Maple Ridge schools bring in grief counsellors following crash
CBC News
Posted: Feb 6, 2012 7:36 AM PT
Last Updated: Feb 6, 2012 9:29 PM PT
The Maple Ridge-Pitt-Meadows School District says grief counsellors will be at local schools on Monday to help students deal with a fatal vehicle crash over the weekend.
One former and one current student were killed when a mini-van carrying three young men collided head-on with another car carrying three young women at Dewdney Trunk Road and Dunbar Street around 2:30 a.m. PT Sunday.
Dawson Spencer, 17, a Grade 11 student a Garibaldi Secondary School was killed when the van he was driving hit the car carrying Crystal Weaver, 18, a former student at the school.
Weaver later died in hospital, and four other students in the vehicles were also taken to hospital with serious injuries.
School district superintendent Jan Unwin says counsellors started speaking with students in their homes Sunday and will also be at various schools in the area on Monday.
"They will have safe rooms set up at the school and they will let kids know where they are and what they're for," said Unwin.
RCMP are still investigating the cause of the accident but say it looks like speed was a factor, but have not yet said if alcohol played any role.
Unwin says the crash is every parent or school official's worst nightmare.
"It's horrible and its one of those things that you live in fear of. You live in fear when you are a parent and when you are superintendent of schools. It's that same sort of fear that you are going to get a phone call," said Unwin.
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