Two Trans-Canada crash victims honoured

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This article was published 27/06/2023 (845 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The woman who succumbed to her injuries a few days after a fiery collision killed 15 other seniors was a mother and grandmother, a hospital housekeeper before retiring, and a busy volunteer in the community.

Margaret Furkalo, 82, died on June 20, five days after the collision on the Trans-Canada Highway at Highway 5, north of Carberry.

The seniors, from Dauphin and the surrounding area, were southbound on Highway 5, on their way to a casino, when their minibus was struck by a semi-trailer on June 15.

RCMP are still investigating, but have said the semi-trailer had the right of way.

A spokesman for Shared Health said on Tuesday nine people who were injured continue to be treated in hospital. Four of them remain in critical condition.

Furkalo was born in Mossey River and raised on a farm in Fork River until 1950, when her family moved to Dauphin.

She married Samuel in 1960 and they moved first to Flin Flon and then Snow Lake, where they raised four children.

Furkalo’s online obituary said she was a stay-at-home mom when her children were young, and then she worked in housekeeping at the Snow Lake Hospital.

“Margaret kept busy volunteering in the community,” the obituary said. “She was an active member in the Royal Purple, CWL (Catholic Women’s League)… many weekends she would be working banquets, making perogies and cabbage rolls.

The couple moved to Dauphin when they retired in 1996, where she joined a bowling league, worked on her garden, and went on bus tours across North America.

Furkalo’s husband died in 2018, and that same year she moved to the Spruce Manor retirement home.

She is survived by her three daughters, one son, and three grandchildren.

The family thanked the first responders, STARS Air Ambulance, RCMP and all the people at the Health Sciences Centre who cared for Furkalo.

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

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Twelve days after the collision, a funeral was held for Claudia Zurba. The 87-year-old from Fork River was remembered for her smile and her love of singing in church.

“We will all miss her,” said the Very Rev. Father Oleg Bodnarski at the service held in Dauphin’s Ukrainian Catholic Church of the Resurrection.

“I will miss her smile. I will miss her singing, beautiful singing; she always used to sing. She loved to sing.

“Claudia, we will miss you very much, but we know and believe we will see you again.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

Kevin Rollason
Reporter

Kevin Rollason is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He graduated from Western University with a Masters of Journalism in 1985 and worked at the Winnipeg Sun until 1988, when he joined the Free Press. He has served as the Free Press’s city hall and law courts reporter and has won several awards, including a National Newspaper Award. Read more about Kevin.

Every piece of reporting Kevin produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.