One of 11 passengers who became ill with flu-like symptoms on a Via Rail train near Foleyet, Ont., is taken to Timmins District Hospital by emergency personnel on May 9, 2008.
May 09, 2008 12:33 PM
Curtis Rush Jackson Hayes Staff Reporters
One person is dead and 10 others have been taken to hospital after illness broke out aboard a Toronto-bound VIA train in northern Ontario this morning.
The train, carrying 264 passengers, was stopped at Foleyet, a small town northwest of Sudbury at about 8:35 a.m. after CN Rail was informed that a woman had taken ill and had stopped breathing.
Ten other people were taken to hospital in Timmins with flu-like symptoms, said Ontario Provincial Police Sgt. Laura Nichols.
The woman who died was in her 60s, OPP said. Her name was not immediately released.
All the people who became ill boarded the same two cars in Jasper, Alta.
The train, which was due to arrive in Toronto at 8 p.m. today, started its journey in Vancouver.
Police are investigating to see if there is "any criminal element" to the situation, Nichols said.
The remaining passengers were initially quarantined aboard the train and emergency personnel with full protective gear went car to car to examine them, assisted by a doctor who was aboard the train.
Foleyet resident Judy Bromley, who can see the train from the front window of her home, said she first noticed it had stopped around 9:30 a.m.
Bromley said a coroner's van had been on the scene, and that three ambulances and three to four police cars remained outside the station late in the morning.
Word about the quarantined train is spreading throughout the small town, she added.
Bromley also said a large orange helicopter has landed in the baseball field near the tracks.
She said a CN official told her passengers were taken off the train and led to a railway rooming house nearby. She said railway employees use the two-story bunkhouse during layovers. The facility, located beside the Foleyet station, has 30 to 40 rooms.
Bromley said she saw ambulance workers outside her home preparing to enter the train. "They stopped outside, put on white suits and masks, then got back in and left."
Police blocked the entrance to the local CN yard at Young St. and Railway Ave.
Another resident said she saw at least two people loaded onto an air ambulance.
Ontario's Ministry of Health has sent two air ambulances with critical care paramedics to the scene from their home base in Sudbury, said ministry spokesperson Laurel Ostfield.
"They're more highly trained than regular ambulance crews," she added, noting the ministry is keeping a close watch on the situation and is working with the provincial agency Emergency Management Ontario.
With files from Rob Ferguson
Call us: Are you on the train or do you know someone who is? Call The Star at 1-800-268-9756
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