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Dayna Brons was helping her oldest sister pick out a wedding dress, when her mom noticed her brown-eyed girl trying on a wedding veil in the mirror herself.
“She was checking how she looked in the veil, I know she was looking ahead,” Carol Brons said.
But instead of their family church holding another wedding, it hosted Dayna’s funeral.
Carol and Lyle Brons shared the indescribable pain of losing their daughter in the Humboldt Broncos bus tragedy at day three of the sentencing hearing for Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, the semi driver responsible for the crash that killed 16 people and injured 13 others.
Sidhu pleaded guilty to 16 counts of dangerous driving causing death and 13 counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm on Jan. 8.
Court documents show he was travelling between 86 and 96 kilometres an hour on April 6, 2018 when he failed to heed an oversized stop sign at the intersection of Highway 35 and 335. Sidhu’s semi ended up in the path of the Broncos team bus, giving driver Glen Doerksen only 24 metres to skid and try to avoid a collision.
Dayna Brons was the only woman on the bus, travelling as the Broncos’ athletic therapist.
“We did walk her down the aisle, but we weren’t escorting a bride – we were escorting a casket,” Carol Brons told court through tears.
Carol Brons talks about the pain of having a funeral where she thought her daughter Dayna would be married one day. Says she once saw Dayna trying on a wedding veil in a mirror, "thinking ahead." #HumboldtBroncos pic.twitter.com/LB19AodH2u
— Chris Vandenbreekel (@Vandecision) January 30, 2019
Her daughter initially survived the crash, and was kept in hospital for five days before she died.
Carol Brons said Dayna cried rarely, but she believes she saw a single tear roll down her face as she took her last breath.
While Carol spoke on behalf of herself, her husband and her own mother, supporters of Sidhu sat with their heads down. One man hunched over, covering his ears with his arms.
The devastating victim impact statement was one of 90 heard or submitted in writing to the sentencing hearing this week.
‘Don’t let your life be wasted’
Proceedings ended early Wednesday, as Judge Inez Cardinal decided to take the day after the final impact statement delivered by former Broncos assistant coach Chris Beaudry.
He was the only member of the coaching staff who wasn’t on the team bus on April 6, and he came upon the crash site minutes later.
Beaudry said he ran towards the bus, but was stopped by an RCMP officer and firefighter before being placed in a fire truck facing the crash site.
“I couldn’t rationally figure out what I was seeing,” he said.
“Seeing calls from parents and Christina (Haugan) come in made me feel like a coward. I didn’t want to answer them … How could I tell a parent I’ve let you down?”
The former assistant coach was then sent to the hospital to begin identifying injured players, and at 3 a.m. was contacted by the coroner to start IDing the dead.
He said he didn’t want to do it but the coroner responded, “Chris, you’re the only one left who can.”
He arrived at the funeral home later on April 7 and has since tried to stamp out the memory.
“A chill hit my body that did not leave for months,” he said, recalling the sound of zipping body bags.
“Small pieces of me were torn away as I moved from body to body. The memories I had with each individual would flash in my mind.”
He remembers helping Logan Schatz work on his highlight package for college teams, talking about yoga with Stephen Wack and begrudgingly enjoying a Ric Flair documentary with play-by-play voice Tyler Bieber.
Beaudry hasn’t been able to return to coaching since the crash, and he’s worked with different professionals to regain a quality of life.
His final message was one of forgiveness to Sidhu.
“Don’t let your life be wasted,” he said to the semi driver.
“From today on do as much good as you possibly can going forward. Be compassionate, love, and most importantly forgive as others have forgiven you.”
Anguish, joy over son’s misidentification
Wednesday’s victim impact statements also provided a first-time look into the agony of the LaBelle family, who thought their son Xavier was dead for two days before learning he had survived and was misidentified.
LaBelle was first thought to be Parker Tobin, which led the provincial coroner to issue a heart-wrenching correction days after the collision.
Paul and Tanya LaBelle delivered their statement together, saying they couldn’t accept their boy was gone – so they kept asking RCMP to check again to make sure no more bodies were at the crash site.
“We were horrified, after being told our son had not made it to the hospital, that he was lying dead in the cold field,” Paul LaBelle said.
When they were brought to identify Xavier’s body in the morgue, they immediately said none were him. But they began thinking that in their grief there were only hoping he wasn’t there.
They began believing one body may be his but requested dental records to be sure because there were some discrepancies.
It wasn’t until after a vigil in Humboldt ended two days after the crash, where Xavier’s name was read out as one of the dead, that they were called with the news he was alive.
They quietly left Elgar Petersen Arena and discretely told their family.
“We will never forget the trip back to Saskatoon as we hurried to Xavier’s bedside,” Paul LaBelle said.
“Understandably joy sprang out of our grief in an exponential way.”
While they’re thankful their son is alive, the LaBelles said the journey towards recovery hasn’t been easy.
He still requires medical care to repair his damaged body, including a nerve in his left shoulder that needed surgery in December. On top of that is the mental toll.
“We continue to feel emotional about it all, and still feel like we are living in chaos and turmoil,” Tanya LaBelle said.
Paul LaBelle – who served as the Broncos team physician and had Dayna Brons on speed dial – concluded their statement, expressing the sorrow they feel over the loss of so many friends and family through an adjusted version of Les Miserables’ song Empty Chairs at Empty Tables.
“There’s a grief that can’t be spoken,
There’s a pain goes on and on.
Empty lockers and empty benches,
Now my friends are dead and gone.
Here they talked of championships,
Here it was they prepped for games,
Here they talked about tomorrow and tomorrow never came …
Phantom faces at the glass,
Phantom shadows on the ice,
Empty lockers at empty benches where my friends will meet no more.”
Sentencing arguments will be made by the Crown and defence starting Thursday in Melfort.
Follow 650 CKOM reporter Chris Vandenbreekel on Twitter for live updates from the Kerry Vickar Centre.