Days after a van crashed into the classroom of a St. Paul school, injuring a number of students and killing one – students returned to class.
The students from Racette Junior High School were back in the classroom at St. Paul Regional High School, after a minivan crashed into their Grade 6 classroom Thursday morning.
A total of eight students were injured in the crash – three of those were airlifted by STARS to hospital in Edmonton.
On Friday, Megan Wolitski, 11, succumbed to her injuries in hospital.
One Racette Junior High student told CTV News many of her classmates are still in shock, but they are drawing strength from each other in this difficult time.
“It’s such a small community, you know everybody, they’re all like family,” Jana-Kai Wilson said. “So we’re all kind of helping each other out.”
David Plouffe is a high school student, and said the older students are doing their best to help their younger counterparts.
“You can see the emotion on their faces as they’re walking through the hallways,” Plouffe said. “It’s still affecting them quite a bit.
“I think all the high school kids are comforting them as best they could.”
Immediately after the crash, RCMP arrested Richard Benson, 46, who was driving the van.
While he was initially charged with two counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm and one count of dangerous driving causing death, at his first court appearance those charges were replaced by a charge of criminal negligence causing death and two charges of criminal negligence causing bodily harm.
A final decision on Benson’s bail has been reserved for Thursday.
On Tuesday, a Celebration of Life for Megan Wolitski was announced for Friday evening, and her funeral will be held on Saturday.
A Facebook page has been created in memory of the 11-year-old, and St. Paul Servus Credit Union has set up the “Megan Wolitski Memorial Fund” to help the family, and support a scholarship in her honour.
With files from Bill Fortier
