Mother of conductor who bled to death waiting more than 9 hours for help calls for inquest
Debbie Leeper wants a coroner's inquest into her son's death
Every night, Debbie Leeper lies awake imagining the torturous, hours-long wait her 38-year-old son endured while trapped in the wreckage of a derailed train in northern Manitoba.
"I have this picture of my son ... looking at his watch, believing help is coming. And then when it is too dark to see his watch, still being told help was coming," said Leeper.
Kevin Anderson, the train conductor, and a 59-year-old engineer waited for medical help for hours after they became stuck in the wreckage of a Hudson Bay Railway train that derailed on Sept. 15, near Ponton, a community about 145 kilometres southwest of Thompson, Man.
The engineer survived, but an autopsy report on Anderson said he bled to death after suffering "serious but survivable injuries."
The image that Anderson's mother has of his dying hours is not a fiction, but rather something she's been piecing together from accounts of people at the scene, including civilians who came across the train derailment around 5:45 p.m., more than two hours after the train plunged into a creek.
"It is beyond comprehension this could have happened to these two men on the job with people waiting. Four minutes away by helicopter," she said.
Union officials with Teamsters Canada say they encountered a track failure around 3:30 p.m. and several rail cars veered off the track.
The Transportation Safety Board says the train was travelling 40 km/h when it hit a washout on the rail line between The Pas and Churchill.
Leeper said her son was in the engine room when the train derailed.
"My son was pinned in the locomotive after the derailment but not crushed. He was able to move his lower body but was unable to move his upper body very well. The engineer had more serious injuries. A broken pelvis and multiple injuries," said Leeper.
Died from broken hip
Around 5:45 p.m. that afternoon, a helicopter pilot was flying over to pick up a prospector and his partner. When they all got up in the air, they saw the crash, a hand waving outside of the car told them the people inside were still alive, said Leeper.
Wabowden RCMP received a call about the derailment close to 6 p.m.
The pilot's wife, Jackie Gogal, stayed behind with the two trapped men, while her husband, Brad, flew to Wabowden to get help. There, two RCMP officers gathered equipment and were flown to the site, said Leeper.
If there was a plan for an emergency it fell apart on so many levels. It just doesn't make sense.- Debbie Leeper
But Leeper says according to the civilians and the RCMP, Thompson Fire and Emergency Services didn't arrive until close to midnight. There were concerns liquid petroleum gas may have been leaking and emergency crews were waiting to get clearance from a hazardous material unit in Thompson to respond.
"Why are four civilians and two RCMP on the site for hours and that's OK, but firefighters and paramedics are not allowed to come?" said Leeper.
"In the end my son died of a broken hip — that was his most serious injury — because there was no medical assistance for him, no paramedics support. He slowly bled to death from a broken hip. His blood pressure dropped and he just bled out."
Leeper said her son remained calm and strong, constantly calling out to his co-worker to make sure he was OK, convinced they would both be rescued and make it out alive. In the end, the engineer survived and her son died shortly after 1 a.m.
The prospector contacted Leeper the day after the crash with a message from her son, she said.
"Kevin told the prospector, 'If I don't make it out, promise me, promise me if I don't make it out you will tell my family how much I love them.' And so the prospector called us to relay the message," said Leeper.
But when the prospector called Leeper's house, neither her nor her husband were there to take the call.
Looking for answers
Leeper said she didn't learn about the crash until Anderson died. If she'd taken the call, she says she and her husband could've travelled to the site and talked to her son.
Instead, she said the company told her that Anderson died on impact. The company said that was based on their initial information. She found out from the civilians who stayed with him for hours that was wrong.
"It's really, really hard to absorb and it's surreal. All this time. Over nine hours," said Leeper. "If there was a plan for an emergency it fell apart on so many levels. It just doesn't make sense.
"That in 2018, a 38-year-old man would die as a result of a broken hip because the paramedics couldn't come. It's mind-boggling and our family is really having a hard time coming to terms with that."
Leeper said she feels she has a good sense of what happened until 8:30 p.m. but knows nothing about what happened in the hours that followed.
Her family wants answers and is joining the Teamsters Union in calling for a coroner's inquest into Anderson's death.
"I don't know how else we are going to find any answers. Not just for us and our family but for all the railroad families out there. The whole community needs to know how this happened. How these men didn't get any help for all of this time," said Leeper.
It's still unknown whether an inquest will be called into the death.
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with files from Ian Froese