EDMONTON - One of three girls critically injured when a minivan crashed into their Grade 6 classroom has died, police have confirmed.
Officers informed the St. Paul school district on Friday, superintendent Glen Brodziak said.
"We're devastated. It's unfair when anyone passes away before their time. Our deepest, deepest sympathy and condolences go out to the family."
Family members identified the girl as Megan Wolitski.
A 46-year-old St. Paul man faces criminal charges after a minivan smashed through the outside wall of a Grade 6 French immersion classroom Thursday morning, pinning three girls under the vehicle.
Richard Edward Benson, 46, is being held in custody and has a bail hearing scheduled Monday in St. Paul.
He is charged with three counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm, resisting arrest and possessing a controlled substance, marijuana. There was no word Friday on whether a charge will be upgraded in response to the child's death.
Police are awaiting toxicology results on a blood sample which could indicate if the driver was impaired.
Benson's older brother, Ralph Benson, said Friday that Richard regularly had seizures after a head injury that put him in a coma for a month in 2002. Benson was beaten until he was unrecognizable after he confronted two brothers in a Mayerthorpe trailer park about supplying alcohol to two underage girls, RCMP said after the incident July 5, 2002. Two men were convicted the following year for the attack that left Benson skull fractures and brain-damage, permanent loss of feeling in his face, balance problems and loss of sight in one eye, according to information from court in 2003.
"People right now assume the worst of him ... Richard was a family man," Ralph said. "We're positive that he had a seizure."
Richard was on prescription medication and was taking more than a dozen pills a day to control his condition, which had recently worsened, his brother said. Ralph suggested doctors or government authorities should have suspended Richard's driver's licence because of his seizures. Richard occasionally smoked marijuana to ease stomach problems related to the medication, said Ralph.
After speaking with Richard's children, Ralph said he doesn't believe Richard was driving while impaired.
"He shouldn't even be in jail right now. He should be in the hospital because he's been having seizures," said Ralph, 52.
"It's very upsetting to see the way he was being handled (by police) ... If you have a seizure, what do you do? When you come out of it you don't want anybody holding you or touching you or anything, and now they're saying he was resisting the RCMP."
Richard is a father of five children ranging in age from about 11 years old to about 28 and he is a stepfather to four children, Ralph said. Two of his children had missed the bus the morning of the crash and Richard had likely just dropped them off at school before the crash happened.
"If there was anybody that loved kids, that's the guy," said Ralph. "We're all praying for the children because we have children ourselves, too, so we feel just as horrible about it as everyone else."
The injured girls were airlifted to Edmonton hospital after the Thursday crash. All three had surgery. One child was upgraded Thursday afternoon to stable condition and the other two girls were critical but stable Friday morning, RCMP said. Early Friday afternoon, the school district heard from police that one of the students died, Brodziak said.
Five other injured students were treated in the St. Paul hospital and released.
Fred Wolitski, a distant cousin of Megan, described her as a quiet girl. He said he last saw Megan and her family at a family reunion in Wishart, Sask., two years ago.
"They're nice, good people," he said. "For a girl like her to get killed in this way is out of this world."
The RCMP's forensic identification section, criminal crash investigation team and traffic analysts have finished gathering evidence at Racette Junior High School.
Mayor Glenn Andersen said people in the community are experiencing a range of emotions — confusion, frustration and anger.
"Usually a school is a safe haven for their children," he said. "Usually when your children are in school you wouldn't think of that. You think of them on the bus. You think of them after school. Stuff like that.
"We're trying to grapple with that and come to an understanding of something that makes no sense whatsoever."
The town's fire chief, Trevor Kotowich, was one of the first people to answer an emergency call for a crash at the school. When he arrived, he saw a giant hole in the side of the building. He ran up and saw the minivan sitting inside.
"It looked like a bomb went off."
He said the van dove down about one metre into the lower-level classroom then spun around, sending children and desks flying. He saw three girls pinned under the van, and knew two of them by name.
They were all unconscious, he said, as rescue crews worked to lift up the van with airbags, hydraulic tools and wood blocks. They had the children out within 15 minutes and they were carried out on boards through a broken window, Kotowich said.
The school was closed Friday, but a vigil took place outside there Friday night. The St. Paul school district was offering counselling services at St. Paul Regional High School.
With files from Cailynn Klingbeil and Canadian Press.
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