Moffatt As soon as we got two patients in one ambulance, that ambulance would head out and the next ambulance would get ready for two patients. When we looked at the times of ambulances on scene, it was roughly 15 minutes per ambulance, which is unheard of. We knew the severity of it. Trauma alert was called at our hospital. Our hospital took all the serious patients and they were transported there.

John Griffiths, responder at STARS Emergency Link Centre The call arrived probably just after a quarter past five with STARS. They wouldn’t have known there was a big bus crash. They wouldn’t have known anything happening. They just would’ve had the location. I wasn’t on shift. I started my shift at 19:00 and we usually show up a little bit early, so I was there at about 6:45 p.m. I took over the helicopter that had landed at the scene. I landed there and made sure everybody was already on their way up to the hospitals. The patients, the most critical ones, had actually been evacuated by ground ambulance and sent to two hospitals, Nipawin and Tisdale, so the helicopter actually left the scene without any patients on board and flew up to Nipawin, where they landed and then the medical crew and the transport physician started treating the patients.

Rob Gomercic, Matthieu’s father, who received a call at his Winnipeg home from another parent, saying Matthieu had been taken to hospital I said: “Can you provide me with any more information than that?” He said: “No, it seems really bad. There’s going to be good news and bad news.” We were hoping he didn’t take a turn for the worse. It was pretty nerve-wracking.

Griffiths With so much trauma, the local hospital is going to lose its blood supply. For a lot of patients, you might run out. We’re based in Calgary. So Alberta was able to pack units of blood from two hospitals in Alberta, put them on planes and then send a bunch over to Nipawin to help out. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of blood from one province going to another province. It just wasn’t even a question. It was “send whatever you need, Alberta’s happy to help.”

Mike Schlosser, close friend of Elgar Petersen We were in Saskatoon with our son having supper. I got a text that the bus had been in an accident. We went out to the vehicle and I called Elgar to let him know there’d be no game tonight, that the bus was in an accident. Right away, he asked if anyone was killed and I said: “I don’t know. It doesn’t sound good. It sounds serious, but I’ll keep you updated.” I think he called four times between 6:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.

Shauna Nordstrom, mother of right-winger Logan Hunter We were waiting to try and get some news of what had happened in this accident and a couple of his dear friends came over and they wanted to be with me and we kept praying in a huge circle that he was going to be okay, that he was going to be in one of those small hospitals or had been airlifted to Saskatoon because we knew the STARS ambulance had been on the site. We just hung on to each other, we prayed as hard as we could, and the clock kept ticking and no news was coming our way so a group of my friends drove with me to Saskatchewan and Logan’s older sisters came along with their step-brother. We had to get to the Royal University Hospital [in Saskatoon] as fast as we could.

Scott Thomas, father of centre Evan Thomas I was riding up with the starting goalie’s parents from the other team in the same vehicle. You see one ambulance come flying over your left shoulder, you see a second, you see a third and you see the STARS air ambulance flying overhead. You have this really ominous feeling and you realize this is going to be bad.

Jack Redlick, head coach of the St. Albert Raiders, where some of the Broncos, including Logan Hunter, used to play I got a hold of Logan’s mother just to see how she was doing. They were driving to Saskatoon already. They hadn’t heard anything yet, they just had to get there. I couldn’t imagine that drive — six hours from Edmonton to Saskatoon. They didn’t know if their son was alive or dead or what. They had nothing.

Thomas We pulled up to the accident from the west. You can see bubbles — red, blue flashing lights — all over the place. And police cars and firetrucks across the highway basically stopping anybody from going any further. You can see the top of the bus, you can see the carnage, twisted metal, that one piece of the bus sticking straight up. There was a dead, eerie silence with all the people that were around there. That feeling of nervous anticipation and dread when you know something bad is coming.

Paul Labelle, a Saskatoon emergency room doctor and father of Xavier Labelle I went to the scene, but they turned me away.

Thomas You play those scenes over in your mind and you see them in the movies — guys trying to fight through the police officer to get there. I never had that feeling. It was a feeling of resignation. I started pacing back and forth, it was cold, so I walked back to the car to keep moving and keep my mind occupied. It was a feeling of resignation, like: “Oh my God. Now what?”

Russell Herold Adam’s coach [with the midget triple-A Regina Pat Canadians, Darren Mckechnie], phoned us and asked if we knew anything. He’s a Regina police officer. I said: “No, Darren. We’re in a panic here. If you could find anything out.” He texted us a number for a crisis line. We phoned that and we were told he was in Nipawin hospital. We thought: “Okay, we’re happy he’s alive.” But the Nipawin hospital had no record of him. We called the crisis line again and they said: “No, he’s there. He’s on the list.” She told us to hang on a minute, came back on the line and asked where we were. We were an hour out of Tisdale. She said: “Go to Tisdale hospital.”