FOLEYET, Ont. — Ontario's top medical official says the elderly woman who died on a quarantined Via Rail train mostly likely didn't have an infectious disease. Nor did the passenger who was airlifted to hospital with flu-like symptoms.
Dr. David Williams, Ontario's acting chief medical officer of health, says the death and several illnesses on the train were unrelated and passengers are expected to continue their journey later today.
One of the passengers who became ill on a Via Rail train is taken by air ambulance to Timmins District Hospital. Nine other victims were also taken to hospital by land ambulance.
The train was halted in the northern Ontario hamlet of Foleyet at about 8:30 this morning after reports that several passengers were suffering from flu-like symptoms.
A doctor onboard the train was alerted to the victim's deteriorating health, found her in a washroom, and determined she had died minutes earlier.
The ill passenger that was rushed to hospital is now in stable condition and has been diagnosed with a respiratory illness.
The other five passengers that became ill were kept isolated in the train and police said they were in good spirits and stable condition.
Williams says the death and illnesses appeared to be "a confluence of two or three events" and were unrelated.
The train had been on day three of a trip from Vancouver to Toronto and was carrying about 264 passengers and 30 crew members.
The train's early-morning arrival in the tiny hamlet of Foleyet was quite the wake-up call for the 380 residents, who saw ambulances, police and helicopters scrambling to the scene.
"The whole place is being overrun with ambulances and police cars, and we've got helicopters," said Deborah DesRochers, chairwoman of the town located about 100 kilometres southwest of Timmins.
She said the sight of so many emergency and police personnel had townspeople a little on edge, especially since little information was being released about exactly what was going on.
"People are getting a little bit frantic. It's the waiting," she said.
Not far from the quarantined zone is the Northern Lights Restaurant, which was jammed with residents like 53-year-old Leo DesRochers who stopped by to get a closer look at the scene.
"It's creating quite a bit of excitement, it's really rolling in here," he said of the mood in the bustling restaurant at lunch hour.
"There's lots of people standing around, lots of police, and they're handling it with white gloves. They're being pretty careful about it, saying we don't know what it is but we're being really cautious about it."
-- The Canadian Press
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