One week after the tragic bus-train crash, survivor Romi Gupta is still hurting.
“It’s hard. Emotionally hard, but physically hard too,” says Gupta.
Still, she says she had to be present at the funeral of Michael Bleakney. She calls the 57-year-old geotechnical engineer her hero.
“I just want to come and say thank you to him. He saved my life. It was 10 seconds. He swapped the spot...I was just behind the driver,” Gupta says.
Gupta was the last one to board the 76 bus at Fallowfield station. She says Bleakney asked that she switch spots with him where there was more space by the stairs of the double-decker bus. The chivalrous act would save her life.
“He was my angel.”
Ottawa mayor Jim Watson spoke of the crash at city council , which was followed by a moment of silence.
“We cannot turn back the clock and make things different, but we can and will learn from this terrible tragedy and will try to ensure there will be no similar tomorrows,” says Watson.
With a report from CTV’s John Hua
