Family disappointed derailment inquest won't examine whether 8-hour wait for help led to conductor's death

The scope of an oft-delayed inquest into the death of a Manitoba train conductor in 2018 will no longer examine whether Kevin Anderson's death was preventable — a shift his family worries will mean they no longer get the answers they were depending on.

In his decision, released Wednesday, provincial court judge Timothy Killeen says it is no longer a necessary element of the inquest after two independent experts concluded earlier medical attention would not have saved Anderson's life.

Going ahead with consideration of the preventability of the death "would lead to a protracted, contentious exercise that would not assist the court," Killeen wrote.

Anderson's mother, Debbie Leeper, said it was the hope of her family they would learn what could've been done differently to save her son.

"How could a more timely response not have given Kevin a better chance?" Leeper said. "If nothing else, Kevin and his co-worker … suffered severe pain and trauma for eight hours and this is not acceptable."

The inquest, originally set to start in December 2021, then changed to January 2022 and then to September, is now set for Oct. 11.

Anderson, 38, was conducting a Hudson Bay Railway freight train that derailed after going over a washed-out section of rail in a remote area of northern Manitoba on Sept. 15, 2018.

The rails and ties were in place but hanging over an empty space 15 metres long and almost five metres deep, according to a Transportation Safety Board report. It all collapsed under the weight of the train.

Anderson and a 59-year-old engineer were left pinned in the wreckage with no means of communicating with anyone.

The wreckage was discovered by chance after two hours when a helicopter happened to fly overhead, according to the TSB report.

RCMP arrived around 7 p.m. Due to concerns about a possible fuel leak, a decision was made to bar access to the site until it could be assessed and cleared by a hazardous material crew. Emergency crews didn't arrive until midnight.

Anderson died while trapped, nearly nine hours later. His co-worker was extricated nearly 10 hours after the crash and airlifted in critical condition to a hospital in Thompson.

An autopsy report said Anderson bled to death after suffering "serious but survivable injuries."

"According to the coroner's report, Kevin died as a result of blunt force trauma. He had no internal injuries, just bone breaks. The most serious was a severely broken hip," Leeper said. "He literally just bled to death."

Manitoba's chief medical examiner Dr. John K. Younes set an inquest for December 2021 to look into co-ordination of the rescue effort, qualifications of those involved and what, if anything, could be done to prevent similar deaths in the future.

The inquest was delayed after Younes changed his opinion on Anderson's survivability, determining his death was inevitable. There's nothing the Thompson first responders could have done, he told lawyers involved in the inquest during a hearing in December.

Request to change scope came from responders

Younes's change in opinion prompted a request by the Thompson Fire and Emergency Services to eliminate the consideration of Anderson's survivability from the inquest, but Younes does not have authority to change its scope so the matter went to Killeen.

That led to more hearings. The Crown attorney acting as inquest counsel contacted Dr. Brodie Nolan, an emergency physician and trauma team leader at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, who concurred with Younes's findings.

Lawyers for Anderson's family then requested time to determine if that should be challenged. Their expert, Ontario-based trauma surgeon Dr. Homer Tien, agreed with Nolan and Younes.

Tien also offered recommendations to deal with the situation faced by Anderson — a crushing injury, hypothermia, an absence of pain management and the need to amputate in order to extricate a trapped individual.

"It would be inappropriate to include the preventability of Mr. Anderson's death as part of the inquest, if the only reason for doing so was based on a now retracted opinion," Killeen wrote in his decision.

"That would lead to a situation that was likely to be highly contentious in this non-adversarial process."

However, the delay in arriving at the scene, combined with communication issues, will still require evidence from responders to explain what happened "as a basis to recommend what should happen in the future," Killeen wrote.

Leeper questioned why the initial responding helicopter included police officers and not paramedics or hazardous materials experts.

Killeen wrote the issue of the delay for hazardous materials needs to still be considered.

"Even though there is no basis to conclude that Mr. Anderson's death might have been prevented, there is still a need to consider the issues that caused his death," he wrote.

"The nature of this event, a derailment, may not be common, but crushing forces may arise in motor vehicle or aviation collisions as well as industrial or construction accidents."

It is important to understand the problems and potential treatments and how a life might be saved in a similar event in the future, Killeen wrote.

"I understand that some suggestions might carry a significant cost, which may make recommendations impractical. Still, policy makers should know of the options."

Leeper said the family is still hopeful "that solutions that come as a result of truth and facts will still be brought to light."

"This is the only way that a public inquiry serves the public good," she said.