my life go before my eyes when this happened.”

Transit investigating incident

In a statement to CTV News, a spokesperson from Winnipeg Transit’s Control Centre confirmed they received a report from a transit operator stating contact had been made with the bus shelter at Portage Avenue and Fort Street at approximately 12:05 p.m. That lines up with the women’s account of what happened.

The spokesperson said initially, it was reported that there were no injuries. Later, the control centre received another report that a female was hit with falling glass and suffered injuries during the incident. A transit inspector was dispatched to the scene. The women said they had already left to go to the hospital.

They are continuing to investigate the incident internally. A spokesperson from Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1505 declined to comment as the investigation is ongoing.

‘I still have glass particles on my jacket’

Paupanakis and Linklater said they quickly went to St. Boniface Hospital emergency room where their hands were treated for cuts from broken glass.

“When we got to the hospital she noticed that there was glass still in my hoodie. I still have glass particles on my jacket, I have to shake it off,” Paupanakis said.

Linklater reported the incident to Winnipeg Police on Wednesday and she said they told her to make a claim with Manitoba Public Insurance. She has now completed the claim.

They are warning other Transit riders on Wednesday to keep full attention while sitting in a bus shelter.

“I wasn’t even paying attention,” Paupanakis said. “But now since that happened, I’ve got eyes behind my head.”