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Family honours brother 50 years after death in Rogers Pass bus crash

Family of Ranjit Singh Mehat places memorial for brother who died in crash on June 16, 1967
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Left: Sharan Carroll places a memorial to her brother Ranjit Mehat in 2012, on the 45th anniversary of his death in a bus crash in Rogers Pass.; Right: The front page of the Revelstoke Review the week after the fatal bus crash. ~ Left photo contributed; Right from Revelstoke Review files

Every year for 50 years, Sharan Carroll has travelled to Rogers Pass to pay tribute to her brother.

Ranjit Singh Mehat was one of five victims of a Greyhound bus crash on the Trans-Canada Highway near the turnoff to the Illecillewaet Campground on June 16, 1967.

“My mother would make it a ritual that every year we went in June. When she passed away, we carried on the tradition,” said Carroll. “It was something very important for us because that incident changed our family’s lives like you have no idea.”

Mehat was the fifth of 10 children in his family. Their father was a Lt.-Col. in the British Indian army and the family immigrated to Canada in 1958. Mehat wasn’t allowed to come with them because he had tuberculosis. Instead, he stayed in India with his grandmother until he finished school.

When he finally came to Canada, he entered university and studied to become a teacher. He had just graduated from university and was working as a student bus driver on that fateful day.

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According to the reports in the Revelstoke Review, the crash happened when the bus collided with a dump truck that skidded while going down the hill. The front of the bus was completely caved in by the crash.

Five people died, including the driver, Elvin Trenholm; Albert & Florence Simister, an elderly couple from England; Mary Stuhr, a passenger from Burnaby; and Mehat. Seven others were injured.

For Carroll’s family, the death was devastating. Their father had cancer and was in hospital; he died six months later. Mehat was engaged to be married, and their family traditions dictated that his younger brother take over that arranged marriage.

Carroll was 15 and said she was “devastated” by her brother’s death. She and three other siblings all went into education in his honour.

Carroll hopes that the families of the other victims will attend the memorial on the 50th anniversary of the crash this Friday. She said she asked Parks Canada about putting a plaque at the site, but has not received a response.

She will be travelling up from the Lower Mainland to pay her respects, and says this might be the last time she does so.

“It gets harder every time to travel up there but we will try,” she said.