Road to Vancouver Island marine centre no stranger to bus trouble before deadly crash

Coach buses carrying eager biology studentsto a prized marine research centre on Vancouver Island raninto trouble navigating gnarled logging roads on two separate annual trips, years before arollover crash inthe same area killed two teenage students lateFriday night.

Two years ago, Chantal Lewis and her classmates from the University of Victoriahad to crawl out windows and jumpto the ground one-by-one after their charter bus skidded off the main gravelroad leading fromBamfield Marine Sciences Centre just before dusk onSept. 17, 2017. The bus, taking students back to Victoria after a weekendfield trip tothe centre, wasn't far outside the small community near Port Alberni.

"I remember we hit some sort of a bump that made the bus jump [and]I could feel us up in the air. Instantly, we went into a ditch," said Lewis, now 20, speaking by phone from her hometown of Calgary on Monday. "We could not get out the door ... we were all shaken up."

The incidentleft the bus tilted, door side down,against the brushover a muddy culvert. None of the roughly 30 students orstaff on board were hurt andcaught another bus back to Victoria several hours later.

It was to be the third bus mishapinvolving students en routeto the same science centre in the last decade.

Late Friday night, another bus carrying 50 people crashed on the gravel road, just west of Francis Lake, and rolled down an embankment during a downpour. Two UVic students were killed, more than a dozen were hospitalized and the survivorsleft distraught.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation.

Newsthat another bus travelling the same road to the same marine centre had run off the road nearly two years to the day after what she experienced has left Lewis frustrated, saying the route between the city and the centre desperately needsrepairif schools want to continue sending students on field trips to the coast. The calls for improved safety have been echoed by locals who have tried to get the road fixed for decades.

The field trip to Bamfield is adepartment tradition at UVic offering first-year biologystudents an opportunity to immerse themselves infield study for a weekend eachSeptember. UVic is one of several universities that help run the centre, though students from many schools can go for days at a time.

Lewis, then 18, was less than a month intoher first university experience when she signed up for her classtrip. She said no one warned her how rough the ride to the centre could be.

"The road is treacherous," Lewis said. "It's like constant turbulence on a planebutan hour and a half [on the] road. It was awful."

The main road to the centre is a logging road which, bus drivers say, is onlymaintained by logging companies during the active logging season. The route is narrow, bumpy, winding and filled with cavernous potholes. Some bus drivers on the island refuse to drive it at all because it is an exhausting, white-knuckle trip.

"I don't take my buses out there anymore because of the risks," Marina Gaiga, who runsAlberni Island Shuttle, said Monday.

Driver Brendan McCollough, now 61, wasstranded overnight with a group of students from Edmontonafter their bus got stuck between washouts in September 2010.The areadoes not have cellphone service and the group was left to spendthe night in the bush, waitingmore than 18 hours before loggers found them and went for help.

"There are lots of drivers that that just won't do it because it's very taxing," said McCollough, who has 43 years' experience driving buses on Vancouver Island.

"On roads like that, you have to be on the ball all the time because the conditions can suddenly change there's just a million things that can happen."

Lewis, who returned to her hometown in Calgary several months ago after two years studying at UVic, said she does not want schools to stop going to Bamfield because it's an exciting,valuable experience for biology students. That said, she feels frustrated and upset to see another bus mishapwith tragic consequences.

The students killed Friday were awoman from Winnipeg and a man from Iowa City, Iowa. Both were 18 years old the same age as Lewis was when her bus went into the ditch.

"It just hit very close to home," shesaid.