Thrown from the Westboro bus, this survivor had a motto: 'Embrace the suck'
Christina Lennox 1 of 2 people ejected from bus at centre of coroner's inquest
When Tom Lennox learned on Jan. 11, 2019, that his wife Christina was in a bus accident, he raced to the hospital.
Knowing nothing about Christina's condition, Lennox felt he needed to do something. So he helped staff set up an area for survivors' families, entering what he called "go mode."
"I'm still trying to figure out how to get off that," he says, six years later.
The Ottawa couple had been married for about a decade, but nothing they'd been through would test them like the days, months and years after Christina was thrown from the top deck of that OC Transpo double-decker.
A logistics officer for the Royal Canadian Air Force, Christina had left her downtown office that Friday afternoon and took express route 269 to go home early.
But her packed bus, driven by rookie operator Aissatou Diallo, made an unexpected stop at Westboro station.
Bus 8155 left the road under circumstances that continue to be debated and slammed into a Transitway shelter, leaving three passengers dead: Bruce Thomlinson, Judy Booth and Anja Van Beek.
Christina, 40 at the time, was in a window seat in the top front row. She was across the aisle from Thomlinson, whose side of the bus was smashed in by the shelter's rigid canopy.
Christina was one of two people who were ejected from the bus and survived.
While she's grateful and even surprised she made it out alive, Christina says that life-altering day still leaves her with a complicated mix of feelings.
"I'm allowed to feel bad," she said. "But at the same time, I'm trying to think, 'Things could be worse.'
"That's the battle I'm dealing with."
'It wasn't a comfortable life'
Christina and Tom moved out of Ottawa in 2022. Their retirement to Kemptville, a small rural community near Nova Scotia's west coast, came far earlier than planned — a product of their desire to put some literal distance between them and the origin of Christina's trauma.
After the crash, which left many other passengers injured, Christina underwent surgery to repair two neck fractures. She recovered in a convalescence home for three months until she could stay on her feet with a cane or walker.
Learning to let others care for her wasn't easy, she said. She posted a military slogan in her room that reminded her to "Embrace the suck."
"It's like, yep, this sucks, but hey, I'm in it. I gotta just deal with it."
Christina's post-hospital recovery involved exposure therapy — which in her case meant boarding an articulated OC Transpo bus. But she drew the line at double-deckers.
"Why force myself to do something I was never going to do again?" she recalled thinking.
Whenever she drove or rode behind a bus, she'd wonder whether Diallo or another less experienced driver was behind the wheel. Her anxiety would flare up.
"It wasn't a comfortable life," she said, adding that going back to work was mentally and physically taxing.
Tom, meanwhile, became fiercely protective of Christina, to the point where he would call OC Transpo if a bus deviated from its route and passed their home.
"She's my world," he said. "I will do anything for this lady."
Diallo went on trial for 38 counts of dangerous driving causing death or bodily harm. A judge found her not guilty on all counts, and the trial didn't delve into Diallo's prior on-duty collision only one month before the Westboro crash — decisions that remain sore points for Christina.
Not long after, they left Ottawa for Nova Scotia.
"That basically set me back a lot mentally," she said of the trial. "And that's when we just decided, OK, that was [a] final straw."
WATCH | Looking back on the Westboro crash and its lingering impacts:
'Get something good out of this inquest'
The Lennoxes are sharing their story for the first time in the wake of a nearly one-month coroner's inquest examining the circumstances and fallout of the Westboro crash.
A jury of five Ottawa-area civilians listened to testimony from 20 witnesses and issued dozens of recommendations meant to prevent similar tragedies.
The inquest heard that Diallo was at fault in December 2018 when her 60-foot articulated bus careened into a parked bus at St. Laurent station.
"Failure to adjust speed to road conditions" was the root cause, according to OC Transpo, and Diallo was deemed a "low-risk driver."
After that collision, Diallo was paired with an instructor who said she was fit to return to work after fewer than three hours of on-road retraining. The instructor also noted that he reminded Diallo "to use the accelerator a bit less."
"If they already knew that, then why was she out driving?" said Christina, who looked at some of the early inquest coverage but had to tune out.
"I don't think she should have been driving that bus."
The inquest jurors have called on OC Transpo to install driver-facing cameras on all buses, tightly monitor operators involved in on-duty collisions, and reduce the speed for buses approaching Transitway stations.
"If they get something good out of this inquest and it changes things and less damage can be done if something happens again, then yes, that's [good]," Tom added.
As for Diallo, Christina and Tom say they don't believe she got up that day to "cause what happened," echoing the inquest's coroner and one of the lead lawyers' closing comments that the evidence points to the crash having been an accident.
"The fact that she caused that accident and the loss of three lives and the rest of us are injured, she's going to be messed up the rest of her life," Christina said.
"My biggest concern is: don't allow her to drive public transportation at all."
Diallo did not answer the summons to testify at the inquest. The jurors did hear, however, that she went on leave after the crash and hasn't driven an OC Transpo bus again.
'You have nothing to feel guilty about'
In Kemptville, Christina is enjoying gardening, getting to know the locals and just being able to "slow down."
"You know [how] people say, oh, you gotta ... smell the roses? I have the time to do that now. I can have my morning coffee on the deck and ... I've become one of those people that watch birds now."
Recovery has not been a smooth path, though.
Christina is lucky if she gets three to four hours of sleep on some nights, Tom said, and she still has to stare down at the ground to keep steady on her feet.
Christina said her career's abrupt end sometimes leaves her feeling like she's lost her purpose. People asking her what she does for a living are surprised she retired so young.
She tries to not take it as an insult. She's also trying not to "suffer from a bit of survivors' guilt."
"It's that guilt of, OK, I can no longer work, my whole life has been thrown upside down — [but] I've been able to overcome a lot of stuff."
"And then I start thinking, oh, but it could be worse," Christina continued. "Three people lost their lives. So many others had horrendous injuries. They lost limbs and their lives have been changed dramatically as well.
"I start going, 'You have nothing to feel guilty about.' But then I tell myself, yes, I do."
Ultimately, Christina tries not to be too hard on herself.
"That's what I'm hoping all the other survivors of this accident are trying to do as well — just [take things] one day at a time."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
