'Tragedy on top of a tragedy': Mother of Eastway Tank explosion victim dies

Janet Ferguson lost her best friend when her 26-year-old daughter Kayla died in the January 2022 explosion at Ottawa's Eastway Tank, Pump and Meter Ltd.

Now her family is grieving again after Janet Ferguson's own recent death at age 47.

"Tragedy on top of a tragedy," Reggie Ferguson said outside the Carleton Place, Ont., funeral home where his sister's wake took place on Thursday.

According to her obituary, Janet Ferguson died on June 23 — nearly a year and a half after the Jan. 13, 2022, explosion that killed her daughter and five other employees of the tanker manufacturer: Rick Bastien, Etienne Mabiala, Danny Beale and Russell McLellan.

A sixth Eastway employee, Matt Kearney, died in hospital the next day. 

Reggie Ferguson said Kayla's death in an event that "shouldn't have happened" destroyed his sister. 

"That's all she talked about," he said.

'Wish she was still here'

Janet Ferguson's Facebook timeline in the year after the explosion was like an open wound.

She wrote about mental health, self-improvement and the dread of being without her daughter during the holidays. 

"Really missing you today," she wrote on Christmas Day. 

Just before the explosion's first anniversary, when Ontario's Ministry of Labour charged Eastway Tank owner Neil Greene and the company with three identical charges alleging unsafe work practices on the day of the blast — Ferguson's voice shook with emotion.  

"It's just been really hard," she told CBC on Jan. 6. 

"I really wish she was still here," she said of Kayla, adding that her daugher had worked at Eastway for about a year and half and "had everything going for her."

Janet Ferguson struggled with substance abuse in the wake of her daughter's death, according to her brother, but had recently gotten clean.

She had recently obtained her driver's licence and qualified for the Ontario Disability Support Program, he said.

But she was also in and out of hospital with pain and died after a heart attack, he said. 

Their father took the news especially hard.

"We went to say goodbye to her," Reggie Ferguson recalled. "All my dad could say was, 'My baby girl's dead, my baby girl's dead.'"

Louise Martel, whose fiancé Rick Bastien also died in the Eastway explosion, said she and Janet Ferguson planned to go to the Eastway site to replace the faded photos that have served as a shrine to the victims. 

"I don't want to go there by myself," Martel said. "We didn't have the chance."

Eastway trial set for March 2024

Janet Ferguson had expressed impatience with the pace of the investigation into the explosion before the announcement about charges against Greene and Eastway. 

"It's almost a year. This is so frustrating," she told CBC on Dec. 12.

Her death came just under two weeks before it was announced that the case against Greene and Eastway will go to trial. It's not slated to begin until March 2024 and is expected to last 40 days, stretching into June. 

"I wish it was done and over with so my dad could get closure on it," Reggie Ferguson said. 

A parallel criminal investigation by the Ottawa Police Service is ongoing, the force said earlier this week. 

A short distance from the Carleton Place funeral home where the family gathered, a plaque honouring Kayla was installed in a park last year.

Reggie Ferguson is hopeful one can be added for his sister.

"They were happy-go-lucky together," he said. "Now ... they'll probably go be happy up together in heaven."