About 20 injured in shuttle bus crash near Mackenzie

About 20 people were injured, some seriously, after a shuttle bus veered off a highway near Mackenzie on Wednesday morning.

B.C. highway patrol received a call about a single-vehicle collision on Highway 39, about four kilometres south of Mackenzie, at about 9:10 a.m.

Officers arrived to find a white shuttle bus in a ditch. The driver and about 20 passengers had been hurt, with injuries ranging from minor to serious.

“This was a chaotic scene, and police will need time to sort out many of the details,” said Sgt. Michael McLaughlin of the B.C. highway patrol in a news release.

Australian data centre company Iren confirmed the bus was chartered by one of its contractors.

“Our immediate concern is for everyone on board and their families, and we are supporting the response however we can,” an Iren spokesman said in an emailed statement. “We are in close contact with the contractor, emergency responders and the RCMP as they work to establish what happened. The safety of site personnel and community members remains our top priority, both on- and off-site.”

Iren operates a 4.5-hectare data centre in Mackenzie. It also has a data centre in Prince George, about 180 kilometres south of Mackenzie, and another in Canal Flats in the Kootenays.

B.C. Emergency Health Services spokesman Brian Twaites said several ambulances were sent to the crash site, including six air ambulances. Twenty people were treated on-site.

One person in serious condition was airlifted to hospital, while six others were taken by ground ambulance to hospital then transferred by air ambulance to another facility. Of the six, two were in serious condition, and four were in serious but stable condition.